Innovate UK's 2026 Women in Innovation Awards.
Belfast scientist Dr. Pragya Sharma wins national Women in Innovation Award for steroid-free skincare she first made for her grandmother.
Congratulations to Dr Pragya Sharma, founder of Granlab who has been named as one of Innovate UK's 2026 Women in Innovation Award winners. Pragya is a member of AwakenHub community who has taken part in a number of opportunities through the community, including the WeScale programme.
Dr Pragya Sharma, founder of Queen's University spin-out Granlab, is building Northern Ireland's first dedicated skincare R&D lab and a gentler range for people living psoriasis and eczema secures a £75,000 Innovate UK award from a record 1,590 applicants.
Dr Pragya Sharma, founder and CEO of Belfast dermatology start-up Granlab, has secured a £75,000 Women in Innovation Award from Innovate UK. Chosen from a record 1,590 applicants across the UK, she is one of just 61 winners nationally and one of only two in Northern Ireland the other being Mary Blake of Derry technology company SeeMe.
Dr Pragya Sharma is a member of the AwakenHub community and participated in the WeScale Programme.
Psoriasis affects up to 1.8 million people in the UK, and atopic eczema one in five children and one in ten adults yet many treatments still lean on topical steroids that patients can't safely use for long. It's a gap Dr Sharma knows from her own family.
While completing her PhD in structural biochemistry at Queen's University Belfast, she set out to help her grandmother, who had lived with psoriasis for years and whose health had suffered from long-term steroid use. Drawing on her research, she developed a steroid-free formulation to ease the condition. Within six months, her grandmother's skin started to show signs of improvements, a result she has held for more than five years. Granlab is named in her honour.
Pragya says “I couldn't accept being told nothing more could be done for my grandmother, so I went back to the science and built something that worked,” says Dr Sharma. “Everything Granlab makes still traces back to her skincare that treats people with sensitive, reactive skin as the priority, not an afterthought.”
What began as a personal project is now a Queen's University spin-out. After validating the formulation with more than 200 home users and testing its commercial potential through the ICURe programme, Dr Sharma has raised more than £1 million to build Northern Ireland's first dedicated skincare R&D lab, where she leads a team of five in Belfast.
Her debut range, SkinSettle™, launches this autumn across the UK, Ireland and India. The four-product line is designed for sensitive, psoriasis- and eczema-prone skin, and is the first step toward a bigger goal: skincare that works across all skin tones and types in one simple routine. The Women in Innovation funding will help her take on one of the hardest gaps for this group next a gentler, more tolerable SPF built specifically for reactive skin.
Pragya says “As a first-time founder, an immigrant and a woman of colour in biotech, I know how few people who look like me make it into these rooms,” she says of the award. “This recognition says the science stands on its own and I hope it tells other women and scientists from under-represented backgrounds that they belong here too.”
Dr Sharma's work at Granlab has been recognised across the biotech and business communities. She has been named to Ireland's 30 Under 30 for Leadership and Innovation in Biotech, selected as an NHS Clinical Entrepreneur, and awarded Young Businesswoman of the Year 2023; recognitions spanning research, healthcare and enterprise. Beyond the lab, she founded Northern Ireland's first community for people living with chronic skin conditions, now reaching more than 300 people across ten-plus events, and she mentors early-career scientists across the UK and India.
SkinSettle™ launches in autumn 2026, with further formulations already in development as Granlab grows its research pipeline into 2027. Further details will be available at www.granlab.co.
