I am an international PhD student in biomedical sciences in UK at the end of my first year. I am funded for my phD by the university except for the tuition fees difference between UK and international rate (difference = £9000 per year). I am wondering if it is somehow possible to link my project to industry so that they can fund me for the rest of the following years and assuming my supervisor has no problem with that. I understand that this will also have effect on intellectual property and such things but I am just curious to see if someone has done this before or similar approaches.

Thanks

It is very common to find PhD's being funded, at least in part, by industry. Do you have a business in mind?

You can definitely try and I wish you the best of luck. As the industrial sponsors regularly hire the PhD students when they finish.

Have you talked with your supervisor about this and talked with the administrators in your department? They should be very helpful and tell you what is/isn't possible.