PwC and Digital Catapult launch the Scale | Health programme

PwC and Digital Catapult launch the Scale | Health programme to help transform the health industry through scalable innovation.

• Scale | Health launches, supported by DigitalHealth.London and sponsored by Microsoft
• Previous participants in PwC’s Scale programmes have raised over £80 million in equity

PwC and Digital Catapult are launching Scale | Health, part of a series of programmes across the UK, to support businesses in the digital health industry which have big potential to scale-up. Ten companies have been selected as the first cohort for the programme, which aims to provide the missing link between fast-growth scale-ups and the health industry, helping them find mutually beneficial commercial opportunities.

Scale | Health is being delivered together with Digital Catapult, a technology innovation centre that unlocks digital growth in the UK economy. PwC and Digital Catapult are collaborating closely with DigitalHealth.London to deliver the initiative, which is working to speed up the development and scaling of digital innovations across health and care. DigitalHealth.London pioneers digital adoption by the NHS. The programme will be sponsored by Microsoft which is bringing tech advice to the cohort.

The 12-week programme will focus on identifying commercial opportunities and unlocking additional funding for the cohort. The programme will introduce the 10 companies to potential customers, industry decision makers and investors who may procure services, partner, go-to-market together, or invest in their business. The selected scale-ups will also have access to an extended community of experts through the combined networks of Digital Catapult, DigitalHealth.London, Microsoft and PwC.

Previous participants in PwC’s scale-up programmes raised £80 million in equity on joining and have since gone on to raise a further £20 million, demonstrating rapid progression and quality. As well as investment, the cohorts were introduced to over 500 relevant stakeholders which has so far enabled over 70 pilot projects.

Nigel Howlett, UK Digital Private Business Lead at PwC, said:

“At PwC we believe interacting with startups and scale-ups is at the heart of successful innovation. Our work with Digital Catapult, DigitalHealth.London and Microsoft combines our respective experiences and client networks to create a programme which can help more high potential companies successfully scale-up.”

Andrew Chapman, Digital Health Sector Lead, Digital Catapult, commented:

“Digital health has huge untapped potential to deliver future economic growth in the UK. However, at Digital Catapult through our health programme, we have seen that scale-ups in this sector face significant barriers to initiating collaborative partnerships and navigating the complexity of large organisations. Scale | Health is designed to break down these barriers, so these high-growth firms can scale their innovations rapidly across the sector.

“The breadth of solutions they’ve developed are based on technology advances in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, and the Internet of Things, demonstrating the widespread potential for early adoption and positive impact on patients, carers and the wider sector through digital health.”

Anna King, Commercial Director, Health Innovation Network, a founding partner of DigitalHealth.London, commented:

“The NHS is increasingly looking to digital health companies to support the system and patients in response to increasing demand. At DigitalHealth.London, we support great innovations in their development and access to health and care, so we are excited to be working with a fantastic cohort of digital health companies on the PwC Scale | Health programme.”

Nick Page, Director Startup Partnerships, Microsoft, commented:

“I’m delighted that we can be supporting PwC’s Scale | Health programme and its respective scale-ups. With the power of Cloud and AI technology becoming ever more pervasive, the opportunity for software solutions, to empower patients and health professionals, has never been greater.

“With an ever growing cloud platform and a strong set of AI services, we have the technology to help startups build, deploy and manage their solutions quickly across the globe. With healthcare a priority market for us, our strong partner ecosystem and customer base; I believe we are in an unrivalled position to help bring the startups’ innovative solutions to market. It’s an exciting time and we want to play our part helping in their success and supporting transformation in healthcare.”

The Scale | Health cohort of businesses are:

• Canary Care‘s goal is for elderly and vulnerable people to live at home longer, healthier and happier by using discrete sensors around the house, which monitor movement, temperature, doors and visitors. The online information helps families and carers make earlier, better support decisions for loved ones.
• Care Across uses proven technologies to provide digital health services that enable companies to collect and analyse patient data, accelerate research, and enhance patient support.
• Care Sourcer provide an entirely free care comparison and matching service, searching 27,000 regulated providers to provide the best possible options within 24 hours. The quickest and most comprehensive way to find care in the UK and prevent delayed discharges.
• Drayson Health is a digital healthcare company that develops prescribed digital therapeutics and hospital systems for clinical care that are designed by clinicians, focused on patients and powered by artificial intelligence.
• Inhealthcare supports remote patient monitoring for citizens across the UK. It does this by allowing NHS clinicians the freedom to build their own services for any area of care. The process of building a digital service is reduced from several months to just hours, meaning digital innovation can be rolled out quickly, at scale and at low cost.
• Locumtap is on a mission to digitally transform temporary staffing in healthcare and save millions spent every year by NHS hospitals on agency staff. LocumTap products have been shown to increase staffing levels, reduce agency spending and enhance the temporary staffing experience for clinicians and managers alike.
• Lumeon enables health providers to operationalize care pathways that lower costs and maximize the use of resources. Lumeon’s Care Pathway Management (CPM) platform and solutions enable providers to efficiently orchestrate and automate care processes. It joins the dots along the patient journey to fluidly deliver care across different care teams and diverse care settings.
• Select Research are pioneers in 3D measurement of body composition and body volume for healthcare, wellness and fitness. Using patented software, our BVI Pro app non-invasively calculates body fat composition, including visceral fat, using smart phone technology without the need for any hardware.
• The simple solution for all training needs, Virti provides immersive education for Health Professionals and beyond. Their assessment platform collects objective data points about how health professionals perform under pressure.
• At the tap of a button, Qured delivers a doctor to your door within two hours, 24 hours a day. No travel, no wait, no hassle.