Ampersand Health has received an Innovate UK grant that is designed to help SMEs to evaluate innovative medical technologies with specific relevance to the NHS. The news follows the company’s announcement earlier this summer which saw it selected as one of twenty SMEs to receive support from DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator programme.
Ampersand Health’s care platform for long term inflammatory conditions helps clinicians monitor their patients’ health more frequently using standardized mechanisms. This model of care supports better quantitative decision support. Importantly, it reduces healthcare costs by safely reducing out-patient appointments and potentially reducing acute incidents.
15 million people in England live with long-term conditions. Treatment and care for people with long-term conditions is estimated to take up around £7 in every £10 of total health and social care expenditure. Innovative solutions show considerable potential in being able to help the NHS reduce costs but also improve patients’ health outcomes and quality of life.
The Innovate UK funding is targeted at medical technology SMEs to help identify innovative technologies that are also regulated within the UK. Round 3 of the grant, launched in 2018 themed “SME support to evaluate innovative medical technologies” awards a share of £1.5 million to SMEs selected competitively for the grant. In addition to requiring regulatory compliance, applicants needed to undergo NICE META assessment. Results were announced to SMEs in Q2 2019, for projects to commence from Q3 2019.
Clinical Trial for a Digital Therapeutic in Long Term Inflammatory Conditions
Ampersand Health have previously conducted surveillance studies with NHS partners to establish product safety and study patient responsiveness to switch to a digitally-enabled care regimen. The company aims to more rigorously test their technology through a clinical trial which will collect Quality Of Life metrics for patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease – an exemplar of Long Term Conditions – during the trial period.
With a view to establishing that clinical progress can be safely and effectively monitored using the intervention with no detriment, 200 patients will use the app as a digital point of contact, ‘replacing’ traditional face-to-face contacts with healthcare teams. In addition to collecting and monitoring clinical parameters, the project will seek to establish whether the app could potentially improve patients’ knowledge of their disease, patient empowerment and to ensure there is no increase in anxiety and depression or unplanned healthcare utilisation caused by the reduction in hospital visits.
The company also recently received funding from The Kent Life Science Fund (KLSF), a new £50m venture capital fund backed by Kent County Council, aimed at investing in small high-growth companies active in life sciences.”