The Office for Life Sciences Addiction Healthcare Goals (AHG) is focused on driving innovation in the UK by supporting the development and market readiness of advanced pharmaceutical and MedTech solutions. The AHG’s aim is to improve treatment and recovery outcomes and reduce harms from problematic substance use. Through the Innovation Exchange (iX) we’re aiming to foster collaboration between innovators across industry, academia and treatment provision, identify key challenges in developing innovative solutions and the opportunities to support impactful technologies from research to rollout.
Respondents for this challenge should be established businesses, academic institutions, start-ups or SMEs, or treatment provider organisations, and must be based in the UK.
Background
Drug addiction causes more than 5,000 preventable UK deaths, with alcohol use estimated to be responsible for over a further 10,000 deaths, per year.
The health and wider societal costs in England of illegal drug use is approximately £20 billion per year, with the harm from alcohol abuse estimated to cost another £27 billion.
From Harm to Hope, published in December 2021, set out the Government’s high-level ambition to combat the harm caused by illegal drug use and create an environment that treats addiction as a chronic healthcare condition. The AHG forms a part of this strategy and the ambition to deliver a world-class treatment and recovery system for drug and alcohol addictions.
Objectives
The AHG programme is aiming to enhance the UK-wide research environment and incentivise the development of innovative and effective new treatments, technologies, and approaches to support treatment and recovery, with the hope to reduce the harm drug and alcohol addictions can cause.
To realise these ambitions, the AHG is delivering on two key areas:
Transforming the UK’s drug and alcohol addiction research ecosystem: better linking multidisciplinary researchers and treatment delivery partners with industry and innovators, enhancing research capacity and the ability to deliver novel patient research, and accelerating the development, testing and use of innovations targeting addiction.
Catalysing Innovation: Attracting industry and innovators to the UK addiction field to catalyse the development and deployment of new and effective interventions.
The Challenge
The AHG is aiming to support the technological development and market readiness of innovative pharmaceutical and MedTech tools and approaches for improving treatment outcomes, enhancing recovery and reducing drug and alcohol related harm.
Through this Innovation Exchange challenge, we aim to actively engage innovators working in the field of addiction healthcare to uncover the key challenges hindering progress and to spotlight opportunities that can accelerate innovation. By fostering cross-sector collaboration and leveraging the unique matchmaking capabilities of the iX program, we seek to identify and support the development of novel tools, technologies, and approaches that address addiction more effectively. This initiative is part of a broader effort to catalyse transformative solutions that will improve outcomes for individuals affected by addiction, while also strengthening the UK’s innovation ecosystem in this critical area.
Functional Requirements
Responses should explore questions and research ideas linked to treatment of, recovery from, or prevention of harm from addictions. Consideration may also be taken for ideas that meet the needs of those with co-occurring mental ill health or physical health disorders. ‘Substances’ include alcohol, opioids (both illicit versions and abuse of prescription medication), stimulants (including but not limited to cocaine/crack, amphetamine, methamphetamine), cannabis, GHB, ketamine, benzodiazepines and, gabapentinoids. This is not a comprehensive list, and other substances could be applicable but should be in line with the substance dependancies treated in a typical drug and alcohol treatment service in the UK. To note, references to ‘MedTech’ includes medical devices but also data, software and digital health technology.
Responses should explore areas of established unmet need in addiction treatment, linked to key government priorities, such as those described in the 2021 strategy From Harm to Hope, Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs, and equivalent drug and alcohol strategies across the devolved UK nations. Projects should also consider, where relevant how they relate to delivering on the Government’s core Missions especially, ‘building an NHS fit for the future’ (Health), ‘kickstart economic growth’ (Growth), Safer Streets, and ‘break down barriers to opportunity’ (Opportunity).
For more information on these Government Missions please visit: https://www.gov.uk/missions
Innovations should also consider previous AHG initiatives. Including the Reducing Drug Deaths Innovation Challenge, the NIHR i4i Addiction Mission: Innovation for Treatment and Recovery awards and findings from the recently completed James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership in Addiction which identified the Top 10 research priorities of the community affected by addiction.
For more information on these initiatives please visit: Addiction Healthcare Goals – GOV.UK
Benefit of engaging with this Challenge
The AHG is exploring opportunities to support and fund the research and development of pharmaceutical and MedTech tools addressing unmet needs that help to treat drug and alcohol addiction, aid in recovery, or prevent problematic substance use related harm and deaths. Following this survey, the AHG will be hosting a further sandpit event in the autumn of 2025 which will provide an opportunity to workshop ideas and build consortia and provide further detail on potential further innovation support plans.
This pre-market engagement exercise does not commit Innovate UK, the Department of Health and Social Care, or the Office for Life Sciences Addiction Healthcare Goals to launching future funding grants or challenges and is just for information gathering and scoping purposes.
For further details on scope, criteria, terms and conditions, and technical guidance, visit the Innovation Exchange site at the link below.