Kia ora
Welcome to the HTA November Monthly Wrap!
November brought significant movement across science funding, IP policy, and digital-health infrastructure. HTA also delivered a full month of hands-on workshops to support founders building compliant, evidence-ready and investment-ready products.
National milestones shaping NZ innovation
A new national science-funding board
MBIE has progressed the establishment of Research Funding New Zealand — a single, independent board that will oversee major science and innovation investment decisions.
The shift is designed to streamline processes, improve decision-making, and align national funding with the Science Investment Plan.
NZ$80m in Marsden funding awarded
The 2025 Marsden Fund round allocated NZ$80.3 million to 107 projects spanning health, biotech, foundational science, medical technologies and digital systems.
A strong signal that early-stage and discovery science remains well-supported.
New IP Commercialisation Policy released
A national policy update will reshape how ideas move from research to market. The policy:
- Gives researchers first rights to commercialise their inventions
- Caps university equity in spinouts at 5–10 percent
- Allows inventors to progress independently if their institution opts out
NZ commits NZ$75m to infectious-disease and pandemic platform
A new national platform, hosted by the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science, will boost outbreak readiness, biomedical capability and surge-science response capacity.
Digital health highlights
HealthX expands national pilots
Te Whatu Ora is rolling out HealthX, a nationwide programme piloting digital and AI tools to streamline clinical workflows and improve care. Pilots will run across several sites over the next six months. Te Whatu Ora has also begun consolidating oral-health data, reducing 19 systems to four and preparing for integration into the national health information platform.
Pilot spotlight: AI scribe in emergency departments
Trials in Hawke’s Bay and Whanganui have shown the AI scribe tool can reduce clinician documentation time by around 50 percent and enable clinicians to see, on average, one additional patient per shift. Nationwide rollout is underway with a target of 70 percent adoption by year end.
Resource highlight: Clinical validation
If you are planning early evidence work in 2026, HTA’s Clinical Validation page is a practical starting point. It breaks down each validation stage, outlines early testing methods and provides real examples, case studies and links to key standards.
The page helps founders understand what to do now, what comes later, and how to build evidence that supports design, regulatory progress and clinical adoption.
If your team needs support with market validation, regulatory planning, clinical validation, or investment readiness, the HTA team is here to help. Connect with us here.
