BIOS

BIOS combines neural engineering with machine learning to crack the code of the human nervous system. Its neural interface platform interprets the hidden language of the brain to the body to enable more effective treatments for a range of chronic conditions, from heart disease to diabetes.

The challenge

The healthcare sector is a highly regulated industry that makes it difficult for new players to enter the market. BIOS was looking for support to help penetrate the industry with a focus on its core technologies – using machine learning and AI to enhance chronic patient care. Answering the call, Digital Catapult helped BIOS secure funding to develop and market its remote patient monitoring and AI-driven evaluation solution for use with patients with mobility conditions that will enable objective assessment of patient mobility and biomechanics. Most importantly, Digital Catapult introduced the company to a network of companies and influential bodies in the healthcare space who would be open to integrating this solution with patient health record systems, bringing it to patients sooner.

The solution

Digital Catapult was introduced to BIOS in late 2015 following its achievement of winning the top prize in the MassChallenge UK accelerator programme. Realising the potential of the company and its future role in advancing patient care and quality of life, Digital Catapult helped the company establish a series of tailored activities and also facilitated a number of new commercial opportunities.

The initial project involved a curated showcase in Digital Catapult’s London office. This helped BIOS to actively demonstrate the value of a remote patient monitoring system to deliver real-time data that allows healthcare providers to monitor patient performance for improvement or alerts in the case of issues.

Digital Catapult’s involvement in the showcase also included showing a big budget video produced by Sky and Volvo in the showcase that, amongst other things, helped position BIOS as a highly credible and ground-breaking scale-up company.

But the showcase was just the start. After it, BIOS was granted full access to Digital Catapult’s offices, its academic connections and funders. The company was also appointed a dedicated account manager to manage the relationship between it, future investors and academia. This helped facilitate an introduction to Innovate UK who provided the company with an initial grant of over £100,000 to further develop their work. Use of the premises also helped to position BIOS as a company with a strong London presence.

In January 2018 BIOS joined the first cohort of companies participating in Digital Catapult’s flagship AI programme Machine Intelligence Garage.

“We’ve been extremely fortunate to have worked closely with Digital Catapult for almost four years, helping us along the way from just starting out and into maturity and scaling. They have helped us make the right connections where we needed them, including helping us secure a £100,000 Innovate UK grant.” – Oliver Armitage, CSO

The results

Through its association with Digital Catapult, BIOS was able to:

• Gain credibility, visibility and connections at the beginning of its journey
• Secure a £100,000 grant from Innovate UK to develop the remote monitoring system, which was then followed by an additional £865,000 grant from Innovate UK to fund clinical validation testing.
• Secure additional venture capital funding from UK and Silicon Valley investors to further develop the product.
• Increase permanent employee count from 2 to 30+ and expand its advisor network to focus on preparing for clinical trials.
• Expand into the US and Canadian markets, including opening a R&D office in Montreal, Canada.

What does the future hold for BIOS? They plan to have Digital Catapult as a named consortium member in upcoming grant applications to further develop and test their AI platform and applications. Digital Catapult will look to provide ongoing business and technical support, and give BIOS access to major corporates for potential partnership agreements, funded projects and further investment.

Participating in the Machine Intelligence Garage gave BIOS access to compute power and AI and machine learning expertise as well as access to Digital Catapults wide network of AI industry stakeholders.