Drayson Technologies Limited has announced a 5-Year Strategic Research Agreement (SRA) with the University of Oxford (OU) and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH) in the field of digital health.
Millions of NHS patients are set to benefit from the commercialisation of cutting edge technologies invented in Oxford, in a landmark licensing deal. The University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals developed and trialled the technologies in the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The ground-breaking SRA will create a pathway for the production of world-class digital health products, commercialised globally by Drayson Technologies.
The SRA ensures that the technologies can be commercialised so that they can bring benefit to patients across the NHS and overseas, but it also means that some of the profits will come back into the NHS Trust and University of Oxford to benefit more patients and fund more research – exactly the aim and ambition of the NIHR when it funded the BRCs across the country. Drayson Technologies will sponsor significant further research and clinical validation of new digital health products over the next 5 years.
The University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will receive in aggregate £5m worth of equity in Drayson Technologies as part of the Series C funding round.
Lord Drayson, Chairman and CEO, Drayson Technologies, said: “Chronic disease affects the lives of millions of people as well as accounting for around 70 percent of NHS costs. Digital health technologies offer the potential to make a huge difference for these people and save money for the NHS. This highly innovative partnership will ensure that there is a pathway from invention to commercialisation for digital health products created in Oxford that will deliver benefits to patients and reinvestment back into the University and the NHS Trust.”
Professor Lionel Tarassenko, Head of the Department of Engineering Science, whose research group developed the digital health products in partnership with OUH, said: “Our work with wearables, smart devices, and machine learning algorithms has enabled the delivery of real-time, personalised healthcare to patients where it is most needed, from the hospital to the home. The partnership with Drayson Technologies gives us a unique opportunity to accelerate the development and deployment of these digital health products across a wide spectrum of conditions.”
Peter Knight, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “I am delighted that the Trust and the University of Oxford, working in partnership, have reached this agreement with Drayson Technologies. Working together will allow us to bring technologies that we invent and develop together to our patients faster. We will also be able to reinvest royalties from the results of research and development created in the partnership of the University and NHS back into our services for the benefit of our patients.”
