Former surgeon wins top healthcare award for collaboration with UCLan

A former surgeon turned businessman’s successful collaboration with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has earned him a top healthcare industry award.
Retired consultant knee surgeon Shameem SampathRetired consultant knee surgeon Shameem Sampath
Retired consultant knee surgeon Shameem Sampath

A former surgeon turned businessman’s successful collaboration with the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) has earned him a top healthcare industry award.

Retired consultant knee surgeon Shameem Sampath won the Partnership with Academia category at this year’s Medilink North of England Healthcare Business Awards after working with UCLan to bring his smart-technology product Slider to market.

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Business experts at the University’s Idea to Scale-Up Programme helped Shameem to register his company, AI Rehab in Lytham, as well as assisting with early designs of the pre and post-operation knee and hip support tool, linking him with potential investors and helping to apply for funding grants.

The Medilink Awards are open to health care businesses throughout the North of England. The Partnership with Academia Award celebrates “the development of a partnership seeing collaboration with Academia and Industry that has/will have major impact/benefit.”

Shameem said: “We at AI Rehab are grateful and deeply honoured to receive this prestigious award. UCLan has been instrumental in getting us to this stage and we look forward to working with our academics in the future.”

Shameem has worked with UCLan since 2018. In the next phase of his business development, he will take advantage of the University’s Health MATTERS programme, a three-year collaborative venture between the University and the Innovation Agency, part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), to help him validate his product in a real-world clinical environment with access to the NHS, clinical staff and commissioners.

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Peter Leather, Head of IP and Commercialisation at UCLan, said: “This award illustrates the significant breadth of business support UCLan and its partners can provide to companies. In this case supporting AI Rehab to accelerate its product development, fund raising activities and adoption of the product into the NHS via our Idea2Scaleup programme.

“Shameem is a worthy winner and I’m sure he will go on to even greater success.”

Through its Idea to Scale-Up programme, companies can work with the University on physical and digital product design, development and validation, intellectual property (IP) protection, securing investment, commercial strategy, and exploring new markets.

Businesses can email [email protected] to find out how they too can benefit from UCLan’s business support services.

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