Two opportunities to shape the future of care in two important areas from Innovate UK Business Connect

Events, Conferences and Webinars
05 Dec 2025

Find out more about our events on early cancer diagnosis and reducing the diagnosis time for endometriosis below.

Early cancer diagnosis sandpits

Expression of interest deadline: 15th December 2025

Do you have a cancer detection or diagnostic idea?

Are you interested in participating in or informing the development of innovative approaches through collaborative R&D?

Then join us in London for one of three cross-disciplinary collaborative sandpits focused on driving the early detection and diagnosis of cancer.

The Cancer Healthcare Goals, delivered as one of the Office for Life Sciences’ Healthcare Goals programmes, is aiming to incentivise the development of innovations that will improve early diagnosis rates for cancer patients. Each sandpit will have a different theme, guided by demand within the NHS to ensure that the events encourage participants to address the most pressing issues in the early diagnosis of cancer.

These sandpits aim to bring participants together to form cross-sector consortia ahead of the anticipated launch of an early cancer diagnosis funding call (subject to Business Case approval), potentially covering the evaluation of early cancer diagnosis innovations, including for the detection of less common cancers.

Who is this for?
We are looking for representatives from:

  • academia
  • the NHS (including clinicians)
  • innovators (SMEs)
  • cancer research charities and third sector organisations
  • investors
  • funding bodies

 

Dates and topics are:

15 Jan 2026: Early detection of less common cancers
Help develop innovative technologies to tackle the most pressing challenges in driving earlier diagnosis of less common cancers, including but not limited to brain, gynaecological, sarcoma, haematological and hepato-pancreato-biliary cancers.

22 Jan 2026: Improving patient access to diagnostic tests
This sandpit will guide you to collaborate widely and explore innovative solutions to empower patients and primary care teams to act earlier and identify more people with early symptoms while balancing the risks of over-referral and overwhelming services. Themes will include novel tests and technologies and health systems and pathways research, including (but not limited to) self-assessment tools, pharmacy-led triage, and direct-to-test pathways.

12 Feb 2026: Multi-factorial testing for early cancer detection
Aiming to increase the number of cancers diagnosed in the earliest stages, this sandpit will focus on multi-modal approaches to early detection, assessing an individual’s cancer risk by considering multiple factors including genomic, demographic, imaging and biomarkers, as well as multianalyte combinations.

You may express your interest to attend one or more events.

FIND OUT MORE AND EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST HERE - deadline 15th December

Endometriosis hackathons
Expression of interest deadline: 16th December 2025

23 Jan 2026 – Glasgow. Focus: Endometriosis and presentation of painful periods.
 

3 Feb 2026 – Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, London. Focus: Endometriosis.

Do you have an idea that could help reduce the diagnosis time for endometriosis from over seven years to one?

We are looking for businesses with innovative concepts or ideas that have the potential to evolve into clinically credible, commercially viable and system-ready solutions for accelerating endometriosis diagnosis and treatment.

Why endometriosis?
The current time for a diagnosis in the UK averages eight years 10 months in England and Scotland, and almost 12 years in Northern Ireland and Wales.

An estimated 190 million women worldwide are affected by endometriosis, making it a major unmet need. In the UK alone, the economic impact is over £8.2 billion annually in lost productivity, healthcare costs and social impact.

Is this for you?
If you are one of the following, then yes!

  • Health SMEs. You must have an idea/concept, as you will lead breakout sessions
  • Other tech innovators, creative industry and user experience (UX) designers. You will provide expert insight, ideas and a different perspective
  • Clinicians e.g. GPs, gynaecologist, radiologists, nurses
  • Patients
  • Academics, including health economists and behavioural scientists
  • Others interested in this area who can contribute

 

You may express your interest to attend one or both events.

FIND OUT MORE AND EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST HERE - deadline 16th December