Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI) has announced the winners of the HIHI Clinical Innovation Awards 2026, with Emily Naylor Jones and Andrew Maxwell receiving this year’s top honours.

The HIHI Clinical Innovation Awards is a national competitive funding programme that supports healthcare professionals in Ireland to develop, evaluate and advance clinically driven innovations with strong commercial potential. The programme is a joint government initiative delivered by Health Innovation Hub Ireland and supported by the Department of Health and Enterprise Ireland.

Led by Health Innovation Hub Ireland, the programme invites applications from clinicians and healthcare staff with high-potential product innovations. Its objective is to identify and support products with significant commercial potential. Applications are shortlisted by HIHI, while the final winners are selected by Enterprise Ireland.

As part of the award, winners receive an Enterprise Ireland €15,000 Commercial Feasibility Fund (CFF) award and are offered a place on the prestigious NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme (CEP), funded by the Department of Health.
Emily Naylor is a critical care nurse and healthcare innovator with 18+ years of experience in clinical research, education, and quality improvement in clinical research, education and quality improvement. She is co-founder and Commercial Lead of NOVAPmedical, an Irish MedTech startup developing a novel endotracheal tube to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), a common and costly infection in intensive care units. 

NOVAPmedical aims to reduce biofilm build-up and micro-aspiration associated with mechanical ventilation, improving patient safety and reducing ICU complications. Emily and team received early-stage concept development support from Health Innovation Hub Ireland, leading to an Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund award with Trinity College Dublin.

Andrew Maxwell a Consultant Anaesthesiologist, as well as co-founder and Director of Kinsale Medical Devices Ltd. His current project, the Harbour nasogastric tube introducer device, is a novel yet simple device which aims to improve the safety of nasogastric feeding tube insertion in critical care patients worldwide.

The other members of the project team include Dr Gabriella Lohom, Consultant Anaesthesiologist at Cork University Hospital and Senior Lecturer at University College Cork.  Andrew has received early stage concept development support from Health Innovation Hub Ireland and from UCC Innovation.

11.06.2026.