Three more cancer projects win funding

Three innovative projects have won up to £35,000 each from the SFC-funded Cancer Innovation Challenge to use existing NHS Scotland data to improve cancer patient diagnosis, treatment, care and outcomes.

All three successful projects have the potential to have a significant impact on cancer treatment in Scotland. The funding gives them the opportunity to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of their innovation over the next three months. Two will then be selected to continue to the next stage of the Cancer Innovation Challenge, which will see them receive further funding of up to £125,000 to develop prototypes over six months.

The three successful projects are:

• Canon Medical Research Europe – working with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde on an assessment tool for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM), an asbestos-related cancer with particularly high occurrence in Scotland.
• Jayex Technology – working with NHS Lothian focusing on haematology cancers as there is a shortfall of this data in the National Registry. They will map data collected by clinicians over 30+ years onto to an innovative new platform, recorded to a global data standard.
• Sharpe Analytics – using machine learning to generate tools for the prediction of outcomes for Scottish cancer patients, starting with prognosis modelling for patients with renal cell carcinoma.

Dr Hilary Dobson OBE, Clinical Lead on this Cancer Innovation Challenge funding call, said:  “The three successful projects demonstrated really strong possibilities for revolutionising cancer care in this country. We are excited to see how each of them develops during this stage of the process.” 

The Cancer Innovation Challenge aims to inspire novel data and tech innovations to help Scotland become a world leader in cancer care. It is funded by the Scottish Funding Council and delivered by three Scottish innovation centres – led by The Data Lab and supported by the Digital Health and Care Institute (DHI) and Stratified Medicine Scotland (SMS).