Medovate Review of the Year 2021 – Part 1

2021 has been another year like no other. Doubtless the disruptions and uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic have continued to cause additional challenges for many businesses. But as we near the end of the year, it is great to take some time out to reflect on the positives.

For the last 4 years Medovate has been working on our mission to bring innovative medical technologies created within the NHS to market to improve patient care in the UK and on a more global scale.

This year marked a particularly exciting time for Medovate as we geared up to launch our revolutionary new technology for regional anaesthesia, SAFIRA® (SAFer Injection for Regional Anaesthesia), in the UK and Europe. From launching in the US only a year ago, it has been truly fantastic to see our ambitious growth plans slowly come to fruition, particularly at a time when global trade hasn’t proved the easiest …

Despite the challenges triggered by the pandemic, it is encouraging to look back and see how readily our business, like many others, has adapted to new ways of doing things, new ways of working, connecting, and growing.

Launching in UK and Europe

On that topic, we were delighted to begin the new year by exhibiting at the Winter Scientific Meeting 2021 (WSM 2021) – the first time it’s taken place fully virtually! – where we got the chance to showcase SAFIRA® and its unique benefits for patients and clinicians worldwide.

It was fantastic to be part of this vibrant two-day event, which – as the largest of its kind in the UK – proved a perfect platform to support our UK launch and allow us to participate in an exciting programme covering all aspects of anaesthesia and intensive care medicine.

In March we also announced our sponsorship of this year’s ESRA (European Society of Regional Anaesthesia & Pain Therapy) e-Congress. As we began our European expansion, the event marked a fantastic opportunity for attendees to ‘visit’ the virtual Medovate e-booth and learn more about our device and its benefits.

As part of the programme, we also sponsored an Industry Symposium ‘Mitigating for Nerve Injury by Innovation: Introducing SAFIRA’, which featured speakers from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, including Dr Benjamin Fox, Dr Robin Heij, Dr Peter Young, and Dr Maria Paz Sebastian.

In May, we were pleased to support the RA-UK Annual Scientific Meeting 2021 as Silver Sponsors of the event, where we got the chance to share more information about our revolutionary technology. And more recently came our first in-person conference since lockdown …

We were delighted to join the ABHI Surgical Simulation Theatre at this year’s Future Surgery Show in November, where attendees got the chance to see our unique device up close and in action with an overview of the benefits SAFIRA brings to clinical practice delivered by Dr Ben Fox, and Medovate Sales and Marketing Director Chris Rogers..

Celebrating new partnerships

Continuing our work further afield, we were pleased to announce a number of new partnerships in 2021. Firstly, with Konica Minolta Healthcare Americas, Inc. …

Konica Minolta is a world leader in ultrasound technology, and our work together has focused on raising awareness of ultrasound guided techniques for regional anaesthesia across the US and the Middle East and highlighting how SAFIRA® can be used in conjunction with the company’s range of pioneering ultrasound solutions to deliver the best outcomes for patients.

We were delighted to showcase our combined solution at the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA) 46th Annual Meeting in May. Supported by our primary US distributor Mercury Medical, we got the chance to physically demonstrate SAFIRA® and help anesthesiologists to understand the unique benefits of our solution.

Secondly, we were delighted to recently enter a new partnership with Medipex, combining the vision of our two companies to support the development of promising new medical device innovations from the NHS.

Medipex is an award-winning healthcare innovation hub which connects the NHS with industry and academia. We look forward to working together over the coming years to foster new technologies sourced by Medipex through their NHS partnerships that can transform patient care, with our company working to raise their profile and bring them to a worldwide market.

As part of our partnership, we were pleased to be the headline sponsor of the recent Medipex NHS Innovation Awards and Showcase – which celebrated innovative activities of NHS staff and their collaborators. We were also excited to recently announce the launch of our new ‘Innovation Voucher’ competition.

The competition is currently open to NHS employees working in the Yorkshire, Humber, and East Midlands regions, including Medipex member NHS Trusts and closes on 13 December, so please get applying!

2021 has proved another exciting year for our company, and we want to say a big thank you to our brilliant team and to all our partners for your amazing support. Keep an eye out for Part II of our blog post, where we’ll highlight other key milestones for our company – from making the great leap into the veterinary field to celebrating new awards and distribution deals – as we look towards a new future.

Review originally published by Chris Rogers on LinkedIn.