Press Releases from 2010
21st April 2010
A consortium of leading companies has started a £2.3m project (Project Hydra) to develop smart metering technology for the healthcare sector.
With governments globally setting targets for the roll-out of smart meters, Project Hydra will examine the potential applications for the new communication infrastructure that will be created by the emergence of the smart grid. In the UK, the government have mandated that all homes will have smart meters by 2020.
In what was a highly competitive pitch, £1.15m (50%) funding for Project Hydra has been awarded by the UK Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Engineering and UK Physical Sciences Research Council (ESPRC), with a further investment of £1.15m from the consortium partners.
Innova Partnerships is developing the technology alongside eight other partners. The consortium is made up of Atmel, Brunel University, Chorleywood Health Centre, Echelon Corporation, Innova Partnerships, Onzo, Philips, Scottish and Southern Energy and Silver Spring Networks.
Dr Steve Howell, CEO at Innova Partnerships, said: "Many remote healthcare systems have failed to gain universal access due to their high installation costs. Smart meters are coming and the addition of healthcare services on the back of smart meters provides the opportunity to deliver long term care for the aging population at an affordable cost.
"One day we believe there will be a direct link to healthcare services in every home in the UK. This will allow more and more people to retain independent active lives as they get older."
Dr Russell Jones, lead clinician at Chorleywood Health Centre, said: "With aging populations and the number of people with long term health needs increasing, the pressure on global healthcare systems is immense. It is becoming harder to deliver the services people need and current telecare developments are small scale and fragmented.
"Project Hydra will break down the cost and security barriers by extending the vision of smart metering to deliver an end-to-end solution that will suit both the patients and healthcare professionals."
The consortium is led by London based company, Onzo. Neil Tierney, Research and Development Director at Onzo, said: "By developing a technology that is effective, secure, simple to use and allows interoperability between devices, Project Hydra opens up opportunities for more than just the healthcare sector. End-to-end connectivity can bring value added services to energy, water, home automation, security and sectors we haven't even thought of yet."
For more information see Press Release
9th February 2010
Innova Partnerships has been appointed by Scottish Enterprise to provide expert innovation and commercial advice to Scottish Enterprise client companies with potential new innovation projects/opportunities who are looking to undertake new product, new service and new process developments. The contract award is for up to 4 years and plays to the strength of the Innova team.
Commenting Dr Steve Howell, Innova Partnerships CEO said "We are delighted to be able to provide our services to Scottish Enterprise to help their client companies. Over the past year we have significantly helped companies bring products to market including the Ambulance Child Restraint, which recently won the Scottish Life Science Award for best innovation originating from the NHS."
The team that will deliver this work includes fellow Innova Partnerships Director, Mr Kevin Wilson and Ms Jane Ewins who recently joined the team full time on 1st February 2010.
20th January 2010
On 20 January Upstarts investment syndicate, a partner of Scottish Enterprise's Scottish Co-investment Fund (SCF), was joined by Innova Partnerships, boosting the syndicate's potential investment package to £300k.
Upstarts is an investment vehicle, which was established in 2005 by The Strathclyde University Incubator (SUI) and Wide Blue, a spin out from Polaroid's production plant in Dumbarton, in order to provide early stage funding and business incubation services for innovative technology companies. It is hoped that Innova, which specialises in the establishment and development of life science companies, through a combination of cash equity investments and support through partnerships, will add valuable knowledge of this sector to back up Upstarts' business incubating expertise.
Gill MacAulay, managing director of SUI, said "This agreement opens up the market for more investment opportunities across more sectors and reinforces Upstarts' position as a key player in early stage funding."
Innova was established in 2006 and according to its CEO, Dr Steve Howell, "went with the Upstarts syndicate as our skills base is a good fit with those within the syndicate. We have a great deal of expertise in proactively working with start ups...In addition, our knowledge of medical devices and the 'wet science' side of life sciences (biochemistry, antibodies, assays, etc.) complements that of Wideblue, who have a great deal of expertise in the mechanical design and engineering side.
"Therefore," he argues, "together we are able to offer a more rounded and considered investment deal and help our life science portfolio companies achieve success. We are currently considering a couple of deals. However, we are not in a position to disclose details at this stage."
Young Company Finance, Issue 134, February 2010