Healthcare Innovation: Medtech builds on manufacturing heritage in Sheffield
A MEDTECH expert has highlighted Sheffield as being “particularly” strong in healthcare innovation – creating the opportunities to attract more manufacturing to the city region.
Dr Joseph Langley is senior research fellow at Sheffield Hallam University and is also seconded to the Devices for Dignity HTC, hosted by Sheffield Teaching Hospital.
Langley said he thinks Sheffield is particularly strong in the medtech space because of its long history in manufacturing.
He said: “Sheffield generally takes a very pragmatic approach to innovation. The ‘Made in Sheffield’ badge means the city is synonymous with turning ideas into reality.”
The market trends, opportunities and challenges businesses face in healthcare services and medtech are outlined in TheBusinessDesk.com’s Healthcare Innovation supplement. Click here to read it.
Pippa Hedley, healthcare technologies sector growth manager at inward investment agency Creative Sheffield, works with companies in the city region whose technology is ready for commercialisation and gives examples of companies in other sectors, such as aerospace, for which medtech is the next frontier.
She said: “We need to systemise the process and improve the ease of doing business in new sectors for these companies. We can take some businesses on a commercialisation trail and then use those as case studies. Once we have proven the technology in one locality it can be rolled out across networks.”
Sheffield Hallam’s Langley thinks the medtech sector is “coming of age” with developments in 3D printing, to use one example, allowing for greater customisation and personalisation than ever before, and offering a greater opportunity for these devices to be made in Sheffield.
“If in the future medtech products are going to be ordered and customised online and then sent back to the patient, that probably has to be a local process. You are not going to order one personal product from China. Increased customisation gives the opportunity to bring more manufacturing back to the UK and for more sustainable manufacturing,” he added.
