United Kingdom

Back-to-back meetings at LSX? No time to attend the innovator showcase? Here is what you might have missed from medtech innovators at the LSX World Congress Europe on 29 April.

Vendor exhaustion, insufficient clinical-grade evidence, and outdated risk management are some of the reasons the NHS is struggling to adopt AI. Haris Shuaib, CEO of Newton's Tree, shared his insights with the audience at the “Next Frontier of Medical AI” event held at DAC Beachcroft's London office on 23 April.

Q’Apel Medical has pulled its aspiration system for stroke thrombectomy from the market after concerns raised by the US FDA in a February warning letter.

“Infectious disease should be treated in the community, not in hospitals,” Alex Batchelor, Pictura Bio CEO, told Medtech Insight at the Anglonordic Life Science Conference on 3 April in London.

AI systems used in healthcare are vulnerable to adversarial cyberattacks, which are a growing concern, said Atif Azad, a professor of AI at Birmingham City University. Azad’s research group has developed a method that trains AI to become more resilient to cyber threats through the use of random image adjustments.

The UK’s “New Approach” to regulation has created a lot of noise, but what’s the end product? asks Taylor Wessing partner Alison Dennis, who says the UK medtech regulator should look afresh at the EU’s ready-made solution.

Medtech has not yet been spared from the Trump administration’s trade tariffs, which, for UK exporters will be 10% – half the rate applied to EU27 exporters.

Cambridge, UK-based breath biopsy company Owlstone Medical will apply its volatile organic compound analysis platform in an attempt to develop a test for the identification and monitoring of pseudomonas aeruginosa in patients with cystic fibrosis.

Medtech Insight sat down with Anja Streicher, chief marketing officer at Women of Wearables, a global community offering events and education resources to support the femtech industry, to discuss trends in the women's wearables tech market, challenges and innovators pushing the boundaries.

Britain’s medtech system progress, smarter ways of working at the agency and getting smarter AI and digital technologies into circulation for patients, were themes woven through the UK MHRA board’s 18 March meeting.

Wearable technology must address women’s unique needs, said Anja Streicher, Women of Wearables chief marketing officer. Samphire Neuroscience and Amira Health demo wearable solutions for PMS and hot flashes at Wired Health.

Centralized decisions and cost savings are targeted in the UK government’s plan to combine much of NHS England with the Department of Health and Social Care. The action will likely divert resources away from health ministry efforts to launch the 10-Year Care Plan, but how else will medtechs be impacted?

Careology and Entia are partnering to “alleviate the burden of routine patient assessments” on people with cancer. The two early-stage London-based health tech startups already provide services to UK National Health Service (NHS) patients.

Insight into the knock-on effects on innovation adoption and procurement is keenly awaited by medtechs.

Most fees and fee uplifts proposed by the UK MHRA to begin in April 2025 will be implemented on schedule. A general 8.85% increase will be applied to all statutory fees, but the new medical devices registration fee is subject to ongoing review and/or alternative options.

Lawrence Tallon will succeed June Raine as MHRA chief executive on 1 April. UK medtechs will prioritize an early meeting with the man who since 2020 has served as deputy chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas' NHS Trust.

Implementing a reflex test alongside traditional prostate cancer screening is cost-effective for high-risk groups, claims Prostate Cancer Research. Oxford BioDynamics sheds light on UK market conditions influencing the adoption of its reflex test, EpiSwitch PSE.

Assimilated EU medtech law used in Great Britain will not be sunsetted on 26 May 2025, as originally provided for. That was the first decision published by the MHRA in the wake of its recent consultation on shaping the regulatory system.

MELD Graph could help speed up the diagnosis and treatment of people with epilepsy by spotting "invisible" brain lesions often missed by radiologists. The new open-source AI tool developed by UK researchers could save the NHS up to $70,000 per patient, said researchers.

The digital health market includes thousands of app-based solutions targeting single health conditions, but the cost, complexity and number of options “gives too many opportunities to health care systems to say no,” said Mike Trenell, Daiser CEO. The second generation of digital health might have the answers, he said.