Innovation at MFT: Meet the Team and Collaborate
On Tuesday 10 September 2024, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s (MFT) Innovation Team brought together colleagues from across the NHS, academia and industry – including current partners and potential collaborators to showcase our innovation offer at MFT.
This Innovation at MFT; Meet the Team and Collaborate event promoted the Innovation Team’s expertise and areas of activity, highlighting current partnerships and collaborations to demonstrate how new innovators and partners could work with the Trust.
It was fantastic to see great industry representation from Roche Diagnostics, Lucid Group, Microsoft, genedrive plc, Siemens Healthineers, QIAGEN, Innovate UK and many more. We were pleased to welcome Pat Bartoli, Director of City Centre Growth and Infrastructure at Manchester City Council who opened the event sharing exciting upcoming developments such as the completion of CityLabs 4.0 at Oxford Road Campus and the building of Greenheys, which will become home to UK Biobank. Mark Cubbon, MFT Group Chief Executive, presented the Trust’s unique selling point as being one of Europe’s largest clinical-academic campuses and the largest NHS Trust in the country, putting MFT at the epicentre of cutting-edge healthcare research and innovation.
Who are MFT’s Innovation Team?
Innovation in the NHS involves the creation, testing, evaluating and launch of new ideas, products, methods and services which have the potential to positively impact patients, operational delivery and staff experience. MFT’s Innovation Team provides expertise to support the different stages involved in the innovation pathway – from assessing an initial idea or basic research, through evidence generation, piloting and real-world evaluation, to implementation into the NHS. Depending on the requirements of the specific project, this support can be provided to both MFT staff and external partners at one or more of these stages and is not necessarily linear. This includes collaborating with industry and other stakeholders.
MFT’s Innovation Team have several cross-cutting priorities which we aim to embed across all stages of the pipeline, namely around equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), environmental sustainability and public and patient engagement and involvement (PPIE).
Lightening Talks
At the event, each function within the Innovation Team provided a short summary of the ways they engage with stakeholders to support and deliver innovation within MFT.
Dr Katie Baker (Partnerships Manager, NIHR Manchester BRC and CRF) explained that the Manchester BRC is a collaboration hosted by MFT and The University of Manchester, in partnership with five other NHS Trusts across Greater Manchester, Lancashire and South Cumbria. The BRC aims to support innovators and researchers to translate life-saving scientific breakthroughs into new treatments, diagnostics and medical technologies. The Manchester BRC operates across four different clusters: Cancer, Inflammation, High-Burden Under-Researched Conditions, and Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics.
The NIHR Manchester CRF is dedicated to early phase clinical research providing clinical, laboratory, regulatory and operational support for studies across six different sites in Greater Manchester. It covers a range of disease areas for people of all ages including cancer, respiratory disease, neuroscience, cardiology, and paediatrics.
The Innovation and Partnerships Team support a broad range of commercial partners, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), by focusing on providing clinical-academic expertise, clinical trial infrastructure, patient samples and forums, data science and diagnostics, and MedTech co-development infrastructure.
Find out more on the NIHR website and get in touch with the team: brc-crfpartnerships@mft.nhs.uk.
Dr Anthony Wilson (Group Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Research and Innovation) described the wealth of patient data that MFT obtains through platforms such as HIVE (MFT’s Trust-wide electronic patient record system), and how this can be vital in research and innovation. The CDSU facilitates access to high-quality data for a variety of different projects within a secure environment including diagnostic data, images and qualitative information. The CDSU gathers data from the 10 hospitals within MFT and offers services for clinicians, researchers, industry, and patients around operational data science, research data and clinical trials recruitment. MFT is dedicated to maximising data protection whilst respecting and safeguarding privacy and maintaining trust.
If you are a researcher or healthcare company and would like to find out more about how CDSU can make data work for you, please contact: clinicaldata.scienceunit@mft.nhs.uk or find out more on the CDSU webpage.
Dr Annie Yarwood (Operations Lead, NIHR HRC in Emergency and Acute Care) introduced the HRC, which is focused on Emergency and Acute Care. The HRC aims to support innovators to generate the evidence required for regulatory approval of novel technologies that improve clinical decision making, improve diagnosis and optimise treatment. Two clusters make up the HRC in Emergency and Acute Care – firstly, the clinical cluster which focuses on care pathways and care settings, and secondly, the methodology cluster which aims to understand the clinical problems the technology will address and the scale in terms of health and the economy.
Within our HRC, we have a wealth of experts who work with innovators to identify what evidence is required for each technology and bring together project teams to design bespoke work packages and studies to generate the required evidence.
If you need to generate evidence for your technology, test it in patient samples, design a clinical study, or just need some advice on what to do next, please contact the HRC: HRC-emergency@mft.nhs.uk or visit their website.
Yutong Zhang (Project Manager, Innovation Hub) described the how the Innovation Hub drives adoption and implementation of proven developed innovations across MFT. This can include software, apps, websites, or digital platforms as well as non-digital products, services, or prototypes. These are the innovations that have already been tested, validated, and demonstrated to be effective in practical settings. Yutong set out the framework that the Hub uses to support solutions from scoping, evaluating through to business case development.
The Hub’s core remit covers three areas:
- External innovation enquiries
- Internal innovation idea gathering
- Knowledge sharing
- The Hub is also expanding offerings through the upcoming Innovation Academy.
Find out more on the Innovation Hub webpage or get in touch with the team: innovation@mft.nhs.uk.
Dr Ruth Hale (Innovation and IP Management Services Lead) illustrated the support the Innovation and IP Management team give to protect and manage any new innovations that are developed by MFT colleagues. Additionally, the team make sure the value MFT brings to collaborative relationships is recognised and valued from an external perspective.
IP may arise from various situations such as simple copyright materials such as guidelines, clinical tools and training materials, through to more complex and potential patentable inventions, such as medical devices, diagnostics and therapeutics. The team provides support for managing IP and innovation resulting from collaborative research and partnerships with other NHS organisations, universities and industry.
Find out more information on their webpage or contact the team: innovation@mft.nhs.uk.
Isil Mirzanli (Enterprise Zone Growth Manager) outlined the Oxford Road Corridor Enterprise Zone (EZ) which provides high quality lab and office space for more than 150 businesses across both the Citylabs estate at MFT’s Oxford Road Campus and at Manchester Science Park. Isil nurtures this unique collaboration between co-located businesses and MFT, facilitating efficient access to local services including samples, clinician expertise, datasets and funding.
The EZ was formed in 2016 with a focus on attracting and developing businesses within the life sciences, health and technology sectors. The EZ forms part of the Oxford Road Corridor, Manchester’s world-class knowledge quarter which stretches from MFT’s campus into the Manchester City Centre.
If you are a company interested in learning more about space in the EZ, please get in touch with Isil: isil.mirzanli@mft.nhs.uk or take a look at the webpage.
Collaborative Case Studies
In addition to providing an overview of the Innovation Team’s functionality, event attendees heard from past collaborators who shared their success stories. The case studies offer firsthand examples of how the MFT Innovation Team partners with industry to achieve impactful results.
PALOH Study, with genedrive plc
Professor Bill Newman – Consultant in Genomic Medicine at MFT, Rare Conditions Co-Theme Lead at Manchester BRC and PALOH Principal Investigator
Dr Gino Miele – Chief Scientific Officer, genedrive plc
Rachel Corry – PALOH Public Contributor
The Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing (PALOH) study is an excellent example of collaboration between MFT and an industry partner, genedrive plc. The study resulted in the development and validation of time critical pharmacogenetic testing that is now National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended as a life-saving intervention for critically ill babies at risk of hearing loss.
The partnership between genedrive plc and MFT enabled clinical feedback on the useability of the technology which informed product development. This has led to further funding through the DEVOTE programme on new genetic testing projects to deliver enhanced genomic diagnostics to prevent stroke; rapid genetic point of care devices to detect genetic changes; and the development of a ‘pharmacogenetic passport’ to optimise precision medicines for patients.
fEVAR Blood Loss, with Lucid Innovation
Alistair Williamson – Managing Director, Lucid Innovation
Dr James Cordon – Programme Manager, Innovation and IP Management, MFT
The fEVAR project saw the collaboration between MFT and Lucid Innovation co-develop a prototype device to solve clinical challenges surrounding blood loss in complex heart operations. MFT’s Innovation Team provided support around grant applications for funding, project management, trial protocol and ethics, and liaising with more potential commercial partnerships. The project helps to demonstrate the viability of a collaborative approach, and the data generated is transferrable to other clinical opportunities.
We hope the event was valuable and insightful to those that attended and thank you to all speakers and contributors. Please get in touch with the Innovation Team if you want to find out more about what we do or how we can collaborate: innovation@mft.nhs.uk
