Objectives
SEHTA's aim is to catalyse innovation and international competitiveness in South East England’s health technologies sector. SEHTA will help its members address some of the challenges faced by companies in the sector. A period of active acquisitions by large companies and a healthy number of start-ups has left a landscape of a small number of very large health technology companies and a large number of very small ones, but relatively few mid-sized companies. Unfortunately, the technology boom and bust has left many of these small companies struggling to finance the next stages of their development, while public sector provision of grants and advice has been perceived to be patchy and overly targeted at start-ups.
A key role for SEHTA, therefore, is as the first point of contact for companies involved in the industry; to provide access to funding, business and professional advice and to facilitate partnerships with their peers to enable more of these existing small businesses to grow into prosperous mid-sized organisations.
Recent years have also seen the health technology industry as a whole suffer from declining public perception of what it does and how it does it. This is creating problems for many companies within the industry, making recruitment more difficult, investment harder to obtain and regulation more onerous. More generally, science is suffering a sharp decline in popularity as a topic of study amongst students in the UK, leading to potentially severe skills shortages for the health technology sector.
Another primary aim of the organisation then is to improve the visibility and reputation of the health technology industry amongst the general public, politicians and regulators, in order to ensure the future profile and well being of its companies and the science industry as whole.
SEHTA's main aims:
- To promote innovation and collaboration in the sector
- To create dialogue and networking opportunities at all levels of the supply chain
- To increase the number of medium-sized companies in the sector by enabling small companies to grow
- To make it easier for businesses to find information and support
- To improve public and policy maker understanding of the sector
- To tackle skills shortages