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 across the world.

Our support is led by the Enterprise and Innovation Unit and is built around four pillars:

Pillar 1: Diversifying and maximising investment

Fostering collaborations with industry stakeholders, bringing in diverse grant funding, management 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 to ensure faster deployment of research outputs and maximising 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 maximise 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 Unit 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, postdoctoral researchers, and professional services colleagues, we build workforce skills, enhance market intelligence, and create market access pathways with LMIC partners.

Why is this important?

Across LSTM and across partnering communities and research centres, the translation of research into 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 (academia, government, industry, and nonprofits) that seeks to develop and strengthen innovation, research commercialisation and translation into tangible impact.

Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON)

iiCON is a world leading centre for infection innovation and R&D – working with industry, academics, and clinicians to save and improve lives around the world by supporting innovation and progressing the development of antimicrobial products and treatments.

iiCON is led by Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, with core partners: Unilever, Infex Therapeutics, Evotec, Life Arc, the University of Liverpool, Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Medicines for Malaria Venture.

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): LSTM, 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

We believe 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

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