Partnership with P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator to fast-track innovation in precision medicine

The delivery of precision medicine requires the academia, healthcare, and industry sectors to work together. Accordingly, the P4 programme offers a six to 12-month scale-up connecting organisations with all these different sectors to create a clear innovation pathway. Together with P4 strategic partners, participants benefit from dedicated workshops, one-to-one expert advice, industry and academic tech expertise, regulatory pathway support, testbeds and trial opportunities, specialised investor introductions and access to key decision-makers.

Precision medicine is defined by the European Commission as a medical approach that uses the unique phenotypes and genotypes of individuals to enable doctors and researchers to more accurately predict which treatment and prevention strategies work in specific groups of people. Innovation in this field occurs in small-scale environments such as laboratories and requires significant time in product development and testing before it can be made available to the mass market. Companies typically need a few years to reach a clinical trial stage.

By connecting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) harnessing the power of genomics to advance precision medicine and first-class healthcare providers, the partnership will breakdown the usual barriers to innovation in the field. The SMEs supported by P4’s accelerator programme will benefit from access to interested patients and award-winning facilities of Nuffield Health. This will enable the precision medicine companies to receive direct feedback from patients as they develop their innovations, resulting in more personalised and community-focused healthcare.

The programme is led by Professor Phil Beales, Chair of the UCL Institute of Precision Medicine, Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and UCL Partners.

Our Chief Strategy Officer, Chris Blackwell-Frost, comments: “Our purpose is to build a healthier nation and we are dedicated to helping people live healthily, get better and stay well through personalised connected health services. Our strategic partnership with P4’s Precision Medicine Accelerator programme will enhance our ability to clinically innovate across our 31 hospitals across the UK and treat the individual patient rather than just symptoms.   Personalised and precision medicine has never been so important. This strategic partnership has the potential to improve the discovery of the underlying genetic causes of diseases, helping us to deliver precision medicine for our patients faster which will improve their health outcomes.”

Nathan McNally, P4 Co-Founder, adds: “The partnership between P4 Precision Medicine Accelerator and Nuffield Health signifies a landmark milestone in precision medicine innovation in the UK. The partnership builds on our vision to create an ecosystem for precision medicine to scale, accelerating the innovative pathway from research to clinical care. Our goal is to enable patients to receive the best possible predictive, preventive, and personalised care by harnessing the potential of personalised medicine - in particular in the area of genomics. This has led P4 to significantly alter the healthcare landscape in 2020 alone, supporting our portfolio companies to establish collaborations with high-profile organisations such as Genomics England and Great Ormond Street Hospital.” 

Last updated Wednesday 11 November 2020

First published on Wednesday 11 November 2020