Landing Pad

Welcome to the Out-There HealthTech Landing Pad for the Northwest.

Three levels of support,
one clear goal

From free exploration to hands-on embedded guidance — choose the level that fits your stage and ambition.

Find out more about the NHS Northwest Landing Pad programme here.

Who It’s For

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Innovation Infrastructure at Scale

The Northwest has invested heavily in physical innovation infrastructure to support healthtech and life sciences businesses. Greater Manchester offers Citylabs and Manchester Science Park (Bruntwood SciTech), Manchester Technology Centre, and HOST Salford. Cheshire and Merseyside is home to Sci-Tech Daresbury — the north of England’s only national science and innovation campus — alongside Liverpool Science Park in the Knowledge Quarter and Alderley Park, the former AstraZeneca R&D headquarters now hosting over 250 life sciences businesses. Lancashire and South Cumbria centres on Lancaster University’s £41 million Health Innovation Campus and the University of Lancashire’s £35 million Engineering Innovation Centre.

Together with neighbouring Cheshire and Warrington, the Liverpool City Region delivers £2 billion of infectious disease R&D annually — the biggest concentration in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. The £800 million Liverpool City Region Life Sciences Investment Zone offers tax site benefits at three locations. Greater Manchester is one of three UK Innovation Accelerator regions, with dedicated funding to translate research into commercial success.

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Three Regions, One Ecosystem

While each of the three NHS regions has its own distinctive strengths and identity, they form part of a single interconnected ecosystem. Many businesses operate across all three, NHS trusts collaborate on regional programmes, and the academic and innovation networks span the whole geography. For healthtech companies considering a UK base, the North West offers the rare combination of scale, specialism, infrastructure, and openness to innovation — at a fraction of the cost of London.

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A Connected Ecosystem

What makes the North West particularly valuable for landing healthtech businesses is the connectivity between its assets. Greater Manchester took control of its £6 billion health and care budget in 2016 — the first English region to do so — giving it a unique ability to make decisions and adopt innovation at pace. Health Innovation Manchester and Health Innovation North West Coast (covering Lancashire, South Cumbria, Cheshire, and Merseyside) are the two regional Health Innovation Networks connecting NHS, academia, and industry. NIHR Commercial Research Delivery Centres in Liverpool and across the wider region bring cutting-edge clinical trials directly to communities. Strong specialist business support — from law firms with dedicated healthtech practices to R&D tax credit consultants and patent attorneys — completes the picture.

The region is also exceptionally well connected. Two international airports (Manchester and Liverpool John Lennon), the West Coast Main Line, and the M6/M62 motorway corridor link the North West to London, Scotland, Ireland, and continental Europe. Operating costs are significantly lower than London and the South East, while the talent pool — drawn from one of the UK’s largest student populations — is deep and growing.

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