This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Project to convert NHS ideas into action
31/10/2002
Two Cabinet ministers today combined to launch a new body to turn the ideas of National Health Service workers in Scotland into useful products.
Scottish Health Innovations (SHI) will have a budget of more than £2 million over five years to seek out and help develop a range of products and technologies from within the NHS.
The aim is to support innovative ideas for the benefit of patients across the NHS and, where there is wider commercial potential, steer them through the complex process of getting a product to the market.
Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm said:
"We all know the unique contribution Scotland has made internationally in the field of medical advances. The health service is the largest employer in Scotland and the staff who work in the NHS are its biggest asset.
"The Chief Scientist Office currently spends more than #44 million a year on research and development in NHS Scotland. We believe there is an untapped reservoir of innovative ideas founded on research and good practice, which can be harnessed for the benefit of all.
"Not all such ideas will come from research and not all will have an obvious commercial application. They might come from a hospital porter, a laboratory technician or a medical consultant. We want to make sure that they are shared within the NHS and we now have a first class team at Scottish Health Innovations to take this forward."
Scottish Health Innovations website
SHI is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee. Barry Sealey CBE, has been appointed chairman and David McBeath as director. Both have extensive experience in business, healthcare and developing concepts into products. They will have a team of five commercialisation executives based at NHS trusts in Edinburgh Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, and at the SHI office in Glasgow.
Enterprise Minister Iain Gray said:
"This is an excellent venture which builds on our agenda for a Smart, Successful Scotland by exploiting our intellectual skills and undoubted talent for scientific invention. Dolly the Sheep is just the latest in a series of breakthroughs which have captured the world's attention.
"Scotland has always traded on its medical and scientific reputation. Now it is time to take that expertise from the health service into the real commercial world and reap the rewards."
As well as being Scotland's largest employer, the NHS also spends more than £7 billion a year, a sizeable proportion of which goes on supplies and equipment.
SHI will complement existing commercialisation work by universities, trusts, and research institutes supported by the enterprise networks. This has led to a range of products from machines to measure blood flow in burn-damaged skin, to disposable surgical instruments and new ways of testing antibodies for infectious disease.
Current projects in Scotland include a powered lifting frame for patients which was the brainwave of physiotherapists and geriatricians in Glasgow; new laser technology developed in Dundee, and the pioneering electrically powered hands and arms produced by the Bioengineering Centre at the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital in Edinburgh.
Barry Sealey said:
"In the past, more emphasis has been given to publishing results in scientific journals rather than exploiting those outputs. That meant other companies, or even other countries, could exploit these discoveries.
"We want to get across the idea that intellectual property is valuable and can lead to changes in the way the NHS does things. It can improve patient care, save money in the health service and boost the economy by providing more work in Scotland. Now we have the people, the cash and the enthusiasm to deliver - and we shall."
Robert Crawford, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, speaking on behalf of the Enterprise Networks, said:
"Commercialising our research and development has been long recognised as the way forward in the new knowledge economy.
"The challenge we face is successfully exploiting that knowledge and innovation for the benefit of the economy and Scottish Health Innovations will be another step towards that, following on from initiatives such as the Proof of Concept Fund. SHI will be a pioneering force in helping NHS bodies extend their current commercialisation activities and ensure that NHS Scotland shares good ideas and turns them into spin-out companies."
"Scottish Enterprise's role has been both broker and catalyst - identifying the need and then providing the impetus to make it happen. It has been a truly collaborative and genuine partnership between the NHS Trusts, the Scottish Executive and the Enterprise Networks and I wish it every success."
Over the last 50 years, the NHS Scotland has had a mixed experience in commercial applications of its scientific work.
International markets for diagnostic ultrasound and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanners are now worth billions of dollars. Ultrasound was introduced by Professor Ian Donald in Glasgow and the world's first MRI full body scanning service was launched in Aberdeen in 1980. There were attempts to spin out both technologies commercially in Scotland but production is now dominated by companies in Japan, Germany and the USA.
However, there have been major successes from unlikely sources. The 1969 hepatitis B outbreak at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary killed 11 people. Building on basic research on the virus by Professor Barrie Marmion, Professor Sir Kenneth Murray worked with a US company, Biogen, to develop a genetically engineered vaccine and diagnostic kit for hepatitis B.
That discovery has yielded tens of millions of dollars for Edinburgh University and the Darwin Trust which has contributed to new academic buildings and an expanding programme of scholarships for bright young scientists from developing countries. The US patents from the work were included in "Ten Patents that changed the World" in the American publication IP Worldwide in August 2002.
Funding for SHI comes from:
- £1.3 million from Health Department's Chief Scientist Office
- £450,000 from Scottish Enterprise
- £425,00 from the Department of Trade and Industry
- £150,000 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise in first three years
Barry Sealey started as a trainee with Christian Salvesen and retired as group managing director in 1989. Since then he has served as chairman of Edinburgh Healthcare NHS Trust and of Lothian University Hospitals Trust. He serves on a number of boards of life science companies and co-founded Archangel, the largest business angel group supporting small companies in Scotland.
David McBeath trained as a vet and an immunologist and has 25 years experience in life science industry, mainly with Hoechst (now Aventis). He has spent ten years working overseas in Germany and the USA and has successfully steered products from concept to launch.