Pfizer has announced the three winning startups it has selected to participate in the second year of Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London, a foster program for innovative startups able to demonstrate clear benefits to patients or clinicians.

Medopad, an app platform for patients to log and share data during clinical trials or care; Inhealthcare, a remote patient monitoring company; and Perfect Ward, an app-based tool that helps conduct and report healthcare inspecting results, were chosen as recipients of the grant. Each will receive a share of the roughly $70,000 (£ 50,000) grant alongside a year of support and access to Pfizer’s regional partners, which includes the National Health Service.

“The Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London is an initiative designed to bring companies working in digital healthcare together with the experience and expertise of Pfizer’s UK and global network,” Dr. Hamish Graham, manager of Pfizer Healthcare Hub London, told MobiHealthNews in an email. “The challenge for health tech start-ups in healthcare is that there is often a much longer lead time to sustainable adoption than in other digital spaces. Winners of a competitive grant process — the first of which took place in 2017 — will get the tailored support they need to move their ideas forward — including access to knowledge and expertise of the UK’s complex health network.”

Each of the grant winners have products or services that are ready for use, were chosen by the program’s judges based on the impact they could bring to the UK’s healthcare system.

For instance, Graham noted that the judges were particularly impressed by Medopad’s focus on “transforming patients’ lives through innovative solutions to real health problems.” Perfect Ward made its case by “addressing an unmet need in an innovative and pioneering way,” he said, while Inhealthcare delivered a convincing pitch on its capability to better support patients and providers and improve outcomes.

Bryn Sage, chief executive of Inhealthcare, said, “It’s fantastic to be working with the Pfizer Healthcare Hub: London. We really value the extra support and guidance to help us to build on our achievements to date. We’re passionate about keeping people out of hospital; scaling our technology will help us to transform the health and care service and allow more people to be cared for on-the-go.”

Winners of the previous year’s grant competition included: Cera, a company that coordinates on-demand in-home care; Echo, maker of a medication management and resupply app that recently raised $9.3 million in additional funding; and GiveVision, which makes a specialized headset that can easily magnify or adjust visuals for those with sight impairments.