Innovator of the Year Awards: Healthcare
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the West, the UK was the first country to create a national health service, free at the point of use. And yet 75 years on, it’s rare that a winter goes by without some kind of crisis in the NHS. And that’s not even to mention the impact of the pandemic on waiting lists.
In this category we’re looking at innovations in the British health industry. How can we do things better? Many finalists in this category are relying on AI and better data collection, which can help with screening for cancer and more efficiently distributing medicines; some of them are literally inventing new technologies, patenting new materials to use in dentistry, for example, or 3D-printing personalised vitamins.
Martin Vander Weyer, The Spectator's business editor, judges the awards and hosts this podcast along with three other judges: Jonny Olson, executive chair of Touchlight, a biotech start-up specialising in producing DNA at speed; Nicholas Hardie, non-executive director at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; and Michelle White, co-head of Investec's private office.
The finalists in this category are:
- Nourished, which uses 3D printing to produce personalised vitamin supplements.
- Ethoss Regeneration Ltd, which has developed and patented a novel bone graft material for use in dentistry.
- iEthico, which has developed an AI-powered platform to optimise the distribution of medicine to tackle shortages.
- Locate a Locum, which has connected locum pharmacists to pharmacies in need using a digital platform.
- Nuclera, which enables researchers to obtain active proteins from DNA at speed.
- Attomarker, which uses nanotechnology to measure human biomarkers in the diagnostics process.
- Kheiron Medical Technologies, which uses AI for early diagnosis of breast cancer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Spectator's Economic Innovator of the Year Awards podcast, sponsored by InvestTech. |
| 0:15.0 | I'm Martin Brando-ware. I'm the business editor of The Spectator and a co-founder of these awards, which began in 2018, |
| 0:23.7 | so now in their sixth year. |
| 0:26.3 | Every year, we've been hearing from homegrown, high-growth, entrepreneur-led, startups all across the UK. |
| 0:36.2 | Today we're talking about the entrance for 2023 |
| 0:39.8 | that are in the healthcare sector. |
| 0:43.1 | That means they're either in bioscience, |
| 0:47.0 | developing cures, drugs and so on, |
| 0:50.2 | or they're in the kind of logistics end of healthcare, |
| 1:00.0 | trying to make the NHS or other health services work better. The fact is the UK was the first country to create a national health service, |
| 1:05.0 | free at the point of use. |
| 1:06.0 | It's now more or less 75 years old. |
| 1:10.0 | It's rare we get through a winter without an NHS crisis, |
| 1:14.5 | even without a COVID pandemic. Waiting lists are at historic highs, even though NHS funding |
| 1:22.0 | too is at historic highs. So in that context, we're looking at innovations across the whole health sector, |
| 1:30.7 | how to do things better, more efficiently, how to advance treatments cost effectively, |
| 1:37.2 | across the whole range of health issues. So there we are. We've got seven companies to talk about |
| 1:43.4 | today. And joining me to talk about them are two guest judges who I'll introduce in a moment. But first of all, let's have a word from our sponsor, InvestTech, represented by Michelle White. |
| 1:55.2 | Thanks, Martin. Yes, as a firm founded by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, InvestTech is a long-term supporter of business owners, |
| 2:03.6 | both internationally and here in the UK. I'm joining you today as a representative of our |
| 2:09.1 | Investec Wealth and Investment UK business, which we've recently merged with the Rathbones group, |
| 2:15.6 | so now represented in 23 towns and cities across the country. |
... |
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