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NIHProf Mike Lewis — no licensed photograph is available, so the regulator plate is shown instead.

Regulator

Prof Mike Lewis

Scientific Director for Innovation; Director of the Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)

National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is based in Twickenham — the organisation’s base, not a personal address.

Press citations

2

Topic

1

Hospital discharge / bed-blocking

Last quoted

Aug 2026

Prof Mike Lewis: key facts

Kind of voice
Regulator
Role
Scientific Director for Innovation; Director of the Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme
Organisation
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
Organisation based in
Twickenham
Quoted on
Hospital discharge / bed-blocking
Tracked press citations
2
Most recently quoted
27 Aug 2026

Who Prof Mike Lewis is

Professor Mike Lewis serves on the NIHR Board as Scientific Director for Innovation and is Director of the Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme and the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI), the industry-focused research arms of NIHR and NHS England respectively. He is also Professor of Life Science Innovation at the University of Birmingham, with research focusing on engineering biology, genomics, robotics, AI, quantum, sensors, clinical trials, and wearables. He has an extensive industrial background in life sciences and digital innovation, having previously held senior roles at Boston Scientific, Becton Dickinson, C.R. Bard, and other major medtech companies, and served as President of Gambro in a £3bn public-to-private buyout. He sits on the NIHR Board and advises the Department of Health and Social Care alongside three other Scientific Directors. Lewis is a prominent advocate for accelerating the pace of health innovation funding and for deepening collaboration between NIHR, the NHS, and the pharma and biotech industries.

“If this NIHR-funded trial of Dialive is successful, it will bring dramatic benefits for patients, providing a treatment for ACLF that will save lives and reduce hospital stay.”

References for this biography

  1. 1.Professor Mike Lewis | NIHR — Current role titles, University of Birmingham professorship, industry background, board memberships including SNOMED and Birmingham Health Partners
  2. 2.Four Scientific Directors to join new NIHR Board | NIHR — Appointment as Scientific Director for Innovation on the NIHR Board (August 2024), role description as bridgehead between industry and NIHR
  3. 3.Clinical research in the UK must build on industry collaboration, says NIHR director – Pharmaceutical Technology — Press coverage of Lewis's views on industry-NHS collaboration, UK clinical research standing, and partnerships with Moderna and BioNTech
  4. 4.FAST innovation to improve the health and wealth of the nation | NIHR — Outcome of the FAST pilot grant scheme: over £1 million awarded across 25 projects
  5. 5.Our governance | NIHR — Confirms Lewis's dual role as Director of the i4i Programme and Scientific Director for Innovation on the NIHR Board
  6. 6.Contact us | NIHR RDN — NIHR press office contact details (email and phone)
  7. 7.Policy Research | NIHR — NIHR head office address: Grange House, 15 Church Street, Twickenham TW1 3NL

Notable achievements

  • Appointed to the NIHR Board as Scientific Director for Innovation in August 2024, one of four new Scientific Directors tasked with advising the Department of Health and Social Care. Source ↗
  • Launched the pilot FAST (Funding At the Speed of Translation) grant scheme under the i4i programme, awarding over £1 million across 25 diverse projects in its first round. Source ↗
  • Negotiated and supported major industry partnership deals for NIHR, including with Moderna (who agreed to build a UK manufacturing site) and BioNTech. Source ↗

What Prof Mike Lewis has said

Where Prof Mike Lewis has been quoted

  1. NHS to trial potentially life-saving treatment for deadly liver diseasetheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026
  2. London neurosurgeons perform first successful AI-assisted operation to remove brain tumourtheguardian.com · 27 Aug 2026

Related media coverage

Recent UK press coverage of their topics — not necessarily citing them directly.

Contact & links

Organisational contact points only, each taken from a page the organisation publishes itself. No personal or direct contact details are held or shown.

Named officials of regulators, arms-length bodies and public agencies such as the CQC, NHS England or a local authority association. Citations are counted by an automated scan of UK press coverage and may be incomplete. Roles, biographies and contact details are researched and human-reviewed before they appear here; anything not yet reviewed is simply absent rather than shown unverified. This profile was last updated on 5 Oct 2026. See the methodology for how this page is built, or email contact@bridgeheadcommunications.com to correct anything on it.