Working with us
Background to the company
It is four years since NHSIL's inception and in that short time we have built an impressive track record and a reputation for delivering healthcare innovations that provide genuine patient benefits and quantifiable cost savings. In the last year, we increased our efficiency, revenue and disclosures beyond all expectations. Our change of strategy to focus on more, higher value projects is beginning to bring results and this year the value and quality of projects is beginning to increase particularly in diagnostics. Today we are progressing 2 medical device projects with a market potential of over $1 billion and 3 projects (1 diagnostic and 2 therapeutics) with market values of between $20 million to $100 million if they reach market.
Xpedite® Ventures Ltd.
Financial Services Authority (FSA) authorisation has been secured for Xpedite® Ventures Ltd.
(managing the Xpedite® Healthcare Innovations Fund), a new equity based fund specialising in seed and early-stage investments in medical start-up companies. Last year the Minister approved £2 million of priming funds for this initiative with an investment cap of up to £250,000 per company for the creation of start up enterprises. However, BIS has now increased the limit to £500,000 with the possibility of further funding. The fund will be launched shortly.
Xpedite® Innovations
Management (XIM) consulting
XIM is the process underpinning our high value innovation selection and ensures that the right projects receive investment and can be developed rapidly to bring new products and companies to market. Under our organization structure, decision making has been accelerated and team working enhanced resulting in increased efficiency of the evaluation process and greater productivity. This is exemplified by the fact that - despite the increase in disclosures - we reduced the active portfolio from 96 in March 2009 to 88 in March 2010. Much of this reduction has been achieved by reducing to 15% the number of projects passing Gate 1 (feasibility) compared with 30% in 2008/9. Each year we invest in developing 20 - 30 projects and outsource their development to "best-of-breed" specialist companies worldwide. Last year we launched our XIM consultancy to enable third parties to benefit from the process and we secured our first consulting contract with the South African Government. Today this has grown to four contracts and during the year we have brokered others with groups in Boston, US and London, UK. This third party validation of XIM is helping to stimulate interest from other groups and during the year we have had government approaches in Europe, North America and Australasia. We have responded to the new agenda in healthcare, to deliver more and better services for less and enhance knowledge sharing and cooperation, by extending the scope of XIM consulting into a second and complementary area: Innovation Communities. These "Communities" aim to stimulate ideas sharing and collaboration.
XcelerateTM Health Outcomes
During the year we gained our first XcelerateTM Health Outcomes consulting contracts with a medical device SME and a major pharmaceutical corporation. These are progressing well and for the latter we are managing a project at 25 Trust sites. This is a nationwide initiative and underlines how NHSIL's national and international capability is expanding.
XcelerateTM Market Access
In addition to our expertise in managing innovation in partnership with the Trusts, we help industry better understand and access the healthcare market so that they can deliver products that offer real and affordable patient benefits. By virtue of our proximity to the UK healthcare market we can link commercial firms with the right clinical experts, information and data. We are currently managing projects with pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics and healthcare IT companies.
Globally there is recognition by many Governments that innovation is key to delivering economic prosperity. In the context of healthcare, NHSIL demonstrates that innovation can play its part by delivering better patient outcomes and cost savings. For the future, we must concentrate on higher value ideas, developing added value partnerships, novel healthcare informatics, consulting services and investment as priorities.
In just four years we have made a significant and positive impact on healthcare innovation in London Trusts. Today we have the depth of knowledge and breadth of engagement within the NHS to make a difference. Our expertise, objectivity and credibility coupled with our outward looking, commercially oriented approach means that people trust us to add value. We bridge the gap between the NHS and commerce, uniting disparate groups in a common purpose: to make healthcare better.
