Medical Innovation and Technology Summit first for Northern Ireland

Hosted by the Health Innovation and Research Alliance NI (HIRANI), MITS is a one- day conference that will take place in the MAC theatre on Wednesday, April 19.

MITS will be sponsored by AWS, Big Motive, Diaceutics, Innovate UK, KPMG, Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University.

The summit will focus on two strands, digital ecosystems to integrate diagnostics and therapeutics and community people-centred design to accelerate innovation and adoption of health technology.

Over 40 speakers from global and indigenous industry, academia and health along with 300 delegates will share case-studies and take part in multi-disciplinary panel sessions to explore contemporary issues and hurdles to commercialisation.

HIRANI CEO, Joann Rhodes, said: “We are excited to bring this brand new event to NI to which highlights the significant strides that have been made in integration of medical technology into the healthcare landscape and explores mechanisms to collaborate ‘smarter’ to further accelerate and scale innovation.”

The event has attracted speakers from companies such as Amazon Web Services, Stryker and Civica.

She continued: “Along with our leading innovators from NI including Peter Keeling (Diaceutics), Damian Cranney (Big Motive), Clare Guinness (Belfast Innovation District) will be world renowned thought leaders such as former Global Head of Digital Health and Therapeutics at Merck, Caoimhe Valley Gilroy and, CEO of Closed-loop medicine and chairperson of HIRANI, Hakim Yadi OBE.

“We are also delighted to welcome the Department of Health chief pharmaceutical officer, Cathy Harrison, who will be giving a keynote address at the summit.”

More speakers will be announced over the coming weeks and include healthcare leaders from right across the NHS in the UK and the health services’ in Ireland and the USA.

Peter Keeling, CEO of Diaceutics and keynote speaker, explained: “Millions of lives could be saved each year by implementing resource appropriate strategies for prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases. Advances in technologies have led to the ability to identify which individuals will best respond to therapeutics based upon genetics, lifestyle, and even characteristics of the condition. The goal of precision medicine is to target the right treatments to the right patients at the right time. New technological advances are giving health care providers the ability to select therapies and technology that improve outcomes and reduce adverse events. Northern Ireland is a hotspot for the growing MedTech industry which is worth over £70 billion per year. This summit is overdue and thanks to HIRANI and all involved for bringing it together.”

Joann added: “Everyday we open our news channels, and another local company has expanded worldwide, created a valuable partnership or has raised funding that they invest right here in NI. The time is right to bring this summit and spotlight to the those who are excelling daily to bring medical breakthroughs to patients.

“Our industries, our world class universities, Ulster University, Queen’s University Belfast and our health care professionals are making headlines for all the right reasons. We want to bring them together to accelerate innovation, share perspective and make the connections, not only in NI but across the globe.”