£1 million awarded to develop innovations for earlier and faster diagnosis
Cancer survival rates in England are at an all-time high with over 7000 more people surviving cancer than three years ago. However, urgent GP referrals to specialists have increased by over 500,000 since 2014, to in excess of over 1.7 million people.

With UK incidence rates of all cancers on the increase, the greatest opportunity to improve the number of patients who survive lies in increasing rates of early diagnosis through improved cancer screening.

Today (9th February) SBRI Healthcare, the NHS England funded initiative championed by AHSN Network, announced its latest round of development awards. It will support high potential cancer screening solutions. The ten successful companies that share in a £1 million investment have all demonstrated the ability to transform screening and facilitate both earlier and faster diagnosis of cancer.

The 10 successful projects each receive between £94,000 and £100,000 funding and will benefit from support from the SBRI Healthcare team to demonstrate technical feasibility over a six-month development phase. After this, all businesses will have the opportunity to pitch for a further £1 million for further development and commercialisation of their technologies.

Two East Midlands innovations receiving the funding award are Family History Risk Assessment Software (FaHRAS) and Oncimmune early cancer testing.

David Shackley, Medical Director of Greater Manchester Cancer added: “We have seen some really excellent bids from small businesses in this round of SBRI Healthcare with a key theme coming through of the evolving interest in developing computer aided diagnosis, in both radiology and pathology. Such technology will I am sure, transform cancer care with faster and more reliable diagnosis by supporting doctors make the right decisions. It’s fantastic that companies are helping the NHS develop such solutions.”

The companies (and supporting Academic Health Science Network) are: Aidence BV (The Netherlands), C the Signs Ltd (Eastern AHSN), Cambridge Oncometrix Ltd (Eastern AHSN), Chromition Ltd (Greater Manchester AHSN), CorporateHealth International UK Ltd (Scotland), DeepMed IO (Greater Manchester), FaHRAS (East Midlands AHSN), Oncimmune Ltd (East Midlands AHSN), Skin Analytics Ltd (Imperial College Health Partners) and VODCA Ltd (Imperial College Health Partners).

ENDS