Medovate Review of the Year 2021 – Part 2

Catch up with Part One of our review of 2021.

As we look back on our achievements over the last year, in Part Two of our blog post we celebrate some new distributor partnerships taking SAFIRA® to new corners of the world, making strides into the veterinary field and getting our hands on some prestigious accolades!

It’s been incredible to see the growth of our company this past year and to see our SAFIRA® technology used around the world to support safer regional anaesthesia.

In the third quarter, we were delighted to share exciting news of our CE Mark approval for 2 additions to our revolutionary SAFIRA® technology platform – a Palm Operator and NRFit™ syringe option. In line with our mission to improve patient care, this has enabled us to consolidate our unique offering by enhancing safety for patients and providing even greater versatility and choice for anaesthetists.

The NRFit™ syringe provides a second option to the universal Luer connection syringes with which our system was originally introduced. The NHS issued a Patient Safety Alert in 2019 to recommend and support the safe transition from the Luer connector to NRFit™ for the delivery of regional anaesthesia.

The additions of these devices mean we are now able to support healthcare providers with a complete solution to their regional anaesthesia needs with both hand and foot operators, and a SAFIRA® syringe – whatever the stage in their transition from Luer to NRFit™ devices.

Making strides into veterinary care

On top of expanding our product range, one of our biggest achievements this year has been introducing SAFIRA® to a completely new market!

In March we were thrilled to announce a partnership with Vygon Vet as we made the great leap to veterinary care. This has meant extending the value that SAFIRA® provides to ensure veterinary professionals can also benefit from what our technology brings to regional anaesthesia procedures.

Our focus so far has been on small-animal RA. Small animals such as cats have been found to have increased sensitivity to local anaesthetics when compared with other species and require much lower maximum doses to be used.

By infusing at 0.5ml/second, our technology offers a valuable tool to vets, enabling them to better control injection through infusing only small volumes at a time. Globally, there are a significant number of regional anaesthesia blocks completed in veterinary practice each year, so our device has huge potential in this field and it’s been truly exciting to see our technology surpass the realm of human health.

We’re also delighted to be working with our Australian distributor, LTR Medical, in assessing the potential for distribution of SAFIRA® for veterinary use across Australia and New Zealand. This has involved them engaging a number of veterinary practices in these regions to evaluate the use of SAFIRA® for veterinary applications. This complements the studies that are already underway in the UK, and will hopefully add to the growing repository of evidence for its application in veterinary care.

Next came a world-first…

In June we were incredibly proud to announce that a male lion at Five Sisters Zoo (FSZ) in Scotland become the first-ever animal in the world to have dental surgery using SAFIRA®! A root canal procedure was carried out on the lion, ‘Boss’, who had to have two teeth extractions – the response has been simply incredible!

New international markets

All in all, it has been a truly fantastic year for our company. From entering new markets to making new partnerships and seeing our device being adopted globally – including in Europe and the UK – there has been plenty to celebrate.

In the second quarter, we announced our partnership with Pharmamed to evaluate SAFIRA® in one of the largest healthcare institutions in Slovenia, The University Medical Centre Ljubljana (UMCL). This has been another positive step forward and we are delighted to be working with Pharmamed to gather further evidence in the patient safety benefits and ease of use that our innovative device brings to regional anaesthesia.

We were also proud to announce our first agreement in Asia with Bluestone Corporation Pte Ltd, to distribute SAFIRA® in Singapore, meaning we are one step closer to achieving our vision of delivering improved care for patients across the globe, especially as demand for such procedures continues to increase globally!

Awards and accolades

Last but not least, we were absolutely delighted for Medovate to be named “Best Medical Device Innovation Development Company 2021 – UK” at Global Health and Pharma’s (GHP) 2021 Global Excellence Awards in June – which celebrated its vision for collaboration, determination, and enthusiasm to support the development of NHS-created innovation.

In another significant milestone, SAFIRA® was also awarded ‘Patient Safety Innovation of the Year’ at the HSJ Patient Safety Awards in September. This has been an amazing honour for everyone involved in the development of SAFIRA®, including the team at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (QEH). The award recognised the technology as an outstanding example of healthcare innovation, celebrating its clear benefits for patients alongside its scalability and transferability to other sectors.

Looking forward…

In just three years, we have been proud to launch our first product globally and see it grow from strength to strength. From garnering recognition via a number of accolades, to gaining regulatory approval in key markets such as Europe, Australia and the US, today we are delighted to be working with leading players including Vygon, Mercury Medical and Konica Minolta to get our product to patients across the globe.

Despite the business challenges of COVID-19 and navigating the changes in regulatory requirements in Europe and Brexit, our company has seen strong growth this past year. Over the next 12-18 months, we plan to continue to work with our global partners and the regional anaesthesia community to position SAFIRA® as the device of choice for supporting safer regional anaesthesia.

For now, we want to say a huge thank you to our amazing team and to all our partners – and wish everyone a safe and merry Christmas and we look forward to what 2022 brings!

Review originally published by Chris Rogers on LinkedIn.