Month: July 2019

 

 

 

The Enterprise Fellowship Programme offered by the Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub is now open for applications.

This programme is for researchers, recent graduates or international PhD students based in the UK who have developed an innovative idea within their universities/research institutes, who are at a relatively advanced stage of readiness for commercialisation and are considering setting up a company.

If the above applies to you and you wish to pursue a career at the centre of a start-up or spin out company, then Enterprise Fellowship offers to support you setting up a company by providing you with up to £60,000 equity-free funding, training and mentoring, PR, marketing and promotion, access to the Taylor Centre and access to networks of investors, experts and advisers as well as other entrepreneurs.

This is a full-time commitment (1/01/2020 – 31/12/2020) in the sense that you cannot have another role whilst on the Fellowship. Stage 1 deadline is on the 19^th of August 2019 and if you are successful, you’ll enter Stage 2 with the deadline on the 16^th of September 2019.

You will in all likelihood already be working with us (the Research Commercialisation team within the University), and we are involved in the application process where university research and hence University owned IP is involved. A summary of what a commercially strong project typically involves can be found here. For other resources on commercialising your research, please check out our website.

For the full description of this RAEng Enterprise Fellow programme, click here.

A new spin-out company has been established to develop a medical diagnostic device. The device, named Inform ™, can detect the volatile organic compounds in patient samples, in order to diagnose and monitor a range of medical conditions. Founding institutional shareholders include the University of Liverpool, the University of Bristol, the University of West of England, Bristol and The Wellcome Trust.

Nidor Diagnostics Limited will offer a range of diagnostic products, the first of which would enable patients to receive a positive diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Currently, the diagnosis of IBS and other related medical conditions can require many assessments, including blood and faeces testing, colonoscopy with biopsies, and radiology (X-ray) tests, and requires a lengthy process of elimination. Inform (IBS) ™ will help to speed up the diagnostic process for patients.

Professor Chris Probert, now at Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Liverpool, has been influential in driving the Inform ™ technology forward over a number of years, and has been successful in securing large translational grants from Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK in order to develop and validate the technology in a range of other applications, including bladder and colorectal cancer.

Dr Taj S Mattu, CEO of Nidor said: “Nidor is excited about realising the technology’s potential to improve the diagnosis of a number of diseases, not just IBS in the near future..”

Professor Anthony Hollander, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Impact, University of Liverpool, said: “We are very excited about the future of Nidor – the University of Liverpool has incubated the technology for a number of years, in collaboration with the other stakeholders, and the project has received significant support from the University of Liverpool’s Enterprise Investment Fund.”

Throughout the process, academics were supported by the IP Commercialisation teams at Liverpool, Bristol and UWE. Emma Nolan, Head of IP Commercialisation at Liverpool, said: “We’re pleased to have completed the founder round for the company – we have a very dedicated academic founder and a first-class management team.”