Medtech4Health in 2017 – A Report

Medtech4Health is a Swedish national Strategic Innovation Programme (SIP)  within medical technology. The programme is financed by Vinnova, which, together with the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas, today finances seventeen SIPs. The closest parallel SIP is Swelife in the field of life sciences.

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 two years we have supported 109 projects to the value of around SEK 80 million.

This document presents the activity of the programme office since the beginning, focusing on 2017. It is organised in four main sections: Project Porfolios, Strategic Activities, International Co-operation and Communication.

The Organisation of Medtech4Health

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 national programme management consists of a small centralised project office and representatives of our “nodes” from around the country. The nodes are often regional or discipline based, institutes or trade associations. Representatives of the nodes combine work for Medtech4Health with other roles. During 2017 a new node was opened in Uppsala.

The operational work is lead by programme director Reidar Gårdebäck. The staff of 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. Like communicator Kristina Svensson, Lena Strömberg works part-time for Medtech4Health. The Medtech4Health project office is based at the Life Sciences building at Sveavägen 63 in Stockholm.

Medtech4Health also works with many different reference networks and working groups, including a reference group with representatives of patient organisations.

Project Portfolios

The greater part of Medtech4Health’s budget is spent on financing medical technical development and implementation projects. The projects apply for financial support through open calls.

Since the start of the programme, SEK 39.5 million has been channelled to 109 projects through calls for financing applications. If we include the MedTech project that was financed through our joint call with Swelife in 2017, that becomes 122 projects financed to the tune of SEK 73.2 million.

During 2017 we have begun work to support on-going projects in a structured fashion and to collect and make visible their results.

Calls for Funding Applications

During 2017 Medtech4Health carried through four calls for funding applications, including one call that was carried out in co-operation with our sister programme Swelife. This is the same number of calls as we made during our first year of operation, 2016. Three of the calls were in principle the same in 2017 as in 2016, while the one made together with Swelife was new. The call replaced by co-operation with Swelife has not been cancelled, it has merely taken a break. The calls had in part different target groups and purposes. 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 the co-operation with Swelife. The call opened in November 2016 and closed in 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 SEK 1 million in funding support and of all the financed projects 13 were medtech projects and four e-health projects.

A second round of calls for this project has opened and will close in January 2018.

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’s lack. The call for funding application opened on 1st February and received applications throughout the year up until 30th November.

Assessments and decisions were made monthly. The application procedure was simplified and tailored to the needs of smaller companies.

In total 21 projects were funded during 2017, to a total value of SEK 3.7 million. This can be compared with 2016 when 26 projects were financed under this call.

Innovators in Healthcare

Innovators in Healthcare is intended for healthcare employees to give them the possibility to free-up time in order to develop and implement new technology. The call for funding applications opened in February, closed in April and decisions were given in the middle of June. In 2017 this call attracted around 40 applications and eight projects were financed to a total value of SEK 5.3 million. These figures were somewhat lower than in 2016 when we received 66 applications.

Co-operation in Medical Technical Innovation

This year’s fourth and final call for financing applications opened over the summer and closed in September. 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 was open for collaborative projects involving at least two partners, and financing equivalent to a maximum of 50% of their total budget could be sought.

The call received 40 applications. This was significantly fewer than the 103 applications that came in for the similar call during 2016. The difference was probably due to a combination of factors, including moving the opening of the call to the summer when our communication activity is not as active as it is during the winter months. Another factor may have been the spring call together with Swelife.

In total, 10 projects were financed to a value of SEK 14.3 million.

Supporting and spreading information about the portfolios

Overview of all funded projects

During 2017 we have launched a searchable database on the web (in Swedish) where it is possible to search all the financed projects. It is possible to filter the data according to various parameters and, for example, see how financing has been distributed geographically or by call.

Evaluation and dissemination of results

The projects that have been concluded during the year have been contacted for evaluation purposes.
Projects have also been invited to present their results at various events, for example Medicine technology days. See more below under Communication.

Project Accelerate

To maximise the probability that projects in receipt of funding succeed, it is important to continually follow up and if necessary offer further support. This is mainly done by the regional nodes.

Through Project Accelerate, a selection of the funded projects have an opportunity to meet panels of experienced individuals with relevant medtech industry expertise. For the individual projects, these meetings are intended to help clarify strategies and identify appropriate further activities. Beyond this, the panels of experts seek to match the project’s or the company’s needs with appropriate stakeholders in positions to satisfy them. Support offered by a panel might involve:

• Helping the project team to define the phase in which the project finds itself,
• Identifying and planning what value-creating activities they need to carry out, and which should be prioritised,
• Suggesting which regional or national stakeholder should be approached for further resources and money,
• Finding opportunities for collaboration with other MT4H projects.

A number of pilot projects have been started together with local branches of Connect Sweden. The project leader is Henrik Mindedal of MedTech West.

Strategic Activities

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, and increase the number of innovations that benefit patients and users.

These are called Strategic Activities and they are sometimes initiated and driven internally, sometimes by an external stakeholder. Below, in alphabetical order, is an introduction to the most significant.

AIDA – Anaytical Imaging in Diagnostic Imaging

AIDA is a national arena for research and innovation around artificial intelligence (AI) for medical imaging diagnostics. Although based in Linköping, the arena is national. Here, academics, healthcare professionals and the industry work together to translate technical advances in AI into clinically useful tools to the benefit of patients. This includes tailor-made IT systems and associated personnel, launched in a clinic-friendly environment.

During the summer and autumn of 2017 it was possible groups and individuals to get involved with AIDA by applying as technical projects or for clinical fellowships. Both options included up to 50% funding, access to the technical infrastructure and human expertise, as well as a broad exchange with other innovators in the field. In November we arranged a well-attended kick-off for AIDA.

SEK 11 million is allocated for this project over a three-year period. At present AIDA has nine on-going projects and four clinical fellowships. The project leader is Claes Lundström who is a researcher at the Center for Medical Imaging and Visualization (CMIV) at Linköping University as well as Director of Research at Sectra.

Medtech4Health Innovation Award

The Medtech4Health Innovation Award highlights and rewards excellent examples of the implementation of medical technology in healthcare – anything from the utilisation of digital technology, to offering care close to the patient, to introducing a new technical product.

The Award was made for the first time in 2017 in connection with the annual conference of the trade association, Swedish Medtech. Of around 40 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. These provide a nice overview of the range and possibilities of medical technology.

The recipient of the Award (and SEK 100,000) was the group behind the app SMS livräddare (SMS Lifesaver) that takes advantage of a previously untapped resource in healthcare.

The Medtech4Health Innovation Award is run by Kristina Svensson at Medtech4Health.

Innovation Engines

The Innovation Engines are a part of Medtech4Health’s work to raise the speed of development in healthcare. The idea is that healthcare itself should function as a motor for the development of innovative care – to the benefit of patients and a competitive medical technical sector.

The first Innovation Engine is Västerbotten County Council’s Innovation Clinics project. The Innovation Clinics will be a cutting edge for the systematic testing and implementation of new technologies and new working practices. As a first stage, a survey of the current situation in the three clinics has been carried out. This in order to identify a baseline of problems/needs and available resources in the respective clinics.

Another activity carried out during 2017 within Innovation Motors was three group interviews with doctors about their need for support in digital clinical decision making. This was carried out together with the Medical Association and with the help of Ipsos.

SEK 10 million has been budgeted for 2017 and 2018 as well as a further SEK 6 million each year for 2019 and 2020.

The project leader is Lena Svendsen who is employed by Swedish Medtech.

Collaborative Project: Medical Technology for Health and Sustainability

The aim of the project Medical Technology for Health and Sustainability – Increased knowledge through collaboration is to increase knowledge about, and understanding of, the possibilities offered by medical technology for innovative, effective and value-based healthcare, among decision-makers in healthcare, health authorities and the healthcare business. Among other things this has been done through roundtable discussions and a conference day.

The conference day Medical technology methods in Swedish health – the way forward was organized by SBU, TLV, SKL, LfU, Vinnova and Swedish Medtech in the autumn of 2017. The conference discussed how new treatment methods can more effectively benefit healthcare.

In the autumn of 2016 a roundtable discussion was held in Stockholm on the theme of Care in the home. In October 2017 a further roundtable was held on the subject of Medical Technology and Evidence – What is needed to develop basic data for decision-making for the introduction of innovative medical technology in Swedish healthcare. The latter took place in Gothenburg in collaboration with Sahlgrenska Science Park.

This project is run by Sofia Medin and Malin Hollmark of Swedish Medtech.

Training in Entrepreneurship

To increase the likelihood of more successful medical technology projects, during the autumn of 2017 this course, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Medical Technology, was run for the second time.

This course deals with the complete innovation process, from identifying a problem area to the commercial launch of a medical technical solution. The course is given residentially on two occasions with distance work in between. In order to reach the goal of a medical technology innovation, great demands are placed on well-functioning co-operation and good communication between all those involved in the course. In addition to lectures and case work, an essential part of the course is the exchange of experiences between participants. The interdisciplinary and national composition of the participants is of particular importance.

This year, the course took place in Umeå and Linköping. The project leader was Helena Grip CMTF.

International Co-operation

Medtech4Health is a national programme that is also tasked with having an international outlook and promoting increased international co-operation.

IMPACT – for MedTech In Europe

IMPACT is a project that has as its goal to influence the creation of calls for funding applications in order to promote Swedish areas of strength in medical technology. It should also promote an increased interest in Sweden for the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon2020. The project also includes ensuring that EU announcements are monitored to synchronize with Medtech4Health as far as possible.

Under the main heading of Health Digitalisation, five areas of strength have been selected as the main focus: Artificial Intelligence, Personalized Medicine, ATMP, eHealth and Imaging. In the autumn, a survey was made of Swedes and other individuals with interesting placements linked to these selected areas of strength, and other individuals and organisations.

In December, the first information meeting for Horizon2020 was conducted for a group of 35 in Uppsala.
Meetings have been conducted with key individuals at national and international level, including the Head the of European Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises, Bernd Reichert. In addition, the project has participated in matchmaking and information meetings in Brussels, Copenhagen, Luleå, Malmö and elsewhere.

The IMPACT project is being run in collaboration with Swelife and in collaboration with the EU SME Support Office, Vinnova and the National Reference Group on Health (amongst others). The project leader for Medtech4Health is Lena Strömberg.

National and International Co-operation

During the year, work was started to establish more national partnerships with other Strategic Innovation Programmes (SIPs); increase the degree of collaboration between healthcare services, patients, academia and business; and to increase the number of funding applications from international constellations in response to Medtech4Health’s calls.

The National and International Co-operation Project began in the first part of 2017 with activities, the engagement of a project manager and an analysis of projects and stakeholders of primary interest. Contacts with several other SIPs have been established and a plan for co-operation with Nordic and some European counterparts has been developed. Furthermore, a collaboration with EIT Health has been established to expand the European network and open up various opportunities for development and growth-support programmes.

The project leader for National and International Co-operation is Lena Strömberg.

Growth through Internationalisation

In May 2017, the conference Co-operation for Innovation was organised by the Government Offices of Sweden, Formas, the Swedish Energy Agency and Vinnova. Medtech4Health was a member of the working group that arranged the afternoon’s parallel 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 arranged a dialogue-based roundtable discussion with a total of 13 different countries. Each country had at least one expert. In total some 90 people took part. All the discussions were documented. Read more at Growth through Internationalisation.

International Conferences

Another aspect of international work is to become aware of new trends and extend know-how by participating in international conferences.

In September, Medtech4Health participated with a small Swedish delegation at the major medtech conference AdvaMed in San Jose, USA. In connection with this conference, a number of study visits were conducted in Silicon Valley, among others to Stanford and Google. In addition, the delegation participated in the kick-off for start-up companies that Nordic Innovation House organized for medtech companies seeking to enter the US market.

The European medical technology conference, MedTech Forum, organised by MedTech Europe in Brussels, is an important meeting place. No conference took place during 2017 as the conference shifted from November to January. Medtech4Health sent two participants to the conference held in November 2016, and three representatives will participate in January 2018 to cover more parallel sessions.

Communication

Internal and external communication should support the programme’s overall objectives. The primary target groups are stakeholders involved in Medtech4Health, academia, the medtech business and healthcare. Colleagues in the innovation system and financiers are also central. The next communication objective is to raise awareness about the importance of medical technology among patients and their relatives, and among decision makers. We are also working continuously to increase collaboration between the industry’s various players.

Our own channels of communication

The channels of communication we prioritise are a rich web site, quarterly newsletters and visibility in relevant social media. We seek to give our communication an accessible tone and to make it highly transparent. All our web authors write under their own names and are free to use their own style of language. During the year we have expanded the English version of the web site. The English language articles are not necessarily direct translations of the Swedish texts, but are edited and composed to appeal to an audience with less background knowledge of Swedish conditions than the Swedish-language pages assume.

The web site had 20,000 visits in 2017, which is a 13% increase over the year before. The most popular pages are the announcements of calls, the contact page and Aida. The Medtech4Health Innovation Award video clips have also been well viewed.

Newsletter subscription has seen an increase and there are now 615 subscribers, more than fifty percent of whom open the newsletter. This is a good rate, though slightly down since last year. The decline in the rate of opening is probably due to a combination of increasing awareness about our calls and the spread of the newsletter beyond our core target groups. We continue to work to ensure the newsletter is both valuable and relevant for its recipients.

Our LinkedIn page continues to be a good channel for passing on news links and informing people about current events. Followers on LinkedIn now exceed 255.

The website also receives many visits from Facebook, mostly as a result of people sharing links as our Facebook page only has a modest following of 25. Visitors from both Facebook and Twitter have increased during the year.

Kristina Svensson and Lena Strömberg have Twitter accounts where they periodically share their impressions from different events. Everything shared with the tag #medtech4health is visible on our website. Other tags we use include #medtechweek, #almedalen, #sipnytt. Via Twitter, we reach colleagues in the field.

The Winter Tour: a Cross-Country Information Campaign

To establish networks, disseminate information and help increase interest in our calls, the project office, for the second consecutive year, has carried out an information campaign in co-operation with various local organisations. At a series of seminars, representatives of the programme met hundreds of people around the country. New places visited during this year’s seminar tour were Östersund, Karlstad and Igelösa and MAX IV 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. The Swedish co-ordinator is Swedish Medtech.

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.

Political week in Almedalen

During the political week in Almedalen in July, the entire project office and several people from our nodes and the board were in place in Visby.

This year, Medtech4Health organised a variety of activities. We had a separate seminar entitled Medtech saves lives – are you afraid of change? with three inspirational speakers. It was held during a seminar day organised by a number of members of Swedish Medtech and Medtech4Health. The theme of the day was “Healthier care, healthier people”, and started with an inspirational breakfast and rounded off with a mingle.

Together with Swedish Medtech and MTF, a very well-attended AI mingel was organised in Hälsodalen (Health valley) on the Tuesday evening.

In addition, the programme’s representatives participated in round table discussions, panels and debates in addition to the large number of planned and spontaneous meetings that arise when so many people from the industry are in one and the same place. The overall impression was that the activities we participated in and organised were very successful. Planning for a similar participation in 2018 has already begun.

Medical Technology Days in October

The annual conference of MTF (Medical Technology and Physics, a section of Svenska Läkaresällskapet – Society of Swedish Doctors) gathered more participants and exhibitors this year than in many years. A total of 462 participants and 41 exhibitors met in Västerås on 10-11 October 2017. Medtech4Health was one of the exhibitors and silver sponsors. We also had a separate track where fifteen of the projects receiving funding from one of our calls were given the opportunity to present themselves. Financial support was awarded to participants in the Medical Technology Days. The project leader for this activity was Per Ask of Nova Medtech.

Many appearances

People involved in Medtech4Health regularly talk about medical technology and Medtech4Health in different contexts. For example:

• At the opening of the E-Health Centre in Östersund
• At Ängelholm – robotised rehabilitation
• At the Swedish-German Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting on the subject “What opportunities does the German e-health market offer?”

This report was current January 2018. For our latest news, see medtech4health.se and subscribe to our newsletter.