Professor Michael Lewis, Scientific Director for Innovation NIHR Programme Director SBRI Healthcare & i4i University of Birmingham Medical School

Professor Michael Lewis, is Scientific Director for the NIHR, and recently i4i and SBRi Healthcare programmes as well as Professor of Life Science Innovation at the University of Birmingham.

His industry experience covers pharma, biotech, digital, dental, devices, clinical trials and diagnostics. Currently, he is Chair of 2 life science companies all with an emphasis on citizen focused, data and outcomes driven healthcare. He recently sat on the Board of SNOMED, the global medical coding standardisation system, the Executive Board of Birmingham Health Partners and is an advisor on data, AI, quantum, genomics and engineered biology.

He lectures on innovation in life sciences and how this aligns with the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development goals. He is also closely involved with delivering the new Birmingham Health Innovation campus, a £250m life science park at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Nick Plant, FRSB Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Research & Innovation, Professor of Systems Biology University of Leeds

Lawrence Tallon, Chief Executive of Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency MHRA

Professor Alastair Denniston, AI Strategic Advisor, Birmingham

Professor Darren Treanor, Consultant Pathologist, Honorary Clinical Professor, Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust

Philip White, Founder & Managing Director, Audacia

  Professor Jonathan Benger, Chief Executive, NICE

Jonathan joined NICE in January 2023 as Chief Medical Officer and in March 2023 became Interim Director of the Centre for Guidelines. Jonathan was subsequently appointed Deputy Chief Executive in May 2024 and Chief Executive in December 2025.

Prior to this, he was the Interim Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO) at NHS England (2022), the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of NHS Digital (2019 to 2022), and the National Clinical Director for Urgent and Emergency Care at NHS England (2013 to 2019).

In his clinical work, Jonathan is a consultant in emergency medicine at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and also does regular shifts with the Great Western Air Ambulance, which he established as its first medical advisor between 2007 and 2011.

Jonathan is professor of emergency care in the school of health and social wellbeing at the University of the West of England, and a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) senior investigator. His main research interests relate to cardiac arrest, emergency and pre-hospital care, service organization and delivery, and design research.

Dr Rosie Britton, Innovation Policy Manager, MedTech & Innovation Directorate, DHSC

Mark Slack, Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer CMR Surgical

  Professor David Beard Professor of Musculoskeletal & Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford

David Beard is an internationally recognised expert in the evaluation of surgical innovation, holding roles as Professor of Musculoskeletal and Surgical Sciences and Rosetrees RCS Eng Oxford (Surgical Trials Centre) Chair, at the University of Oxford, and Professor and Director of Research Partnerships at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, University of Sydney, with a specialist role as Surgical & Complex Intervention Trials Lead.

Professor Beard has been instrumental in the development and leadership of the IDEAL collaboration, providing an internationally adopted framework for new devices and surgical testing. His current research portfolio includes leadership of several major national and international studies. He is Co-Chief Investigator of the NIHR REINFORCE study, a large-scale evaluation of the safety, effectiveness, implementation and health economics of robotic surgery across multiple specialties, and a co-applicant on PASHiOn, a multicentre trial of personalised, digitally planned knee surgery. Most recently, he secured an $11 million MRFF Frontiers grant (PIONEERS), and will lead the embedded clinical trials program.

He is also a member of the RCS Eng Working Group on Robotic Surgery (RADAR) and the MSK RAS working group and serves as TSC Chair of the NIHR RACER study.

   Dr Bruno Scaglioni, R & D Director, Atlas Endoscopy Limited

Bruno Scaglioni is R&D Director at Atlas Endoscopy, a Leeds-based medical device company developing the REN robotic endoscopy platform. He leads the company’s research and development activities, from system engineering and manufacturing through to the application of AI in robotic endoscopy.

Bruno holds a Ph.D. from Politecnico di Milano and spent several years as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds, where his work focused on medical robotics. Originally from Italy, he has been based in the UK since 2017

 

Mr James Kinross, Consultant colorectal surgeon at Imperial College London

 

  Dr Mike Odling-Smee, Founding CEO, Aire Innovate

Dr Mike Odling-Smee has led system architecture in the NHS for more than 20 years. He has been the lead integration architect or advisor on a range of pivotal national programmes including spine, the Interoperability Toolkit and GP connect.

He founded Aire Logic with Joe Waller in 2007, to provide systems build and integration services to the NHS, adopting an agile approach. It’s now one of the largest providers to the NHS.

Informed by the challenges seen in the NHS, Mike and the team built a sister company, Aire Innovate, to deliver an open low-code platform that makes digital teams masters of their own destiny, equipped with easy-to-use foundation tools for building, connecting and changing IT systems, precisely to their needs.

This platform has been adopted by a range of NHS organisations, including Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Manchester ICS and Guys and St Thomas’.

Before entering the world of NHS IT systems, Mike studied Astronomy and Astrophysics and has a PhD in Atomic and Molecular Physics.

Department of Health & Social Care – Speaker TBC

Dr Alwyn Kotze, Perioperative Lead, Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust

Dr Niall Keenan, Consultant Cardiologist and Divisional Director for Medicine

Dr Sarah Vollam, Senior Researcher, NIHR HRC in Community Care

1st in the UK Womb Transplantation: Challenges and the Role of Qualitative Research – SPOC TRC

 

New Technologies for Computer/Robot Assisted Surgery – CRAS

 

The MediPath Innovation Roadmap™
MedTech Innovation Without the Guesswork
De-risking Development • Accelerating Commercialisation • Maximising

Dr Patrick Trotter, Head of Innovation & Commercialisation, Medilink North of England

ValueMediPath Innovation Roadmap™ is Medilink’s seven-stage strategic planning framework that guides healthcare innovators from concept through to international commercialisation. The roadmap aligns technical, clinical, regulatory and commercial activities, helping organisations identify risks early, make informed decisions and establish a clear route to market. It supports innovators through strategy development, market and competitor assessment, concept generation, product positioning, product evaluation, clinical investigation, regulatory approval and reimbursement planning. By combining best-practice guidance with forecasting of costs, resources and timelines, MediPath enables the development of realistic, costed R&D and commercialisation plans. The framework helps organisations de-risk innovation, accelerate development and market adoption, improve investment readiness and maximise commercial value, transforming healthcare concepts into compliant, market-ready products and profitable businesses.

Implantable Medical Devices – Brief presentation on Yorkshire based innovations. Followed by panel session discussing translation and regulation – PBIAA

 

The Constellation of Success: Why Great MedTech Still Fails to Scale

Dr Amel Havkic, Managing Director of EvoMed Consulting, Justin Hall, MedTech Marketing Ltd, Michael Branagan-Harris, CEO HealthTech Strategies Limited and Matthais Winkler, Bouyancy Health Strategy.

Great science. Solid funding. Full regulatory compliance. And still — most MedTech ventures fail to scale.

Why? Because clinical excellence and commercial logic rarely get built together. They collide instead, usually somewhere between the lab and the boardroom.

Join this session to learn:

• Why “technically strong” and “well-funded” still isn’t enough
• The seven-point Constellation that separates ventures that scale from ventures that stall
• How to spot your own structural blind spots — before your investors, accelerator, or hospital partners do

Whether you’re building, funding, or accelerating the next generation of HealthTech, this is the session that shows you where your stars aren’t yet aligned.

Developing Invasive Placebo Interventions – SPOC TRC

 

NIHR Net Zero Innovation Catalyst/ SUSTAIN – Professor Pete Culmer, Dr Rory Turnbull

 

Capacity & Building Training, MedTech Foundation

 

Women (as patients) s an Underserved Group in Surgery – EDI

 

Diagnostics – Brief presentation on Yorkshire based innovations- problem, unique solution. Followed by panel session discussing translation and regulation- PBIAA

 

Evaluation and Regulation of New Devices and Surgical Procedures – SPOC TRC

 

Quashing myths of perceived barriers of academic research – CTRU & NIHR RDN

 

PBIAA Session – EPSRC

 

HealthTech Investment Zone

 

Why 85% HealthTech Startups Fail — And How to Beat the Odds

Michael Branagan-Harris, CEO HealthTech Strategies Limited, Justin Hall, Founder, MedTech Marketing Limited, Claudia Holy, Founder & CEO Podymos Ltd and Dr Mehdi Javanbakht, Founder & Chief Executive, Optimax Access

Most HealthTech startups don’t fail because the science is wrong — they fail because of misjudged market need, the wrong team, weak or slow evidence generation, and messaging that never lands with the people who matter.

In this interactive panel, our speakers will share practical, hard-won commercial strategies: what evidence you actually need for regulatory approval and reimbursement, and how to message your technology to the audiences that decide whether it succeeds — care providers, payers, NICE, and investors.

Bringing decades of combined experience at the sharp end of HealthTech commercialisation, our moderator and panelists will help you spot the pitfalls before they cost you — and leave you with new ways to beat the sector’s high failure rate.

Perioperative Care – SPOC TRC

 

HRC Network

Cultural Competence Training – EMRI Network

 

From Idea to Impact: Lessons from the Leeds Innovation Pop Up

Richard Evans Head of Business Development and Innovation and Moninder Bhogal, Business Development and Innovation Manager, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Explore how Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s Innovation Pop Up provides a real-world environment for innovators, clinicians and patients to test, evaluate and refine new technologies. Through practical examples from across the Trust, this session will demonstrate how structured evaluation, clinical engagement and collaborative working can accelerate the adoption of innovations that improve patient care, operational efficiency and lead us towards the NHS of the future.

 

Diagnostics & Regulation – BIVDA Innovation Pipelines

Surgical Observatory – Unmet needs and prioritisation. With a system readiness lens

PBIAA Showcase Session – Select show and tell demonstration across funded technology areas

Surgical Observatory – When Innovation meets Reality: Why System Readiness Matters for Surgical Care 

 Sustainability –  

 PBIAA Showcase Sessions – Select show and tell demonstrators across funded technology areas