The NHS, the UK’s national health service, is often seen as slow to adopt innovation. But Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, located in London and linked to King’s College London — has actually created a highly sophisticated unit to commercialise innovations developed at their hospitals.

The Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust is unique in England. Not only does it have this tech transfer office, but the team sits within a larger, well-resourced unit — the Centre for Innovation, Transformation and Improvement (CITI) — that handles everything from spinouts to consultancy to identifying efficiencies that can guarantee the long-term survival of the NHS. It even has its own venture fund, KHP Ventures.

Tas Gohir, senior intellectual property, innovation and commercial research manager at CITI, talks us through his office’s work and shares advice for founders and SMEs that are looking to get their product or service into the NHS.

He also tells us why money alone won’t solve all the NHS’s challenges, like long waitlists, why CITI works with local and international partners like the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and he talks about his own research which is looking at challenges in the recruitment of tech transfer staff (if you work in a TTO and would like to contribute to this research, reach out to him).

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