Enterprise Essentials

Creating an environment that encourages enterprise and innovation

At LSTM, we are committed to translating our research into real world impacts, to improve health outcomes throughout the world.

Our comprehensive support is led by the Enterprise and Innovation directorate and includes expertise on:

Pillar 1: Diversifying and Maximising Investment

Fostering collaborations with industry stakeholders, bringing in diverse grant funding, management and exploitation of LSTM Intellectual Property (IP). We actively manage and develop LSTM’s IP portfolio to create revenue through licensing and spin-outs, ensuring resources focus on high-impact innovations while enabling our Global Access Policy to support LMIC-focused technologies.

Pillar 2: Accelerating Interventions for Infectious Disease

Reducing barriers to market access, and mapping out market access strategy for LSTM research assets in order to ensure faster deployment of research outputs and maximizing impact.

Pillar 3: Pioneering and Adopting Innovation

Driving Business Development and contract research/ consultancy to ensure that LSTM builds visibility and a reputation for pioneering and supporting the adoption of innovation.

Pillar 4: Driving Global Access and Innovation Capacity Strengthening

Supporting LSTM research activity to maximize impact through market intelligence, strengthening local capacity for innovation, and developing market access routes. LSTM will strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship capacity in Africa and LMICs by advancing technology transfer, workforce development, and IP training.

By equipping partners with the skills to manage, protect, and commercialise innovation, we will accelerate public health interventions to market, expand economic impact, and align with the African Union 2063 Agenda and the UN SDGs. Our focus on inclusive training and mentorship, particularly for women and underrepresented groups, will foster sustainable health and life sciences ecosystems that are driven by in-country expertise and reduce reliance on external donors.

Capacity strengthening in innovation

LSTM’s Enterprise and Innovation team strengthens innovation capacity to ensure health research is translated into policy, practice, and new health tools such as drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics.

By supporting research staff, early-career researchers, PhDs, postdocs, and professional services colleagues, we build workforce skills, enhance market intelligence, and create market access pathways with LMIC partners through our Global Hub Council, directly advancing LSTM’s mission and maximising the global impact of our research.

Why is this important?

Across LSTM and across partnering communities and research centers, the translation of research into implemented health innovations is often constrained by weak regulation, fragmented industry, limited market access, and minimal market intelligence.

Building this capacity fosters self-sustaining, connected, and impact-driven health innovation ecosystems, empowering LSTM and its partners to define and deliver on their own health priorities while advancing our mission to improve health outcomes in disadvantaged populations globally through partnership in research and education.

Leading institutional projects

We are leading several institutional projects in collaboration with a wide network of partners across the quadruple helix (academe, government, industry, and nonprofits) that seeks to develop and strengthen innovation, research commercialisation and translation into tangible impact.

iiCon

Established in 2020, the Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON) represents a transformative partnership bringing together industry, academia, and the NHS to accelerate the discovery and development of life-saving treatments, diagnostics, vaccines, and preventative products for infectious diseases. Led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and based in the North West of England, iiCON unites world-class partners including Unilever, LifeArc, Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust, University of Liverpool, Evotec, and Infex Therapeutics in a shared mission to save lives globally.

As the lead institution, LSTM provides the strategic vision and coordination for iiCON’s ambitious goals, drawing on its 125-year heritage in tropical medicine and infectious disease research. This leadership position strengthens LSTM’s role as a global hub for infection innovation, enabling the institution to leverage its deep expertise in neglected tropical diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and global health challenges while fostering meaningful collaborations between academic excellence and commercial innovation.

iiCON’s collaborative model delivers tangible benefits by supporting companies of all sizes through eleven specialist research platforms that span the entire innovation journey from early-stage concept development to clinical trials and market adoption. By enabling access to world-leading expertise and facilities across Technology Readiness Levels 1-9, the consortium accelerates the path from laboratory discovery to patient impact, helping bring new treatments to underserved communities more quickly, safely, and affordably while creating significant social value both locally in the North West and globally.

Framework for Leveraging Innovation in Global Health Technologies (FLIGHT)

In recognition of the challenges in developing new products for public health, and infectious diseases specifically, FLIGHT seeks to develop an Innovation and Enterprise Framework for commercialising, accelerating and converting translational research into products and treatments that can be used by public health systems.

Filling gaps in product development, regulatory navigation and market access, FLIGHT will build on the collective expertise in health innovation and the deployment pipeline among partners and rapidly identify, develop and secure opportunities for IP creation and licensing to the commercial sector.

The two-year project also seeks to develop a model of best practice of engaging the NHS and global health system providers, using the success of LSTM-led iiCON as an example of innovation and leveraging collaboration between HEIs and business partners. FLIGHT will benchmark with international comparators and provide recommendations for ecosystem strengthening in low-to-middle-income countries.

Sustainable Innovation in Global Health Technology (SIGHT)

The Sustainable Innovation in Global Health Technology (SIGHT) project brings together the infectious disease and public health resources and expertise of three specialist higher education providers (HEPs): Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Brighton and Sussex Medical School.

In collaboration with Oxentia, LYVA Labs, and iiCON, SIGHT aims to develop and pilot a shared technology transfer office and venture-building model that will unlock the economic and public health benefits from the combined R&D portfolios of these 3 HEPs, overcoming the limitations of traditional technology transfer office models in effectively translating global health research into sustainable and impactful interventions.

Malawian Innovators in Global Health Technologies (MIGHT)

The Malawian Innovators in Global Health Technologies (MIGHT) programme is a 12-month mentorship initiative (August 2024 to August 2025) designed to support public health and infectious disease innovators in Malawi. It offers tailored advisory support and capacity-building resources to assist apprentices in their innovation, entrepreneurship, and commercialisation journeys, starting at varying technological readiness levels (TRLs).

This pilot programme also aims to generate valuable insights into the capacity-building gaps and needs of public health and infectious disease innovators within Malawi’s innovation ecosystem.

Mentoring and training

At LSTM, we believe that research should not only advance knowledge but also transform lives and society. To facilitate this, we provide training that equips academics and innovators with the tools to extend the reach and relevance of their work beyond academia.

Our support has included training in:

• Translating global health research into policy, practice, and innovation.
• Building sustainable partnerships with governments, NGOs, industry, and communities.
• Navigating intellectual property, spinouts, and commercialisation pathways.
• Accessing funding streams that support translational research and enterprise.

Collaborate with us

Do you have an idea but don’t know where to start, or how to navigate the innovation landscape? We can help you to understand what you need to do next, to give practical suggestions and guide you through the best route to maximise your intellectual property. Contact us at enterprise&innovation@lstmed.ac.uk.