The final 11 microbial companies attended a "demo day" at Lyva Labs in October 2024.
Health Innovation North West Coast was a delivery partner in a pilot Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst accelerator programme, focused on microbials, which ran from May to October 2023.
This nationwide microbials accelerator, co-led by LYVA Labs and Bionow, was created in response to Innovate UK’s stipulation that only companies that completed one of its sanctioned accelerators could be eligible to apply for its Biomedical Catalyst feasibility funding. A consortium of local partners joined in to deliver it: iiCON, the University of Liverpool (UoL), CPI, and Health Innovation North West Coast, and additional advisers and business leaders.
Hannah Randles, Innovation Ecosystem Partner at LYVA Labs, said: “We know we have a strong life sciences sector in Liverpool who are really supportive of each other, and this accelerator showed this in action. We had a short amount of time to pull this together and everyone, including Health Innovation North West Coast, enthusiastically got on board. We are confident that the funding announcement will reflect the strength of this group.”
When the microbials accelerator opened, 24 companies were accepted onto an online “pre-accelerator”, a 6-full-day series of online workshops, and then a handful of companies would be shortlisted to progress onto more intensive one-to-one support.
Health Innovation North West Coast delivered one full day of these workshops, which included working with the NHS, value proposition and evaluation. We were then very pleased to be selected by 8 of the 11 companies to deliver one-to-one support for the final stage of the accelerator.
Lindsay Sharples, Associate Director, Innovation Partnerships, says: “The participation in this accelerator was extremely valuable. It allowed us to share our wide range of expertise with some really impressive companies. These innovations have the potential to be game-changing in the fight against bad microbials and the promotion of good microbials. We want to be a part of helping these companies shape their technologies so that they can eventually make their way successfully into our health system.”
In October 2024, LYVA Labs hosted a “demo day” with the delivery partners and final 11 companies. The companies practiced pitching their products, and gave and received feedback. It was an excellent opportunity to bring this national group of microbial experts together in one place.
More information on the microbials accelerator, visit LYVA Lab’s website.
More information on the Innovate UK biomedical catalyst programme.
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