A new partnership to speed up the development of healthcare technologies in Scotland is being launched today.
The five-year agreement is between the Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (MDMC) at Heriot-Watt University and InnoScot Health, formerly known as Scottish Health Innovations. It will focus on fast-tracking innovation in medical and healthcare technologies, and gaining a better understanding of clinical and nursing needs in Scotland.
Now in its 20th year, publicly-funded InnoScot works in partnership with NHS Scotland to help develop ideas from the healthcare community. It provides advice on intellectual property, regulation and project management to commercialise clinical products.
READ MORE: Drive to put Scottish healthcare sector on global investment map
Based at Heriot-Watt’s campus in Edinburgh, the MDMC is a consortium including the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Robert Gordon that helps small businesses translate concepts into commercial products. It offers and access to manufacturing, and free advice on regulatory issues and funding.
InnoScot executive chairman Graham Watson said the partnership will be a highly successful working arrangement for both parties: “It is a landmark moment that will serve to accelerate medical and healthcare opportunities in the first instance with vast possibilities thereafter.”
Marc Desmulliez, manager of the MDMC, added: “Specialist training is fundamental to our continued success and we are confident that this new strategic partnership will further accelerate Scotland’s innovative medtech SMEs, ultimately benefitting and improving patient care.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here