This Woodford-backed startup just raised £10m to bring tech to the NHS

A fund managed by Neil Woodford has ploughed more cash into a tech startup Drayson Technologies as it agreed an innovative deal to help the NHS embrace technology.

Woodford Asset Management has led a £10m investment in Drayson in a series C round, bringing total funding to £36m for the firm founded entrepreneur and former science minister Lord Drayson and spun out of Imperial College's innovation lab.

It started out in the clean technology space but has moved into health technology, partnering with Oxford University and Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust in February to test digital products and services with the aim of rolling them out across the health service.

Now, the trust will take a stake in the company and over the next five years will receive any royalties from the commercialisation of the technology, which was developed by OUH, tested in its biomedical research centre and funded by the National Health Research Centre (NHRC). Drayson put the value of this stake at £5m.

“Chronic disease affects the lives of millions of people as well as accounting for around 70 per cent of NHS costs," said chairman and chief executive Lord Drayson"

"Digital health technologies offer the potential to make a huge difference for these people and save money for the NHS. This highly innovative partnership will ensure that there is a pathway from invention to commercialisation for digital health products created in Oxford that will deliver benefits to patients and reinvestment back into the University and the NHS Trust.”

Woodford's fund has backed Drayson in previous rounds of funding.

It's the latest startup to ink a deal with the NHS, where the application of technology has the potential to save billions of pounds.

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