Innovate UK is to invest up to £1 million to establish new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) in developing modelling approaches to support the use of stratified medicine in the UK, across bioinformatics, systems biology, health economics and analytical algorithms.
Stratified medicine means providing the right treatment, at the right time, to the right patient. The grouping, or stratifying, of patients according to the nature of their disease and their response to a particular treatment will improve patient outcomes and reduce ineffective treatment.
This has driven the need for new effective diagnostic tests that will guide patient selection for the most appropriate care pathways. Increasing development costs of new products and reduced healthcare budgets mean that these diagnostic tests need to be validated and evaluated for their potential impact on patient care pathways as early as possible.
Innovate UK’s Stratified Medicine Innovation Platform works in partnership with organisations including government, research councils and leading medical research charities to accelerate the development and uptake of stratified medicine in the UK.
It has identified the need for new modelling approaches to:
- enable companies to assess more quickly the feasibility and validity of new diagnostic products through bioinformatics and systems biology modelling
- demonstrate the value of diagnostic tests, evidenced through potential changes to current clinical care pathways, which would justify adoption by care providers and allow real market value to be forecast
Competition Scope
Successful partnerships will enable businesses to advance a product for a stratified approach to treatment, requiring the use of new modelling systems that will either:
- integrate healthcare and science data, to predict the likelihood of a product demonstrating the intended effect or value in a clinical setting, incorporating approaches such as systems biology or bioinformatics
- provide innovative multi-parameter algorithms that enhance the predictive strength of a diagnostic test and allow commercialisation
- provide innovative health economic models for products that will establish new clinical care pathways and allow product adoption
This competition aims to allow healthcare- related businesses to use KTP projects to access the modelling skills necessary to improve decision-making and the evaluation of diagnostic tests. This will allow for faster, more predictive and more accurate development of stratified medicine approaches.
Out of scope will be any modelling approaches that:
a) do not address a stratified approach to patient treatment
b) are not related to the advancement of a potential product
The competition opens for applications on 2 March 2015 and remains open on a rolling basis for applications until noon on 18 November 2015. A briefing webinar for potential applicants will be held on 19 February 2015 (register at: http://bit.ly/1yLNe6d)
The full competition brief is available at: http://bit.ly/1AIUVji
To discuss project ideas or for further information about the KTP programme and application process, contact Dominic Collins (Tel. 01785 353404, email: d.collins@staffs.ac.uk) or Sue Semple (Tel. 01785 353498, email: s.semple@staffs.ac.uk)
