Medovate Limited was created by Health Tech Enterprise (HTE), in partnership with NHS organisations throughout the East of England, in 2017. Medovate is a company dedicated to the development and commercialisation of innovative medical technologies from within the NHS to provide a route to market for clinician-inspired medical device innovations.
HTE supported the early intellectual property protection, proof of concept development, and funding for Medovate’s first breakthrough technology, SAFIRA® (Safer Injection for Regional Anaesthesia), and facilitated the licensing arrangements with the intellectual property owner.
Read the interview with Stuart Thomson, Vice President of Business Development at Medovate to find out more.
Stuart Thomson, Vice President of Business Development
“Medovate operates a unique business model offering direct benefits to the UK’s health system and has a portfolio of clinical innovator inspired products across the medical specialities of anaesthesia, critical care, airway management and surgery. Applying a genuine collaborative approach with NHS clinical innovators, our team of specialists take innovative new device ideas with real potential through the whole development pathway, through to international market launch and beyond.”
Our technology
A prime example of this is our ground-breaking technology SAFIRA®, invented by four Anaesthetists at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust and developed in collaboration with Medovate. SAFIRA’s primary purpose is to transform regional anaesthesia procedures into a one-person procedure, putting control directly in the hands of the anaesthetist.
A regional block procedure involves using injections to anaesthetise a specific area of the body (such as the leg or arm) by blocking the nerve sensations to provide pain relief during surgery without requiring a general anaesthetic. SAFIRA® also incorporates a built-in safety mechanism that automatically stops injection at a specified pressure threshold, helping to reduce the risk of patient nerve injury.
It has been reported that anaesthetic solutions are often injected at high pressure, which can lead to serious nerve damage in up to 1% of cases and transient nerve damage in up to 5% cases. SAFIRA can tackle these problems and help ensure that complications from nerve damage finally become a thing of the past.
Working with HTE
Health Tech Enterprise (HTE) supported the initial intellectual property protection of the SAFIRA® technology and funded early proof of concept development. With HTE’s ongoing support and advice, the hospital secured £80,000 in development funding from the Eastern Region’s Medtech Accelerator to continue developing the innovation. HTE also facilitated the intellectual property licence agreement for SAFIRA® between the hospital and Medovate Limited.
Outcomes
Having successfully launched the first company portfolio technology, SAFIRA®, in multiple international markets including Europe, the USA, Singapore, Australasia and the Middle East, Medovate is actively pursuing further regulatory approvals and distribution agreements for SAFIRA® for other key markets, whilst at the same time bringing its pipeline of further medical technologies through clinical trials, regulatory approvals and market launch.
What’s next?
In early 2024 Medovate Limited and JEB Technologies Limited announced we were combining our management, unique skill sets and expertise to drive greater collaboration, innovation, and growth in the dynamic field of medical device development. We aim to combine our strengths across the full medical device development pipeline, from concept design, product development and manufacturing, through to successful regulatory approvals and global market launches.
This is a significant step forward for the medical device industry in the UK’s eastern region, leveraging our organisations’ collective strengths and expertise, along with our respective medical technology pipelines, to accelerate the development of innovative UK medical devices and launch them successfully around the world.
“HTE’s expertise and support have been instrumental in the early development and patent protection of our SAFIRA® technology, enabling us to secure the manufacturing rights and take the technology through the product development pathway to obtain regulatory approvals and successfully launch SAFIRA® in multiple international markets.”
