Healthcare UK, part of the Department for International Trade (DIT), has launched a programme to showcase the UK’s leading digital health companies. 

Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence is seen as the answer to many of the challenges facing global healthcare. The role of digital technology in realising the dream of accessible, affordable and sustainable care has grown across the entire range of health economies in not only serving current needs, but in building the healthcare of the future: personalised, digital by default and patient centric.

Optellum, alongside nine other top UK-based companies, has been showcased as a leader in the area of screening and diagnostics. The UK companies were selected after a rigorous process, and were judged on a range of criteria including how committed they were to export and international expansion, their responsiveness, any track-record of working collaboratively with DIT, their uniqueness of their innovation, and how well they represent the UK journey and direction in digital health.

Healthcare UK, is a joint initiative of multiple UK government bodies: the Department for International Trade (DIT), NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The Chief Scientific Adviser for the DIT, Dr Mike Short CBE, announced the initiative at a panel discussion at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) on Wednesday 24 February.

In introducing the companies, Dr Short said:

“The UK has long prided itself as being a hotbed of innovation and the British Government’s ongoing investment in growing our capabilities in areas such as AI and more broadly around Data Driven Healthcare, has further fuelled the creation of cutting edge, evidence-based solutions. Solutions which have the key to unlock global challenges, effectively… We hope through the First 100, we will reach out to those who are not just leaders in their field but are willing to find new frontiers to make an impact.”

Noel Gordon, Chair of the Healthcare UK Advisory Board, said:

“I am delighted that Healthcare UK has developed this playbook for some of the best British innovation in digital health and care… They represent immense promise and potential and many are already collaborating on a global scale.”

Dr Václav Potěšil, CEO of Optellum, commented on the launch of the programme:

“I am proud that Optellum has been selected to be amongst the leading hundred leading digital health companies promoted by the UK government. This is another milestone as we have moved in the past year from R&D and clinical validation to commercialisation. We look forward to partnering with HealthcareUK during Optellum’s international expansion, to enable every lung disease patient, in every hospital around the world, to be diagnosed and treated at the earliest possible stage, when the potential for cure is the greatest. ”

Visit the #DIT100 website and download the full list of companies