Health Innovation Yorkshire Signs US Partnership with BioSTL

Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber signs a transatlantic collaboration with BioSTL in St Louis, Missouri, giving Yorkshire health tech companies access to US investors, healthcare buyers, and a $520 billion health ecosystem

Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber has signed a first-of-its-kind transatlantic partnership with BioSTL, the nonprofit organisation at the centre of St Louis, Missouri’s bio-innovation ecosystem. The collaboration gives Yorkshire health tech companies a formal framework for accessing US investors, industry partners, healthcare buyers, and research institutions. A delegation from BioSTL, Washington University, and St Louis Mercy Health visited Leeds last week, spending a day meeting NHS, industry, and academic partners before joining a masterclass on the Propel Healthtech scaleup programme — delivered by Health Innovation Yorkshire and Humber and funded by West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Joint initiatives including delegations and knowledge exchange are planned to help Yorkshire innovators compete internationally.

Why This Matters For Leeds

For Leeds’ health innovation companies, this partnership opens a structured route into the US healthcare market. The Propel Healthtech programme, which the BioSTL delegates attended in Leeds, is already supporting health tech companies from Nexus. This partnership extends that runway from Yorkshire to Missouri.

What the Partnership Offers Yorkshire Companies

The collaboration creates a formal framework giving innovators from Yorkshire and the Humber access to BioSTL’s network of investors, industry partners, healthcare providers, and research institutions. The focus is on practical support: market entry, mentorship, investor readiness, and connections to US healthcare buyers. Richard Stubbs, chief executive of the organisation, said collaborating internationally helps bring the best global innovation into Yorkshire faster while supporting local companies to expand into new markets like St Louis and the wider US system. He described the cultural, geographical, and economic similarities between Yorkshire and St Louis as fascinating. BioSTL’s Vijay Chauhan said both regions are punching above their weight and the collaboration can take the work happening now to the next level.

“We are both regions that are punching way above our weight and we really believe that the wonderful work that’s happening right now can be taken to the next level through this collaboration. Richard and team are actually way ahead of us with the ten years of wonderful, trustful convening that’s been going on with the mayoral combined authorities.”

— Vijay Chauhan, Global Lead, BioSTL

From Propel Healthtech to the US Market

The BioSTL delegation’s visit to the Propel Healthtech masterclass in Leeds underlines the connection between local scale-up support and international market access. Propel Healthtech, based at Nexus at the University of Leeds and funded by WYCA, already helps health tech companies develop, validate, and scale their products. The BioSTL partnership adds a US dimension to that pipeline. St Louis is a significant life sciences hub: Washington University is the top recipient of federal research funding from the National Institutes of Health, and startups in the region developed the world’s first blood test for Alzheimer’s disease and a new CAR-T cancer treatment. Chauhan said the idea started a year ago when he and Stubbs met at NHS ConfedExpo in 2025, and the collaboration has evolved from a test-drive into a formal agreement. BioSTL also signed collaboration agreements with Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex and Health Innovation Network South London in the same week.