When we can help
We can join you at, and stay with you through:
- Seed stage: First clinical evidence, feasibility studies, and co-design to prove your concept and attract early investment.
- Growth stage: Pivotal trials, regulatory submissions, health economics, and NHS procurement strategy to unlock scale.
- Scale stage: Post-market surveillance, real-world data, outcome studies, and international expansion support.
From idea to impact: the research cycle
The Hub is structured around the full research and innovation lifecycle. Whatever stage your product or service has reached, we plug in to move it forward with confidence.
1. Discover
We help you size the unmet need, scan the competitive landscape, and identify the evidence gap your product addresses through rapid literature reviews, market mapping, and horizon-scanning.
2. Design
We co-design products with the women who will use them and the clinicians who will recommend them, embedding patient and lay engagement, ethical review, and business model development from the outset.
3. Validate
We design and deliver the studies that establish clinical performance - diagnostic accuracy studies, feasibility trials, biomarker validation, and early real-world data analyses - to the standard required by regulators and commissioners.
4. Evaluate
We run regulatory-grade clinical trials, including Bayesian adaptive and platform designs, through ARU's Clinical Trials Unit and the EVE Network.
5. Translate
We build the regulatory dossiers, health economic models, and value cases that unlock CE/UKCA marking, MHRA approval, NICE evaluation, and NHS procurement.
6. Implement
We support clinical pathway redesign, professional training, and adoption studies that embed your product into routine NHS practice.
7. Measure
We deliver post-market surveillance, big data analyses, and impact evaluation so you can demonstrate sustained outcomes and iterate intelligently.
Why partner with us?
FemTech is one of the fastest-growing segments in global health technology, but it remains structurally under-supported by academic research infrastructure. Most start-ups face the same blockers: limited access to NHS patient populations, a shortage of credible clinical evidence, and a slow, expensive route to regulatory approval and procurement.
Partnering with the ARU FemTech Research Hub removes those blockers. We give FemTech businesses something they cannot build alone – credible, multi-site, NHS-embedded validation – paired with end-to-end translational support that compresses time, cost, and risk across every stage of the product lifecycle.
1. NHS-credible clinical validation
Independent, peer-reviewable evidence that meets the standard required by MHRA, NICE, CE/UKCA notified bodies, and NHS commissioners – the single most powerful lever for regulatory approval, NHS procurement, and Series A investment readiness.
2. Direct access to NHS patient populations
Multi-site recruitment and real-world data through the EVE Clinical Network of seven East of England NHS Trusts, delivered via established research governance pathways and NIHR portfolio adoption.
3. Faster, cheaper regulatory and reimbursement pathways
A regulatory and health economics team that builds your evidence package alongside the science, so MHRA, NICE, and HTA submissions are ready when your product is.
4. Investor-grade scientific credibility
Co-authorship on high-impact, Q1-Q2 publications and an academic reference base that materially strengthens diligence reviews and term-sheet conversations.
5. Matched funding and de-risked R&D
Co-applications on Innovate UK collaborative R&D, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), Horizon Europe, and NIHR calls, plus co-funded PhD studentships and post-doctoral researchers embedded in your business.
6. A national and international network
Introductions to Cambridge University Health Partners, NIHR networks, NHS procurement leads, patient advocacy groups, and an investor and founder community curated through the FemTech Innovation Network.
7. Workspace, incubation, and talent
Co-location and incubation through ARU's ARISE Innovation Hubs, plus a pipeline of clinically literate graduates and post-doctoral researchers ready to join your team.
8. A long-term research partner, not a vendor
We work with FemTech companies from seed stage through scale-up and beyond, building a research relationship that grows with your roadmap and supports successive product iterations and indication expansions.
"Partner with us once, and you gain a permanent academic engine for evidence generation, regulatory readiness, and NHS adoption – purpose-built for women's health innovation."
Dr Bassel H. Al Wattar, FemTech Research Hub Lead
How to contact us
