What can we learn from military healthcare innovation, to accelerate the adoption of new medical technologies in civilian settings?
LightOx is part of NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator (DIANA) programme which provides companies with the resources, networks and guidance to develop cutting-edge technologies to solve critical defence and security challenges.
Through the programme, the LightOx team has travelled to many NATO nations and Ukraine and created a military version of the light-activated wound treatment for use on the battlefield. But what else has the programme revealed about accelerating the pace of medical innovation, in both military and civilian settings?
LightOx CEO, Dr Sam Whitehouse, explains how closer collaboration between military and civilian use cases speed up the adoption of life-saving technologies.
Being part of the DIANA programme has shown us that innovators can work with the military to provide cutting edge solutions in an environment that is constantly changing.
It’s been incredible to see what people are capable of once they understand the constraints of a combat environment, and we’ve been able to adapt our light-activated wound treatment, LXD231, to respond to the real-world challenges soldiers and medics are facing on the front line in places like North and Eastern Ukraine.
Speeding up adoption of new technologies
The programme has taught the LightOx team valuable lessons and given us insights from the military world which can improve the way we develop drugs for civilian use.
For example, let’s think about the speed at which we are able to adopt new medical innovations. There are some incredible technologies out there, but often we don’t see them come to fruition for a number of years because of regulatory hurdles.
We saw during Covid that we are capable of deploying technologies very quickly if we are willing to accept some of the risks involved in new medications. And when working in a military setting, the urgency of the need allows field testing to happen at a faster rate, meaning the speed of innovation is much greater.
That’s not to say that regulation isn’t important, of course we look to maximise the safety of all that we put to market, but the whole process is very slow and incredibly expensive. I think better collaboration between users, innovators and regulators in this case the acceptance of data from both field applications and clinical trials could speed this whole process up.
Integrating funding models
What is evident is that there is a huge crossover between medical technologies developed for use in conflict and those developed for civilian use.
Integrating the funding models behind them, and taking a more cooperative approach, would be a very interesting exercise. Involving the regulators in this could mean that we are able to bring many more technologies to the field and to our hospitals in parallel.
We have also been speaking with the UK Government and have recently visited the House of Commons, to talk with senior defence ministers about some of these possibilities, as well as the Danish and Canadian authorities.
A game-changing impact on civilian medicine
Alongside LXD231, we have seen some really interesting innovations as part of the NATO DIANA programme.
These include a duct tape for bones that removes the need for screws and plates when bones have been fractured. We’ve seen some incredible blood technologies, alongside drugs that are capable of targeting certain bacteria and destroying them.
These are technologies that would have a huge impact on the battlefield, but I think the application in civilian settings could really be game changing.
