National Healthcare Photonics Centre Opens in UK

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in the U.K. has officially opened its state-of-the-art facility that will help develop next-generation light-based health care treatments.

Based at NETPark in Sedgefield, England, the National Healthcare Photonics Centre will support the advancement and commercialization of MedTech products and provide a hub for businesses and academic partners to work on imaging systems, innovative methods of diagnosing disease, and light-based treatment.

The two-story building encompasses more than 6500 sq ft and includes a suite of specialist laboratories for optical system development and testing. The facility also includes space for laser system applications development, biomaterials handling and testing, ionizing radiation imaging and testing, 3D printing, and electronics development and pilot manufacturing work.

In addition, the center features client office space to enable companies to locate onsite and work on projects alongside CPI staff. The infrastructure was created to enable businesses to drive forward innovative products and services at reduced risk and with increased capital efficiencies, and to encourage large companies to undertake more disruptive innovation in the health care market.

According to CPI, the National Healthcare Photonics Centre will provide facilities and expertise to help companies of all sizes develop their photonics-based technologies for health care, with an infrastructure to deliver prototyping, scale-up, and validation of medical devices at the required quality and consistency to feed into clinical validation studies.

The project officially broke ground on Nov. 10, 2017. The new center received initial funding from the North East Local Enterprise Partnership as part of the North East Growth Deal from the government.