Member Feature: PCL Health

To mark International Women’s Day this month, we’re featuring some of the female-lead startups and individuals in our digitalhealth community making a difference in health and care!

Meet Deepti Atrish, Founder & CEO of remote patient monitoring and health analytics ecosystem, PCL Health.

Deepti Atrish is the CEO and Founder of PCL Health (also known as Poonyah Care Ltd). She is a self-made women and has risen to the top as a serial technology entrepreneur with over 20 years experience managing a digital agency and has founded two start-ups. She was the winner of Top 100 Asian TechStars, a finalist for Tech Leaders Awards and shortlisted for Tech Women 100 UK, 2019. PCL Health was also the winner of the 2019 Innovation Showcase at Healthcare Unblocked.

Her entrepreneurial journey was not easy, surpassing all the challenges she has emerged victorious with the launch of Poonyah, a solution for the physical and mental well being of the older adults. Poonyah in Hindi means ‘good karma’.

Deepti reveals the deep motivator and personal qualities that drove her to make her big idea into a reality. She had been living in the UK for more than two decades but wanted to be able to keep tabs on the health of her elderly mother who lives in India. She developed the idea of creating a connected care solution by using an ecosystem of wearable and IoT devices/sensors that captures health vital signs, physiological data and wellbeing updates and warns family members if there are any alerts. She created a feature called the circle of care for a person who needs to be monitored.

The idea is to give all the members of circle of care greater visibility and control to take care of their loved ones in a seamless manner. PCL’s solution also helps in identifying early warning signs if anything unusual happens and helps in proactively managing health. Health measurements are sent to a digital dashboard in real-time which can be interpreted by a medical professional and viewed on a mobile phone app. It would help reassure her at peace of mind – and thus the idea of Poonyah was born.

While a lot of lives were lost due to the public health crisis sparked by the arrival of Covid19, we can see that remote care is not just desirable but essential. PCL Health’s solution empowers patients, carers and family to help monitor their own health. Such a solution reduces worry and, even more importantly, reduces the risks of our relatives becoming unwell without us knowing, so helping people lead longer, more independent and healthier lives. 

PCL Health has created a truly connected care ecosystem. Their elderly-customised tablets are fully integrated with wearable and IoT medical devices making it easy to seamlessly send the medical data, make calls, exchange images and receive reminders from carers, relatives or clinicians. Senior citizens and their families enjoy greater peace of mind knowing that someone is proactively monitoring their health remotely and keeping an eye on early signs of deterioration.

PCL Health is enhancing their value proposition by integrating Machine Learning and AI into their systems to convert big data into meaningful analysis for healthy aging. Their ambition is to become a key player in the Health and Wellbeing industry.

With the increasing attention on this sector, we are looking for strategic partners to grow rapidly. Please feel free to contact us if you see a synergy in working together.

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Words: PCL Health

PCL Health was born out of Health Foundry in 2018, working on innovations leading to longer, healthier and happier lives. To find out more about the company, products and technology, connect with Deepti here or head over to their website here.

Member Feature: Easy Bites app

To mark International Women’s Day this month, we’re featuring some of the female-lead startups and individuals in our digitalhealth community making a difference in health and care!

First up is one of our newest members, Natalia Stasenko; founder of child feeding app Easy Bites.

Easy Bites app is the google maps of nutritional apps, guiding parents comfortably through the mealtime nutritional and behavioural needs for children whilst avoiding the painful pitfalls that too many parents fall victim to. The outcome reduces anxiety for parents, children and moreover reduces budgets, time and effort for the NHS and its staff.

Easy Bites app is designed to completely remove the guesswork from a busy parent's mealtime routine while steering them towards the research-driven responsive feeding approach currently recommended by top health authorities worldwide. It has been shown to help kids eat better, self regulate their energy intake and have a better relationship with food.

Our founder Natalia is a registered dietitian in the UK and US and she knows first hand about the challenges of feeding kids. Her first born was a very selective eater as a toddler and she was a reason Natalia changed her career and became a paediatric dietitian. She wanted to learn all there is to the art and science of feeding kids. For the last 10 years, Natalia has been working with families, government agencies and brands in the US and UK, building her expertise in the field of feeding kids.

Easy Bites app was created by a team of researchers, dieticians, occupational therapists and child feeding psychologists. Our goal is to help close the healthcare gap by providing fast, accessible and effective child feeding support, as well as training for front-line health care professionals.

The current functionality of the app allows parents to get the following support:

Daily Tips: Delivered daily are super valuable and actionable steps helping parents and caregivers integrate the responsive feeding approach in simple steps. Each daily tip points the parent to in-depth lessons and content on the topic. Parents can then dive into a well of information where they can browse, search, filter and save their favourite topics and content.

Weekly videos: Each week, we add a new video on easy and creative ways to introduce new food to children. New foods can be incredibly intimidating for kids and our weekly videos each video is connected to the recipes that feature the food.

Recipes: Parents will also find a library of wonderfully visual family recipes, categorised and easy to access and follow step by step.

We plan to continue customising the app experience for each family based on their nutritional, cultural and health requirements, optimising user experience, and adding more video content. We also intend to integrate the app with a meal planning module to allow parents to select meals and snacks they want to prepare and print out shopping lists.

Supporting health professionals is also one of our goals and we are working on creating materials to help in their work with families.

Our mission at Easy Bites is to reduce the parental mental load associated with feeding kids and raise a generation of confident and happy eaters. Feeding can be the most challenging part of parenting and we at Easy Bites aim to change that!

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We're really excited to have Natalia and Easy Bites app join our community this month. Find out more about Easy Bites here.

Health Foundry Newsletter: March 2022

Happy International Women’s Day

Happy March members and friends! It's International Women's Day; a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women!

This month, we're highlighting all the amazing women doing amazing things in our healthtech community.

Follow the link to read this month's special IWD features on some of the female-lead startups in our community, including child feeding app Easy Bites and health & life sciences networking platform Bionabu.

We're also excited to announce our next Female Founders Network meet-ups following the success of our Introductory Breakfast!

We're constantly exploring ways in which we can diversify our community, if you're interested in joining us in conversations and action, don't hesitate to get in touch.

How R&D Tax Credits fuel MedTech innovation in the UK

Our Community Supporters Claim Capital discuss the R&D Tax Credits scheme, how it works, and how it enables MedTech SMEs to scale-up, faster.

As Health Foundry members, you’ll know that the UK is home to a thriving healthcare industry. In fact, you’ll likely be contributing to its success!

Our nation’s influence on global healthcare is driven by the MedTech we produce, which partners medical intervention with tech advancements to help people live healthier, happier lives.

The UK’s MedTech sector - generating an annual turnover of around £22 billion each year - is rooted in a strong foundation of startups and SMEs.

To support the research and development teams who aren’t afraid to face up to the trial-and-error nature of innovation, the UK government implemented a scheme that offers annual financial support.

This initiative is known as R&D Tax Credits.

What are R&D Tax Credits?

R&D Tax Credits were implemented over 20 years ago, to offer financial reward for innovation that’s previously taken place.

R&D Tax Credits allow startups and SMEs the chance to claim back up to 33% of the capital that they’ve spent on research and development over the past financial year.

It’s important to note that a company’s industry doesn’t determine eligibility for the R&D Tax Credit scheme. The only requisite is that a project involves undertaking activities that introduce new products and services, or improve existing offerings.

Needless to say, reclaiming up to 33% of R&D spending opens the door for game-changing re-investment for your MedTech startup. Better yet, every penny you receive through R&D Tax Credits is guaranteed upon approval, non-dilutive and non-repayable!

That’s right, you can access funds without racking up interest or sacrificing equity, with none of the pain that comes with sourcing external investment.

The R&D Tax Credit scheme branches into two avenues. The first, and more popular scheme is the SME Scheme. This route is aimed at companies with:

• Less than 500 employees;

• Less than $86M in gross assets;

• Less than $100M in turnover.

Within this, your business’ financial position at the time of filing determines how much money you’re entitled to claim back.

Loss-making companies are entitled to claim 33% of total R&D eligible costs, which is paid directly, in cash, into your bank account.

On the other hand, profit-making companies can claim up to 25% of total R&D eligible costs, this time in the form of a tax credit.

Exceeding the metrics of the SME Scheme makes you eligible for the RDEC Scheme, which allows 13% of R&D costs to be reclaimed (subject to corporation tax).

Let’s run through an example of how R&D Tax Credits can work for MedTech innovation:

You’re in the early stages of developing an app that connects users with on-demand counselling from licensed mental health practitioners.

You’ve spent £130k over the past financial year on research and development, and you’re not yet turning over profit. By filing an R&D Tax Credit claim, you could receive a cash sum of £42,900.

This is exactly the boost your business needed to grow, scale, and start profiting.

Maximise R&D Tax Credits with Claim Capital

If you’re new to R&D Tax Credits, that’s a lot of information to take in. Fortunately, you don’t need to delve into the fine print. That’s what we’re here for!

Our R&D Tax Specialists at Claim Capital have over 20 years of combined experience in delivering successful and maximised R&D Tax Credit claims.

We provide an end-to-end service that takes on the entire R&D Tax Credit process, from analysing eligible spending and formulating financial & technical reports, to completing and submitting claims to HMRC.

Some R&D Advisors charge hefty fees of up to 20% of your claim size.

Others might demand upfront fees, only to have your claim rejected by HMRC.

Claim Capital believes in shared success, which is why we operate a cost-effective fixed fee - that’s only paid once your claim is received.

R&D Tax Credits fuel MedTech innovation

All sectors of R&D require a lot of hard work and perseverance. But the legislation regulations, and clinical trials involved in Medtech R&D make this journey a particularly lengthy one.

With the average claim for Medtech companies reaching £68,000 per year - R&D Tax Credits provide a springboard for UK healthcare innovation. And considering significant industry advancements, claim values are only expected to rise.

In 2019-2020, 82,950 businesses raised capital through R&D Tax Credits.

If you haven’t already, why not join them?

As a proud partner of Health Foundry, we’ll be sticking around to help you get the most out of R&D tax relief, year after year.

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Words: Claim Capital

If you’re a Health Foundry member and you want to explore claiming R&D Tax Credits for the first time, or are unhappy with your existing provider, why not book in a free consultation with our R&D Tax expert and Health Foundry Community Supporter - Sophie Scoular? Get in touch with the Health Foundry team here for more information.

Healthcare Dragons' Den

Pitch your healthcare business to a panel of experts and peers for a chance to win consulting time worth up to $20,000.

Are you a healthcare entrepreneur helping accelerate new and better forms of treatment? Would you like some valuable feedback on your healthtech product or service from experts, investors and peers?

Join us online for a Healthcare Dragon's Den, presented by one of our members Bionabu and in association with Equity Match.

Innovative healthcare, biotech and healthtech start-ups will get the opportunity to pitch their offering online to a panel of experts, investors and peers, for a chance to win a package of consultancy, training, mentoring, and introductions, valued at over $20,000.

If you're looking to launch a digital heath tool, or if you work in BioPharma and want to collaborate with peers in a secure community of experts, this is the event for you!

Applications to pitch must be received on or before midnight GMT on Sunday 20 February 2022 at info@bionabu.com.

Interested in healthcare innovations? Book your free place here to watch online.