In this news in brief article, we take a look at some of the latest around international innovations, covering women’s health, paediatric insomnia, AI, and wearables.
£2.5 million raised for “palm-sized” device capable of reading multiple hormones from saliva
A spin-out from the University of Glasgow has successfully raised £2.5 million in funding for the development of a “palm-sized” device capable of reading multiple hormones from a saliva sample at home.
Unravel Health will be using the funding for Micro Lab, a device offering hormone readings for hormones including oestradiol, the main form of oestrogen.
Co-founder and CEO Veronika Bridgman said: “Fifteen years ago I built my own hormone tracker to manage PCOS (now PMOS), because a blood test told me almost nothing about what my body was doing. Soon anyone will be able to bring the lab home to understand their symptoms.”
Women’s hormones are the first application, the company shares, but the underlying technology has already been used successfully on other markers, such as those for heart health and prostate cancer, suggesting the potential to “bring many more lab tests into the home”.
£2.2 million in funding for “pop-up” inhaler
Scotland-based 1nhaler has announced that it has successfully secured £2.2 million in funding for the development of its pop-up cardboard inhaler.
The investment will reportedly help complete the technical transfer of the product into contract manufacturing for the production of clinical trial material, with targets to progress a small-scale clinical trial to support regulatory filing in late 2027.
The device is made predominantly from cardboard, and is roughly the size of a credit card, the company shares, transforming into a 3D inhaler for patient use. It is designed to be simpler and more affordable to manufacture at scale, overcoming limitations with accessibility, cost, and environmental impact. It suggests that there may be additional uses such as pain relief and vaccines.
Shared Services Canada offers up to $2 million in funding for solutions improving visibility into AI decision making
Shared Services Canada (SSC) is offering innovators the chance to apply for up to $2 million in funding for the development of technologies that can help in the assessment and monitoring of AI systems.
Aims include improving visibility into AI decision making, strengthening the traceability of AI outputs, and supporting compliance with AI governance requirements.
Open to phase two products in prototype development, solutions should also be able to interoperate with enterprise systems, AI and machine learning platforms, requiring “minimal customisation”, it adds, as well as demonstrating the ability to exchange governance information with enterprise systems and AI/ML lifecycle tools through standards-based APIs, connectors, and interoperable data exchange mechanisms.
Other requirements set out by the SCC cover the generation of human-readable explanations of assessment results, the capability for deployment in on-premises, private cloud, and Canadian-hosted cloud environments, the provision of bilingual functionality, the option to support multiple organisations or departments within a shared platform, and the power to generate governance reports and alerts.
The deadline for applications is 22 December 2026.
100 SleepCogni devices to be rolled out at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
100 SleepCogni devices are being rolled out at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and its paediatric insomnia service, Richard Mills, CEO and founder of the company has revealed.
The roll out is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and Innovate UK, with the devices intended to help children currently on the sleep services waiting list and via community referrals, Richard explains. They can then be used for up to three months in a home setting to promote self-management of sleep.
The CEO adds that the project also includes a fully funded and independent health economic assessment to be conducted by the Centre for Healthcare Equipment and Technology Adoption.
