A regional health technology accelerator has launched its second cohort, selecting 30 companies for a six-month programme designed to bring new health and care products to market. The launch was held on 30 April at Nexus, the innovation hub based at the University of Leeds, and was attended by founders, investors and representatives from across the regional health system. The event marked a visible expansion of the programme's ambitions, with more companies and a broader spread of clinical focus areas than its first cohort attracted. For a programme still in its early stages, the level of interest from the health technology sector suggests it has established a degree of credibility relatively quickly.

The programme received £4.5 million in funding secured in 2025 through the UK Government's Investment Zone initiative, distributed via the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. This has allowed the programme to grow considerably, with this year's intake following what organisers described as a record number of applications. 

The Investment Zone model is designed to direct central government funding toward specific regional economic priorities, and health technology has been identified as a key focus for West Yorkshire. The region is home to several large NHS trusts, two medical schools and a growing cluster of digital health companies, which gives programmes like this a reasonably well-developed ecosystem to operate within.

The 30 companies are divided equally between two pathways: one for early-stage start-ups, and one for more established businesses with existing products looking to grow. The cohort spans artificial intelligence, mental health services and patient pathway redesign. Many accelerator programmes concentrate on a single clinical area, which limits the range of problems they can meaningfully address. This cohort takes a wider view, which is arguably more useful given how varied the pressures on the NHS currently are and how differently those pressures manifest across different parts of the health system.

Christine Outram MBE, Chair of Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber, spoke at the launch and pointed to results already produced by the programme's alumni. Some former participants have presented their work at Westminster, while others have secured further funding through the West Yorkshire Combined Authority's Open Innovation Challenge. Outram said the tailored nature of the support on offer, covering legal advice, marketing and NHS commissioning routes, is what separates the programme from comparable initiatives. That kind of structured access to commissioning expertise is something many early-stage health technology companies struggle to find independently, and it is often cited as one of the more significant barriers to NHS adoption.

The start-up cohort includes companies working in radiology, medication management, menopause care and mental health. RadAssist AI, MenoClinic and iDiagnose are among those selected. The scale-up cohort features Doc Abode, which works on clinical workforce management, Ufonia, which develops AI-powered patient consultations, and Synovo, alongside others including ThinkADHD, LOHA and SAH Diagnostics. The full list of participating companies was published alongside the launch, and covers a wide enough range of clinical and operational problems to suggest the selection process was not narrowly focused on any one part of the health system.

Over the next six months, all 30 companies will receive mentorship and access to regional and national networks, with the aim of moving their solutions into practical use within NHS settings. The funding is committed, the companies are selected and the programme has a track record, however modest, to build on. Whether it can translate that into measurable clinical or commercial impact at scale remains to be seen, but the foundations are more substantial now than they were at the outset.