Our strategy is built around six linked, London-wide programmes, designed to address the three challenges identified in the previous section of this document. Together, the ambition of these programmes is to make London the most attractive city in the world for life sciences innovation and scale-up.

1.   London Health Innovation Funds

Centred around improving access to funding to help innovation address London’s most pressing health and care problems, this programme will take a three-pronged approach:

• Improving signposting to existing funds. More than £500m is available through existing non-dilutive funds administered by UK research funding organisations (such as the NIHR and UKRI), major national charities and London health-specific charity funding (particularly hospital-linked charities).
• Coordinated deployment of up to £900m of NHS working capital funding. London-wide coordination of organisation-specific NHS transformation funding (rising to 3% of NHS turnover), as well as a cross-organisation working capital fund to support prevention and new care models. This funding would be further supported by NHS-specific transformation funds, such as for front-line digitisation.
• Collaboration with a network of return-seeking private, public market and charity funds. Harnessing existing enthusiasm from major investors for supporting London’s life sciences sector.

2.   Health Innovation Procurement and Contracting

Traditional procurement of established products will be enhanced by additional work across providers and commissioners to align contract terms and priorities, allowing for larger scale procurements which make integration easier and provide financial benefits.

The procurement and contracting workstream will also introduce two new approaches to procure at larger scale (such as pan-London), using legislative underpinning from the 2023 Procurement Act designed to support innovation, in instances where:

• The product(s) are likely to change during the contract term – e.g. for software where new features may be added;
• Ongoing investment is needed by suppliers to continue to improve their products;
• Additional work with a supplier may allow them to integrate products or features into their future offerings – and provide a better experience for patients and staff.

These two new approaches will be:

• Procurement of solutions and partnerships. Focusing procurement on healthcare challenges faced at a regional level (such as cardiovascular disease prevention) offers the opportunity to procure multiple products together and deploy them as an integrated solution. It also allows for the development of multi-year funding streams and the inclusion of more comprehensive implementation support as part of the procurement.In these cases, a ’solution book’ approach will be adopted where products are procured to meet a need (together with a dynamic purchasing framework to allow others to join later if needed).
• Procurement of strategic partners to support development. Where suppliers can offer a wide range of products and services or are able to develop offerings specifically to meet London’s needs, a strategic partnership is attractive.These partners would be expected to invest in developing solutions for London and in some cases share gains from the commercialisation of these services.Framework agreements for these partnerships could include access to support from the NHS or public bodies, facilitation of safe access to the OneLondon data environment, or innovative investment approaches in product development or deployment (such as vendor financing).

Enthusiasm for more strategically coordinated procurement to support innovation is high across the system, with recent examples such as the South West London Acute Provider Collaborative’s procurement of Ambient Voice Technology at scale demonstrating the benefits of these types of approaches.

3.   London Innovator Passports

Currently, many innovation decisions take place in isolation, with individual providers or Integrated Care Boards choosing which innovations to use based on local processes. This creates duplication for both suppliers and buyers, with innovators having to submit similar information in different formats to potential buyers, and buyers having to replicate assessment processes that may have been completed already elsewhere.

Innovator passports are a new digital approvals system, designed to address this inefficiency. London will be one of the first wave of regions to adopt a central digital platform called the MedTech Compass, which will act as a home for the Innovator Passport, enabling innovators to submit a single file for evaluation across multiple potential buyers.

The Innovator Passport will focus on documenting objectively identifiable information and technical risks, where despite common standards, evaluation often proves time-consuming:

• Regulatory status: including CE/UKCA marking, MHRA registration, correct device classification, Declaration of Conformity, and post‑market surveillance duties.
• Quality management: including ISO 13485 for medical‑device Quality Management System (and related test evidence such as biocompatibility, electrical safety, usability, and cybersecurity testing where relevant).​
• Information governance & data protection: including UK GDPR and Data Protection Act compliance, completed Data Protection Impact Assessment, clear data flows and purposes, lawful basis for processing (including special category data), retention and deletion rules.
• NHS data & cyber standards: including Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) completion, alignment with NHS clinical risk standards DCB0129 (manufacturer) and DCB0160 (clinical use) for digital/AI tools, hosting and security controls in line with ISO 27001 or equivalent, encryption in transit and at rest, access control and audit.
• Clinical and economic evidence standards: including evidence that would satisfy NICE/MHRA expectations – e.g. studies following ISO 14155 for clinical investigations, real‑world evidence, and health‑economic models showing cost‑effectiveness.

The Innovator Passport is designed to allow procuring organisations to focus on the suitability of the innovation for local deployment – which should include assessing any operational risks of using the product or service in question.

4.   MHRA Regulatory Sandbox

An MHRA Regulatory “Sandbox” will act as a controlled testing environment for innovative medical technologies, initially for AI-driven devices and diagnostics. This will build on the existing MHRA AI Airlock and learning from other government initiatives such as the FCA Regulatory Sandbox:

5.   OneLondon Integrated Health Data

Through OneLondon, our city already has one of the world’s largest and best-curated health data assets, designed specifically to power research and innovation. The London Data Service securely collects and organises patient information from a range of sources, including GPs, hospitals, mental health, community care, and social services, while the London Secure Data Environment unites de-identified health data for 9 million Londoners.

Access to this data will now be made safely available to approved researchers, building on the principles of governance and public trust already embedded within the OneLondon programme.

6.   London Innovation Information Exchange

Innovative companies working in London will receive additional support to help them navigate the capital:

• Support for companies focused on London’s health and care markets. Companies will benefit from information and direct support from Mayor of London-led initiatives, as well as a matching services for pilot sites, research partners and data services to facilitate early deployment. These will be orchestrated through healthcare challenge projects and innovation hubs.
• Sharing learning from pilots. Duplication in pilots will be supported by sharing learnings across the system through innovation hubs, who will also play a role in ensuring evaluation is robust enough to support adoption, and coordination with hubs outside London for further spread.