Medtech health in Wales

Sector and market opportunity

With 1 in 6 people expected to be aged 65 or over by 2050, there’s a significant opportunity to develop technologies that will help the early detection of life-limiting illnesses and monitoring of diseases.

Investors in the Welsh medtech sector can exploit unique, secure anonymised health data for the whole population of Wales. This can be used to provide next generation medical and health care technology, digital medtech, diagnostics and human interaction medtech.

Organisations offering expertise across a range of high-priority conditions include:

• Cardiff University’s Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC)
• Wales Cancer Research Centre
• Welsh Wound Innovation Centre
• Centre for Ageing and Dementia Research

Growth prospects

The demand for e-Health solutions is set to increase, courtesy of an ageing global demographic and the move towards personalised, efficient healthcare. Having reached £298 billion in 2017, the global medtech market is predicted to hit £466 billion by 2027.

Investors in Wales can collaborate with leading researchers and access opportunities for:

• new product development
• scaling up and manufacturing of reliable, easy-to-use healthcare technology for a growing global population

Location

Wales offers investors the chance to establish a strong competitive advantage in medtech, diagnostics, wound healing, regenerative medicine and cell therapy. It’s also creating a world-class precision medicine ecosystem.

The region is home to 4 leading life science research organisations, 13 training institutions and universities, plus an established network of enterprise zones and science parks.

These will be supported by the development of science parks such as:

• Cardiff Edge, Cwmbran Medi Park
• the Swansea Bay City Deal life science well-being and sports campuses project
• the Pentre Awel life sciences and wellness village

Connectivity

Direct train services means that London Paddington is only a 1 hour 45-minute train journey from Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.

National and international flights are available from Cardiff Airport, while London Heathrow Airport and London Gatwick Airport are both less than 3 hours from Wales by car, coach or train. 

The region benefits from having access to ports providing freight options, ferry routes and business links to Ireland’s medtech hubs. There are several daily ferry crossings from Ireland to Wales.

Local talent and skills

Wales has over 45,000 digital economy employees and 12,000 in employment at bioscience related companies.

The region has around 59,000 students and over 18,000 graduates with degrees in medtech-related subjects.

The range of bespoke programmes and apprenticeships train future innovators for the workplace, alongside the delivery of academic courses provided by regional universities such as Cardiff University, Swansea University and Bangor University.

Research and expertise

Investors can capitalise on state-of-the-art research laboratories and dedicated business incubation facilities, such as:

• OpTIC Technology centre
• Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus
• Institute of Life Science (ILS) at Swansea University
• Bangor University’s M-SParc
• Cardiff University Innovation Campus
• Cardiff Medicentre

The region also offers investors links with institutions dedicated to enabling the transfer of technology from research to industrial applications, such as the Life Sciences Hub Wales’ Accelerate Programme, Health Technology Wales and Digital Health Ecosystem Wales.

Local and national government support

The UK is investing heavily in medtech, meaning your company can capitalise on the funding pouring into the sector. The Life Sciences Vision aims to tackle future disease challenges including dementia and ageing.

There are significant plans to further grow the medtech cluster and infrastructure in Wales with investments in the Cardiff Capital Region City and Swansea Bay City Region, as well as two new free ports.

Locally, community networks, incubator space and specialist advice are all available from the Trade and Invest Wales, Life Sciences Hub Wales, Business Wales and Health and Care Research Wales.