Five projects across Wales and Northern Ireland have been awarded a share of £1m to develop technology to reduce waiting times and improve outcomes for cancer patients.

The projects have been awarded funding as part of the Small Business Research Initiative Cancer Challenge, funded by the Welsh Government and NI Department for the Economy.

The challenge seeks to further develop innovations that lead to earlier, faster diagnosis, reduction in waiting times, improvements to the efficiency and efficacy of treatment and support palliative care.

Ideas include the testing of a capsule sponge test to reduce endoscopy demand, a blood test for early colorectal cancer diagnosis, using algorithms to help prioritise lung cancer patients and population-wide pre-cancer registry using genomic data to target high-risk patients.