DASA Competition: Novel Technology for Intervening in Non-Compressible Haemorrhage

Funding for novel innovations that intervene to stop non-compressible bleeding.

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is part of the UK Government’s Ministry of Defence. The Accelerator helps public and private innovators develop their ideas into exploitable products and services for defence and security customers, and experiments with novel methodology and innovative approaches to facilitate accelerating delivery of the best solutions.

DASA is running this competition on behalf of Defence Medical Services (DMS) and UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) to seek novel interventions starting at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2-4 for Non-Compressible Haemorrhage (NCH) for use prehospital in both combat and civilian settings. Products can progress as far as feasible within the timeframe of the project, and are expected to progress by one or more TRLs by project end.

The competition seeks engineering technology-driven, design-led solutions aimed at device-enabled control of haemorrhage. Technologies are specifically sought that focus on identifying and stopping the bleed. NCH solutions must be deployable close to the point of injury and usable by non-physician medical providers in both combat and civilian settings. A dual-use civilian application of the equipment should therefore also be considered in the proposal.

Solutions are encouraged that exploit and integrate existing technologies or approaches used or developed in non-healthcare sectors that could be re-oriented for the NCH challenge. The competition also welcomes novel proposals that can readily translate contemporary unimplementable in-hospital solutions for use in the unique operating environment of the pre-hospital, pre-physician domain, close to point of injury. Submissions are particularly welcomed that will bring together applicants from disparate disciplines and sectors to develop novel devices.

Proposals can be focussed around a type or anatomical zone of NCH and do not have to be designed for use against all NCH varieties, though proposals that can address more than one type of NCH (eg abdominal and thoracic bleeding) are welcomed.