Biomedical Catalyst: what 526 funded projects tell you about your chances
The Biomedical Catalyst has funded 526 projects worth £294m since 2016. It is one of the few major Innovate UK programmes still running in recognisable form after the Smart Grants pause, which makes it the default route for UK health and life sciences companies seeking non-dilutive funding. The figures below come from Innovate UK’s published dataset of funded projects, grouped into distinct projects with grant summed across all partners.
Budget against the median, not the maximum
The mean sits £148,000 above the median because a handful of very large awards pull it up. The distribution matters more than either figure:
Two thirds of funded Biomedical Catalyst projects came in under £500,000. Only twelve projects in a decade exceeded £2m. If you are building a budget above £1m you are competing for one of roughly 76 slots across ten years, and the application needs to justify why the work cannot be staged.
Collaboration is worth about a third more
| Project type | Projects | Median grant | Mean grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single applicant | 314 | £347,860 | £522,398 |
| Collaborative | 212 | £468,636 | £614,017 |
Collaborative projects are funded at a median £120,776 higher, around 35% more. That gap is not simply a reflection of larger consortia needing more money: the pattern holds in the mean as well. Roughly 40% of funded Biomedical Catalyst projects involve more than one organisation, so a solo application is the majority route, but the collaborative route is funded more generously.
The strands are not interchangeable
| Competition strand | Projects | Median grant |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 Round 2: Feasibility & Primer Awards | 55 | £441,200 |
| 2023 Round 1: Industry-led R&D | 42 | £424,770 |
| 2022 Round 2: Industry-led R&D | 41 | £469,912 |
| 2024 Round 1: Industry-led R&D | 41 | £360,433 |
| Feasibility competition 2023 | 40 | £99,847 |
| 2022 Round 1: Industry-led R&D | 40 | £428,478 |
| 2020 Round 1: early and late stage awards | 17 | £1,137,712 |
The 2023 feasibility competition funded 40 projects at a median of £99,847. The industry-led R&D rounds in the same period funded at four times that. Picking the wrong strand is not a minor error; it caps your award before an assessor reads a word.
The programme has tightened
Median awards peaked at £1,137,712 in the 2020 round, which ran alongside the pandemic response, and have settled far below that since: £455,476 in 2022, £328,446 in 2023, £360,433 in 2024. Project counts tell the same story from the other direction, rising to 114 funded projects in 2023 before falling to 41 in 2024. More applicants competing for smaller awards is the pattern across most of Innovate UK’s portfolio, and the Biomedical Catalyst is no exception.
What this means for an application
Three things follow from the data. Budget against £350,000 to £470,000 unless you have a specific reason to go higher, because that is where the programme actually funds. Check which strand you are entering before you scope the work, since feasibility and industry-led R&D differ by a factor of four. And consider whether a collaboration strengthens the case, because the funded median for collaborative projects is a third higher and the assessment criteria reward demonstrated access to clinical, manufacturing or regulatory capability that most SMEs do not hold in house.
Method and limitations
Records were grouped by project number and grant values summed across all participants, so a collaborative project counts once at its full value. Projects with zero or missing grant values were excluded. Figures cover awards recorded as at 10 August 2026 and will rise as later rounds are published. Competition naming has changed over the period covered, so competition-level groupings rely on title matching. Values are those offered at the funding decision and may differ from amounts finally drawn. The dataset covers Innovate UK awards only.
Sources: Innovate UK funded projects since 2004, UKRI dataset published 10 August 2026. Analysis by Tatton Consulting, August 2026.
