Health Technology

With a national focus on addressing the world’s biggest health challenges through data-driven health solutions and digital innovation, HealthTech is one of the most strategically important sectors to Scotland’s life sciences industry and its work in supporting the NHS to innovate, optimise and redesign healthcare pathways.

Scotland’s HealthTech industry of over 250 companies including multinationals such as Thermo Fisher, Medtronic and Terumo Aortic and a community of 9000 highly skilled people working in Health technology roles consistently deliver innovation including:

  • Pillcam, an edible miniature camera that checks for signs of colon cancer developed and evaluated through the Scotcam project – an extensive collaboration between Medtronic, NHSScotland, academics, the DHI and HIE 
  • The world’s first commercially available multi-articulated prosthetic hand developed by Touch Bionics
  • The manufacture of LumiraDx’s 12 minute Covid-19 antigen testing strips in Stirling
  • The world’s first MRI scanner developed by the University of Aberdeen’s Prof John Mallard

The strength of collaboration between industry and academia enables companies to accelerate the creation, development and delivery of products to market.  The centres of excellence and innovation centres that have been created to serve Health Tech companies in Scotland include:

Strathclyde Institute of Medical Devices 

The Institute is staffed by University of Strathclyde academics who understand the needs of the medical device industry. It actively encourages contact from SMEs, as well as established medical companies, and provides a range of services including research brokering and research support for clinicians and clinical staff. 

The Medical Device Manufacturing Centre (MDMC) 

MDMC at Heriot-Watt University is a world-leading centre for the advancement of medical devices. Experts can provide SMEs with advice on manufacturing, business development, regulatory issues and funding sources. Onsite facilities provide access to state-of-the art equipment to demonstrate manufacturing approaches suitable for your product concepts. 

Connect to manufacturing innovation in Scotland

Institute for Medical Science and Technology (IMSaT) 

The Institute hosts GE’s first European centre of excellence for pre-clinical image-guided interventions and surgery, underlining the fact that our institutes are trusted partners to the most respected companies. The Institute carries out cutting-edge R&D across a range of themes including medical robotics, regenerative medicine and drug delivery. 

The Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre 

The DHI supports transformational collaboration between universities and businesses. The innovation centre can help you to develop prototypes and take them to market, as well as offering a demonstration and simulation environment alongside living lab test beds.

An established cluster of around 150 companies in digital health, including successful indigenous companies and large multinationals such as LifeScan and Canon Medical Research Europe are based in Scotland.  Find out more about Digital Health.

The Industrial Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research in Digital Diagnostics (iCAIRD)

A world-class centre of excellence focusing on the application of artificial intelligence to digital diagnostics. iCAIRD  brings together clinicians, health planners and industry together, facilitating collaboration between research-active clinicians and innovative SMEs to better inform clinical questions, and ultimately to solve healthcare challenges more quickly and efficiently.

Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare 

With over 80,000 patients participating in government-funded telecare and telehealth projects, Scotland is recognised internationally as a pioneer in the development and deployment of telehealth and telecare.  The Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Telecare supports the development of technology-enabled health and care services in Scotland such as supported self management, home and mobile health monitoring, telecare, digital services and apps, video enabled health and care and provision of computerised CBT services.

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