Innovate UK awards £865,000 to AI treatment for mobility issues

Innovate UK has awarded a £865,000 Digital Health Technology Catalyst grant to a consortium of partners to develop an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) platform that analyses physical movements of patients on a daily basis. The solution will apply to a wide range of conditions and help clinicians make data-informed decisions about patient progress and wellbeing.

Led by DigitalHealth.London Accelerator alumnus Cambridge Bio-Augmentation Systems (CBAS), partners in the consortium include Andiamo (another alumnus), which makes user-centred children’s orthotics, CUSH Health, which makes smart devices for elderly patients, and the Human Performance Lab at Queen Mary University of London.

CBAS has developed the AI platform and will be trialling it with Andiamo’s 3D printed orthoses and CUSH Health’s smart device for elderly patients at risk of falls. The project begins in October 2018 and will continue for 15 months. Groups of patients will be selected to trial wearable devices on their orthoses and devices in their daily lives over a few months and the readings analysed by the AI platform will then be validated by Queen Mary’s Human Performance. The Human Performance Lab in addition to validating test results from the AI analysis, which so far has been shown to be 96% accurate, will explore how to apply the novel technology to movement measurements. The ultimate aim for a finished product is to help clinicians deliver better care as well as add greater insight and support for their patients and their families.

Oliver Armitage, Co-Founder and CSO of CBAS said, “We are so pleased to be taking our AI platform to the next stage and trying it with real patients in the field. Having the support and validation of Innovate UK shows the appetite for AI solutions in healthcare, and the enthusiasm of our partners shows the willingness of the industry to begin incorporating these types of solutions into their products.”

Naveed R. Parvez, Co-Founder and CEO at Andiamo said, “We’re very excited to be collaborating with CBAS on this project. It is clear to us that the future of healthcare will and must be driven by outcomes and evidence. Orthotic users want to better understand their condition and their journey to an outcome, clinicians want to deliver evidence-based practice, and providers want to understand what is ‘good’. The support from Innovate UK will drive this critical change faster, and allow us to understand how healthcare will adopt a move to a much greater transparency in orthotic treatments.”

Kalon Hewage, Co-Founder of CUSH Health said: “My Co-Founder, Dr Sam Fosker, and I are delighted to once again have the backing of Innovate UK for our solution to combat the epidemic of falls in the elderly. As a new company this is an amazing opportunity to validate our solution while working with incredibly talented and respected partners. As a practising surgeon I see first hand the effect that falls have on patients and their families and this is even more worrying with the current healthcare model stretched to breaking point. Healthcare innovation, however, offers the opportunity to decrease falls-related morbidity and mortality while also decreasing A&E attendances and acute hospital admissions.”

Dr Aleksandra Birn-Jeffery, Lecturer in Bioengineering, from Queen Mary University of London said: “Not only is it an exciting opportunity to validate new technology that could make such a difference to patient care pathways, but we will be working alongside some incredible companies that are all striving to improve healthcare. This grant also provides the chance to start delving into understanding how we can define whether an individual’s movement pattern is improving to potentially, in the future, further improve patient gait assessment.”

-ENDS-

Notes to Editors

• Press Kit:
  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11LPzeSA2uOBzRpwiAo1fulOrS5Nv_91W?usp=sharing
• Further information:
  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/patients-lives-to-be-greatly-improved-by-technology-revolutions-in-healthcare
• For media enquiries, please contact media@cbas.global or +44 (0)7427068934.

About Cambridge Bio-Augmentation Systems

Cambridge Bio-Augmentation Systems (CBAS) is a leading neural engineering startup, creating the open standard hardware and software interface between the human nervous system and bionics. Our team uses applied materials, machine learning, software engineering, neuroscience, and the experience of our surgeons and clinicians to solve the complex problems of successfully integrating bionics into the human body. Our first product is the Prosthetic Interface Device (PID), a “USB connector” integrated directly into the arm and connected to the nervous system for bionic arms. CBAS currently has the largest neural data set in the world, performing cutting edge machine learning research, and we are also exploring implementing this technology to other conditions throughout the body, revolutionising chronic healthcare from delivery to recurrent care.

About Andiamo

Andiamo is a leading health experience startup with a focus on the 100 million people a year that need orthoses globally. By using big data, 3D printing and an advanced clinical service they aim to deliver a medically effective orthosis within 1 week, cutting wait times by several months. Their services are built and driven by empathy, with a complete focus on designing and delivering outcomes.

About CUSH Health

CUSH Health is developing an AI-assisted remote monitoring/telehealth platform to combat falls in the elderly. This clinician-lead team aims to reduce the huge socioeconomic burden of falls related morbidity and mortality by utilising machine learning enhanced prediction to guide and deliver bespoke interventions. CUSH is in a unique position to engage patients and clinicians and ease pressure on over stretched healthcare systems in both primary and secondary care. With over 8 years combined in the medical field and experience developing healthcare technology and programs CUSH is the perfect team to deliver this disruptive technology turning the way we manage falls into a proactive rather than reactive solution saving millions of pounds and lives.

About Queen Mary University of London

Queen Mary University of London is one of the UK’s leading universities with 25,332 students representing more than 160 nationalities. A member of the Russell Group, we work across the humanities and social sciences, medicine and dentistry, and science and engineering, with inspirational teaching directly informed by our research. In the most recent national assessment of the quality of research, we were placed ninth in the UK amongst multi-faculty universities (Research Excellence Framework 2014). As well as our main site at Mile End – which is home to one of the largest self-contained residential campuses in London – we have campuses at Whitechapel, Charterhouse Square, and West Smithfield dedicated to the study of medicine and dentistry, and a base for legal studies at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Queen Mary began life as the People’s Palace, a Victorian philanthropic project designed to bring culture, recreation and education to the people of the East End. We also have roots in Westfield College, one of the first colleges to provide higher education to women; St Bartholomew’s Hospital, one of the first public hospitals in Europe; and The London, one of England’s first medical schools.

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation. For more information visit www.innovateuk.ukri.org.