Biomedical Catalyst 2025: Industry led R&D small projects

Overview

The Biomedical Catalyst supports UK SMEs to bring transformative healthcare innovations closer to market. Projects must demonstrate strong technical feasibility, clear patient or commercial impact, and a route to improving SME productivity and competitiveness.

Scope

Projects can focus on areas such as:

• Disease prevention and proactive health management
• Early detection and diagnosis to improve outcomes
• Personalised and curative treatments
• Digital health technologies and consumer self-care
• Transforming healthcare delivery
  

Eligible activities include pre-clinical research, prototyping, safety and efficacy testing (including phase 1 and 2 trials), and IP or regulatory planning.

Key themes and topics

• Advanced therapies (cell, gene, RNA, regenerative)
• Biosciences and platform technologies
• Therapeutics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
• Diagnostics and biomarkers
• Medical technologies, devices, and robotics
• Precision and personalised medicine
• Digital and data-driven health
• Healthy ageing and independent living
  

Projects will not be funded if they are:

• Fundamental research or feasibility studies
• Unrelated to human life sciences
• Focused on products already on the market
• Routine business activities without R&D
• Lacking patient or commercial impact
• Failing to meet high animal welfare standards
  

Project duration

6 to 24 months

Must start by 1 July 2026

End by 30 June 2028

Award value

Total project costs up to £1 million

Grant funding up to £500,00

Funding rates

For industrial research (developing new knowledge, prototypes, or system components):

• Up to 70% for small organisations
• Up to 60% for medium organisations
• Up to 50% for large organisations
  

For experimental development (closer to market through testing and validation):

• Up to 45% for small organisations
• Up to 35% for medium organisations
• Up to 25% for large organisations
  

Research organisations can share up to 50% of total eligible project costs.

Eligibility criteria

• Lead must be a UK-registered SME
• Can be single or collaborative (SMEs must contribute at least 50% of costs if collaborative)
• Eligible partners: UK-registered businesses, RTOs, academic institutions, charities, or public sector bodies
• All funded activity must be carried out in the UK and results exploited from or in the UK
• Subcontractors must preferably be UK-based unless justified otherwise