Spring 2017 – Medtech4Health half-year activity report

MEDTECH4HEALTH SPRING 2017

Medtech4Health is a national strategic innovation programme within medical technology financed by Vinnova.
The programme is a catalyst, encouraging the increased implementation of medical technical solutions in healthcare, making healthcare more effective and strengthening the medical technical industry.

This is achieved through the awarding of financing, as well as strategic investments in, for example, education and training, and through lobbying at different levels both inside and outside of Sweden.

During Medtech4Health’s first 18 months we have supported 70 projects with around SEK 70 million.
The programme started in 2016. It is led by a board composed of representatives from academia, business life and local health authorities. The Medtech4Health programme office consists of a national programme office that, together with nodes around the country, carries the work forward.

This document presents the activity of the programme office over the last 18 months, focusing on the first half of 2017. It is organised in four main sections: Calls for Funding Applications, Strategic Projects, International Co-operation and Communication.You can read the report below or download it as a pdf. We have published similar reports for the spring of last year (only in Swedish) and for the full year of 2016.

CALLS FOR FUNDING APPLICATIONS

Calling for funding applications is a way to support the development and implementation of new medical technology. Last year Medtech4Health issued four calls. During the spring of 2017 two calls for funding applications were carried to completion, one in co-operation with Swelife. A further two calls have been opened. The calls for funding applications are presented below in the order in which they were opened.

Project for Better Health

Project for Better Health was a co-operation with Swelife. The call opened on 21st November 2016 and closed on 27th January 2017. In total, 144 applications were received and after assessment and review 32 projects were chosen for interview. Of these 28 projects were financed to the value of SEK 23 million. In this call projects could apply for up to 1 million Swedish kronor in funding support and of all the financed projects 13 were medtech projects and four e-health projects.

Competence Enhancement for Smaller Companies

Through Competence Enhancement for Smaller Companies Medtech4Health supports micro, small and medium-sized companies by enabling them to bring in external competence that the company lacks. The call for funding application opens on 1st February and applications are accepted throughout the year until the budget has been exhausted or at the latest by 30th November. Assessments and decisions are made monthly. The application procedure is simplified and tailored to smaller companies.

During 2016 a total of 26 projects were funded, each by up to SEK 200,000. During the first half of 2017, seven projects have so far been funded to a total value of SEK 1.3 million.

Innovators in Healthcare

Innovators in Healthcare is intended for healthcare employees. The purpose is to give them the possibility to free-up time in order to work with new technology. The call for funding applications opened in February, closed in April and decisions were given in the middle of June. This call was first carried out in the spring of 2016 when 66 applications came in. In the spring of 2017 the call attracted around 40 applications and eight projects were funded to a total of SEK 5.3 million.

Co-operation in Medical Technical Innovation

This year’s fourth and final call for financing applications opened on 21st June and will close on 21st September 2017. The purpose of Co-operation in Medical Technical Innovation is to bring together partners from different fields in order to work on projects at an early stage of development. The call is open for co-operative projects involving at least two partners and a maximum of 50% of the total budget may be sought. A similar call during 2016 received no less than 103 applications. For this year’s call, SEK 16 million is earmarked.

Distribution of funded projects

One task during the spring has been in a simple way to visualise the projects financed via Medtech4Health on our website. The solution we developed was launched during June and it is now possible (if you read Swedish) to search the projects and filter them using a number of different parameters. In this way it is possible to see how the financing is divided geographically or per call for funding applications.

Since the launch of Medtech4Health in January 2016, through calls for funding applications, we have supported 70 projects to a value of SEK 39.3 million. If we include the Medtech projects financed via the joint call with Swelife, 83 projects have been funded to a value of SEK 49.1 million.

STRATEGIC PROJECTS

Medtech4Health takes part in or runs a number of strategic projects to bring together different stakeholders, spread knowledge about what medical technology can do for healthcare, as well as increase the number of innovations that benefit patients and users.

Medtech4Health Innovation Award

The Medtech4Health Innovation Award highlights and rewards good examples of the implementation of medical technology in healthcare. The award, with a prize of SEK 100,000, is presented to a group, department or clinic that has participated successfully and actively in the introduction of medical technology, technology, or services that have led to a significant improvement in care. The purpose of highlighting good examples is ultimately to increase the chances of getting new medical technology into the marketplace, something that is essential if Medtech4Health is to achieve its goals.

The Award was made for the first time in 2017 in connection with the annual conference of the trade association Swedish Medtech. Of around 30 nominees, the jury selected five projects that were invited to participate during the annual conference. A (Swedish language) video film was made about each of the nominated projects in order to exemplify medical technology and to present these good examples. These films were distributed through different media.

An evaluation has shown that this initiative was appreciated and resulted in positive media attention. The Innovation Award will be awarded also in 2018 following the same procedure as for 2017 (though with some fine tuning). The opportunity to nominate projects for the 2018 Award will open during the autumn of 2017.

Co-operative Project: Medical Technology for Health and Sustainability

Medical Technology for Health and Sustainability – Increased Knowledge through Co-operation is intended for decision-makers in healthcare, authorities and companies. It seeks to increase the knowledge of, and understanding for, the opportunities that medical technology offers for an innovative, effective and value-based healthcare.

Care in the Home is the first sub-project under this heading, and is being run by Swedish Medtech. On 11 November 2016 a number of participants with different backgrounds, areas of expertise and jobs gathered to discuss care in the home. The discussion was one of a group of activities that focused on illuminating questions that can influence developments that will lead to more patients being given the opportunity of specialised personal care in the near future.

Training in Entrepreneurship

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Medical Technology was a course run in the winter of 2016 at Norrland’s University Hospital in Umeå, at Uppsala and by distance. The course focused on the processes of medical technical innovation, from identifying a problem area to the commercial launch of the finished medical technical product. Teaching was based on lectures, literature studies, discussion seminars and work with case studies in interdisciplinary groups. The impression of participants and lecturers was that the course was a success, the mixture of course participants was particularly identified as a major benefit.

The course was limited to 30 participants, but 54 applications were received so the course was well oversubscribed. The course will be run again in the autumn of 2017. The 2016 course evaluation returned a very positive result and a number of small changes have been made to the planned course, including increasing the maximum number of participants to 35. The course will be run with two meetings of four days in total (Umeå 18-19/10; Linköping 8-9/11). Invitations for applications for the course have been distributed during the spring.

AIDA – Analytic Imaging Diagnostics Arena

AIDA is a national project that sets out to create an arena for research and innovation around analytic imaging diagnostics. This involves the launch of a tailor-made IT system and associated staff in a clinical environment. AIDA is a sector bridging co-operation that aims to make major use of modern AI in healthcare.

SEK 10 million is set aside for this project over a three-year period. The project leader is Claes Lundström who works at the Centre for Medical Image Science and Visualisation (CMIV) in Linköping and at Sectra. The project started during the spring and summer and a control group has been assembled. AIDA’s call for project applications is posted on the Medtech4Health website.

Innovation Engines

Innovation Engines focuses on developing co-operation between health care and companies in the development and introduction of medical technical products, processes and methods. In this project, healthcare is the motor for the development of innovative care for the good of the patient in co-operation with a competitive medical technological sector. It is run by Swedish Medtech and SEK 4 million has been put aside for the project’s first phase.

Almedalen

During the political week in Almedalen our whole programme office as well as several people from our nodes and members of our board were to be found in Visby.

This year Medtech4Health arranged several different activities. We had our own seminar with three inspiring speakers under the title Medtech saves lives – are you afraid of change? The seminar was held during a day of seminars arranged by Medtech4Health together with a number of Swedish Medtech member organisations. The theme of the day was Healthier Care Healthier People and was launched with an inspiration breakfast and concluded with a cocktail-style mingle.

On Tuesday evening, together with Swedish Medtech, Medtech4Health also arranged a very well attended AI mingle in Hälsodalen (“the Health Valley”).

As well as this, programme representatives took part in roundtable discussions, panels and debates as well as in the many planned and spontaneous meetings that arise when so many people from the field are together in one the same place. The overall impression was that our participation and the activities we were involved in were very successful. Planning for a similar involvement in Almedalen 2018 has already begun.

INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION

IMPACT – for MedTech in Europe

IMPACT is a project that has as its goal to influence the creation of calls for applications so that at least two clear strong areas are in focus in texts calling for applications in future frame programmes within Horizon2020. This is in order for Sweden to perform better in Horizon2020, especially in the area of medical technology. An increased understanding and increased interest for H2020 among Swedish medtech stakeholders, and specifically within Medtech4Health’s nodes, is also a project goal.

The project also involves keeping an eye on EU calls for applications and as far as possible synchronising them with the calls issued by Medtech4Health.

The project started at the beginning of the year and has passed through a start-up phase with the engagement of a project leader, the formation of a working group, the development of knowledge in the area by the working group, as well as overarching planning and a breakdown of the original project plan. An identification of areas of influential strength means the work of the project will focus on, Health Digitalisation, and under that heading, on Artificial Intelligence, Personalised Medicine, Mobility, and Imaging.

Currently the project is engaged in an in-depth study of Swedes and other individuals in relevant positions connected to the chosen areas of strength, as well as individuals and organisations of interest. This work is being carried out partly through meetings with people experienced in lobbying the EU. A first identification of organisations of interest has been made and a survey has been distributed. The project is being run in close co-operation with the ongoing advocacy work in Swelife.

Growth through Internationalisation

On Thursday, 4^th May 2017 the conference Co-operation for Innovation was organised by the Government Offices of Sweden, Formas, the Swedish Energy Agency and Vinnova. The morning programme was dominated by plenum discussions and speakers, while the afternoon was devoted to parallel discussions in different subject areas. Medtech4Health was a member of the working group that arranged the afternoon sessions and we took responsibility for an international track.

Our starting point was that we believe co-operation begins when people meet and exchange experiences. We therefore arranged dialogue-based roundtable discussions with a total of 13 different countries. Each country had at least one expert as well as a rapporteur. In total some 90 people took part. All the discussions were summarised. Read more at Growth through Internationalisation.

ACSA – Accelerated Co-operation in MedTech

There are many initiatives in Sweden and Europe that focus on the social challenges posed by an ageing population and runaway healthcare costs. Several of these are of strategic importance for Medtech4Health, in part for reasons of synergy, in part to minimise duplication. Co-operation with other stakeholders, organisations and individuals on national and international levels are therefore of great importance.

The goals for the project are: to establish more national co-operation with other Strategic Innovation Programmes; increase the number of co-operative endeavours between healthcare, patients, academia and companies; as well as increase the number of applications with international constellations responding to Medtech4Health’s calls for applications for funding.

The project was initiated during the first half of 2017 with activities, the engagement of a project leader and the analysis of which projects and stakeholders are of primary interest. Among other things Medtech4Health took responsibility for the international session at this years SIP conference – see above under Growth through Internationalisation. Contacts with other Strategic Innovation Programmes have been established and a plan has been developed to co-operate this autumn with Nordic and certain other European SIPs.

International Conferences

In December 2016 Medtech4Health took part in the European meeting MedTech Forum which is organised by MedTech Europe in Brussels. This forum will take place again on the 23-25 January 2018 and the programme plans once again to participate with representatives.

During September, Medtech4Health will join a small delegation to take part in the medtech conference AdvaMed in San José, California, as well as make a number of study visits in Silicon Valley. Among other things, representatives will take part in Nordic Innovation House activities for medtech start-up companies seeking to enter the American market.

COMMUNICATION

The Medtech4Health programme office is working together with the programme’s nodes to build up its own channels of communication. This is in order cost-effectively to reach out with information about the programme’s calls for applications for funding and other activities to the primary target groups.

The next stage on the communications front is to increase knowledge of the importance of medical technology in wider target groups and work for increased co-operation between different stakeholders.

Own Communication Channels

Our prioritised channels of communication are our information-rich website, quarterly newsletters and visibility in relevant social media. The tone is approachable and characterised by high transparency. During the spring, work has begun to extend the English language version of the website. Information about several of our activities has also been translated.

The website had 11,500 visitors during the spring which is a 50% increase compared to the half-year before. The front page, calls and information about who won the Innovation Award are the most visited pages. Also StandIn and invitations to apply for the entrepreneur course have attracted many readers.

As far as the newsletter is concerned, at the time of writing there were 594 subscribers. The frequency with which the newsletter is opened is on average 53% since the beginning.

LinkedIN is today our best social media channel in terms of reaching out with links to news and information about events. Our LinkedIN page has attracted more than 186 followers.

We also receive a good number of visitors to our website from Facebook. This flow is especially good in relation to our rather low number of Facebook followers (currently just 19).

Kristina Svensson and Lena Strömberg have Twitter accounts where we periodically share many short updates from different events. Everything shared that is tagged #medtech4health is shown on our website. Other tags we use are, for example, #medtechweek, #almedalen, #sipnytt. Through our Twitter feed we reach colleagues in the field.

The Winter Tour: a Cross-Country Information Campaign

To launch Medtech4Health, establish a network and spread information about current calls, the programme office carried through an information campaign during the winter of 2016 in co-operation with different local organisations. Through 21 seminars, representatives for the programme met more than 700 people around the country. This initiative was very much appreciated for which reason a follow-up winter tour was carried out in 2017. New places visited during this year’s winter tour included Östersund, Värmland and the research establishment at Igelösa in Lund.

European MedTech Week

The European MedTech Week is a European initiative with the purpose of increasing knowledge of and encouraging dialogue about medical technology. Behind the events is the European trade association MedTech Europe.

MedTech Week (14-20 June 2017) attracted a broad and knowledgeable audience. In all, several hundred people took part in five events arranged by different local organisations.

The week began with a successful launch in Uppsala, and went on to experience welcoming inspiration in Umeå, important recruitment to clinical research in Gothenburg, a high-powered talk show in Linköping as well as learning about exciting possibilities for companies with the MAX IV and ESS in Lund.

Other Communication

• The project office members and all the nodes talk regularly about medical technology and Medtech4Health.
• The trade journal Medtech Magazine has several times reported on Medtech4Health, our work and activities.

About Medtech4Health

Medtech4Health is a national Strategic Innovation Programme within medical technology. The programme is financed by Vinnova, which, together with the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas today finances eighteen Strategic Innovation Programmes (SIP).

Medtech4Health is intended as a catalyst, encouraging the increased implementation of medical technical solutions in healthcare, making healthcare more effective and strengthening the medical technical industry.

Our tools are the awarding of funding as well as strategic investments such as in education, and lobbying at different levels both inside and outside of Sweden.

The programme started in 2016. During Medtech4Health’s first 18 months we have supported 70 projects to the value of around SEK 70 million.

Medtech4Health is led by a board composed of representatives from academia, business life and local health authorities. Our Chair is Anna Lefevre Skjöldebrand, managing director of the trade association Swedish Medtech.

Our work is carried out through a national programme office that consists of a small centralised staff as well as representatives from our “nodes” from around the country. The nodes are often geographical or discipline focused. Representatives for the nodes combine work for Medtech4Health with other roles. Work at the programme office is led by programme director Reidar Gårdebäck.

The staff at the central programme office was enlarged during the spring of 2017 when we were joined by Lena Strömberg, who is, among other things, project leader for IMPACT. She works part-time, exactly as communicator Kristina Svensson

Medtech4Health also has a patient reference network with representatives from patient organisations.

This report was up-to-date in August 2017. For the latest news follow medtech4health.se and/or subscribe to our newsletter.