Our mission is to become an evergreen pipeline of medical technology innovation to transform the health and care of patients. By collocating in a central landmark building on St. Thomas' campus our partners from industry, academia and the startup community, we will foster synergies that will break barriers of adoption and accelerate the transition of technology.
Dr Nicolas Huber, Director, Commercial Operations and Partnerships (LIHE)
05 March 2024
London Institute for Healthcare Engineering opens to members
As the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering (LIHE) opens its doors, members will start to take up residence with full programmes beginning delivery this Summer.
Located in a new building on the St Thomas’ Hospital campus, LIHE is the latest trailblazing initiative from King’s College London, and embodies its mission to make the world a better place.
The building is dedicated to bringing Medical Device (MedTech) innovations to patients and the market and offers hands-on executive support to innovators from across the UK.
As the first MedTech venture builder in the UK, LIHE will help novel healthcare technologies navigate the complex path to clinical and commercial success by bringing together world-class research and development expertise across academia, the NHS and the MedTech industry.
LIHE members include start-ups, SME’s and multinational companies who will all be located within the building.
Members will benefit from King’s world-leading scientific, regulatory, market access, commercialisation capabilities, and unrivalled connections with academic institutions, clinicians and trusts, and industry partners.
“What became very clear to me is that we're spending a lot of time thinking about the amazing new technology we could develop in healthcare engineering, often without quite having all the different key players in the same room.
All of these components will now exist in the same building, including a dedicated Venture Builder, a UK-first, and experts supporting you on go-to-market strategy, and regulatory affairs. LIHE brings them together into one single location right at the heart of a hospital, and of an academic intellectual power. Where you have access to not only the people, but infrastructure. That's what makes LIHE so unique," says Professor Sebastien Ourselin, Head of School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences.
Only a handful of life-saving innovations make it to the patient bedside due to the complexities of bringing medical technology to market. By collocating all critical stakeholders in a dedicated physical space side by side to our University and Hospital, we are giving the best chance to innovations of making a real impact, at pace. Because our future patients deserve it.
Professor Sebastien Ourselin FREng FMedSci, Head of School, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences
The interdisciplinary ecosystem at LIHE will develop and translate novel engineering solutions to improve patient outcomes, support new MedTech companies to flourish and drive economic growth.
Further, King’s students on the MedTech Innovation & Entrepreneurship and Healthcare Technologies MSc courses will receive experiential training at LIHE, fostering the next generation of innovators in MedTech.
Dr Nicolas Huber commented: “We want to give MedTech entrepreneurs the confidence to proceed at pace from bench to bedside to boardroom. Our only metric is how many patients the innovations we support can positively impact.”
LIHE’s inaugural Venture Building programme will launch in Summer 2024, and MedTech entrepreneurs and companies can register their interest to become members at lihe.org.uk.
In this story
Director, Commercial Operations and Partnerships, London Institute for Healthcare Engineering
Professor of Healthcare Engineering