Andreia Trigo, founder of Enhanced Fertility Programme (EFP) and former member of our SimDH programme has won the Innovate UK: Women in Innovation Award. Announced on International Women’s Day (8 March) 2022, the award provides Andreia with £50,000 in funding.
Andreia, a former nurse, was a member of SimDH throughout 2018 - 2019. Through the programme, she accessed business support, attended workshops, and collaborated with London South Bank University. This delivered her Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in 2019.
“I spent that whole Summer of 2018 at SimDH, attending all the classes, learning about business, marketing, social media etc. and getting mentoring. Towards the end of the programme, I worked with a team of lecturers at LSBU who did research on our MVP. These lecturers led the research, ran the interviews, analysed the data and we gained a lot of insight on how people learn about fertility online …. A lot of those recommendations [we now provide to clients] are related to the education package we built as a result of the SimDH research.” – Andreia Trigo
EFP provides holistic support to people who are trying to conceive, aiming to “improve global accessibility to personalised fertility care, at minimal cost”.. They provide access to home hormone testing, and an assessment of possible factors affecting fertility. Information and fertility plans, collated by AI, can be shared with healthcare workers. The funding from Innovate UK will further develop this AI software, making personalised fertility medicines faster to prescribe. Andreia is removing the barriers to patients unlocking their own health care.
Research conducted by SBI showed some participants refer to issues with fertility as “taboo”. Others were experiencing feelings of vulnerability when broaching the topic. Given 1 in 6 couples will face infertility, putting information in the hands of the people, and the doctors supporting them, is essential.
Alex Hokin, Senior Project Coordinator for SimDH, comments:
“Andreia brings the medical and economic benefits of digital healthcare to infertility. Research shows that smart data contributes to improving decision-making quality. AI could also re-balance healthcare workloads, providing them more time to connect with patients. We’re proud of the success Andreia has gone on to find, and glad she is recognised as one the UK’s top innovators.”
Do you want to benefit from our expertise, facilities or industry connections? We can help accelerate your healthcare or wellbeing tech innovation forward. Join our waitlist and be part of the next SimDH cohort, launching in Summer 2022.
