The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has launched an online portal to help technology companies understand how to break into the UK health market.
Launched on 29 April, HealthTech Connect, aims to help identify and support new health technologies as they move from inception to adoption in the UK health and care system.
The free-to-use portal will help companies to understand what information is needed by decision makers and clarify possible routes to market access and what information is needed by policy makers.
It will also help decision makers to better plan for the introduction and adoption of health technologies.
Companies have to register on the HealthTech Connect website to enter and update information about their technologies under development. This information is used to determine if the technology is suitable for consideration by an organization that supports health technology developers. Support may include project funding, technology development and clinical trials to verify effectiveness, market access, and technology adoption.
The portal also aims to act as a gateway to all UK research organisations and programmes, so that companies do not have to provide the same or similar information about their technology to different parties.
Meindert Boysen, director of the Centre for Health technology Evaluation at NICE, said: “HealthTech Connect is a clear and simple point of entry for companies developing health technologies, be it medical devices, diagnostics or digital health technologies, to access support and potential routes to national evaluation programmes”.
Since the initial “soft” launch of the system in February, over 100 companies have registered to use the portal.
It is a very interesting initiative that helps innovative companies and the health system itself. We hope that a similar portal will also be created in other countries.
Digital-health 