Development consultancy services

Tender description

The health technology accelerator facility requires the following types of specialist consultancy to assist with the development of the research projects that they fund. Specifically: 1) Health commercialisation; 2) Health market analysis; and 3) Heath design. HTAF desires that, during the period in which they receive HTAF funding, the individual research project teams will map out a pathway by which their technology can be translated. An effective pathway must take into account many factors including, but not limited to, funding mechanisms, product development timelines, intellectual property, pathways to market and relevant regulatory pathways. The projects funded via HTAF concern a range of medical technologies across diverse disease areas. HTAF does not possess the in-house expertise to help the various project teams assemble effective commercialisation plans tailored to their specific project, and therefore wishes to employ the services of an external contractor to do so. There are a number of factors that preclude the successful translation/commercialisation of pre-clinical science. A common point of failure is the selection of the target market for the technology. A target market may be too small to be economically viable, may be well served by existing competing technologies or may possess several other barriers that would make adoption of the novel technology unlikely. HTAF therefore wishes the projects that it funds to obtain a thorough expert market assessment. HTAF does not possess the expertise to perform this analysis in-house and therefore wishes to employ the services of an external contractor who can carry out a market assessment on the technologies currently being developed with HTAF funding. A number of the projects supported by HTAF are concerned with the development of medical devices. In all cases, development is at a relatively early stage, with a technology readiness level (TRL) of between 2 and 4 (inclusive) as defined by the NIH Technology Readiness Guidelines — https://ncai.nhlbi.nih.gov/ncai/resources/techreadylevels The devices may be aimed at a variety of clinical areas, and utilise a range of underlying technologies. The end user of said devices may range from patients themselves to highly specialised clinicians. Key to the development of a successful medical device (i.e. one that is adopted, used and can benefit patients) is the design of the device itself. HTAF would like to engage the services of an external supplier who could help the HTAF-funded project teams consider device design from the very earliest stages of technical development. Details of specific deliverables are given below.