Inovus wins innovation award for service that brings medical devices to market

Medical device manufacturer, Inovus, has scooped a Merseyside Innovation Award with a service that commercialises of medical devices.

Inovus had previously submitted an application to the awards in 2016 with its innovative laparoscopic surgical simulator, which won the January award. Since then, the company has grown its presence in the medical simulation sector with products in over 60 NHS Trusts and over 30 countries.

During this time the company has developed its St Helens-based manufacturing plant to include manufacturing processes such as CNC milling, laser cutting, 3D printing, plastic heat forming and silicone injection moulding. With its manufacturing knowledge, in-house design capabilities and sales routes into the healthcare sector Inovus has created a turnkey commercialisation service.

This initiative involves Inovus seeking medical device inventions that are yet to reach the market yet still have proven clinical need. Using its manufacturing network and expertise, Inovus develops the devices alongside universities or clinicians and supports the developers in bringing their products to the market via the NHS.

“Through our work with clinicians, industry and universities we highlighted an alarming shortfall in the commercialisation of medical devices being developed at universities and by clinicians across the country” commented Dr Elliot Street, managing director at Inovus.

“Further review of this showed that over 96% of medical device inventions fail to make it from the bench of universities to the bedside of our patients.

“Inovus starts by assessing the IP a university holds on medical devices before selecting products to take forward to market that answer unmet clinical needs and have good commercial potential.

“The service includes on-going clinical trials, branding, product re-design, manufacturing and sales and marketing of the product. Nowhere else can you find a truly turnkey approach that offers all the services required to bring a product to market under one roof.”

Having already licensed one product, which has the potential to improve the management and reduce the cost of one of the most costly chronic diseases in the UK, Inovus hopes to further capitalise on the strong pipeline of inventions flowing from the universities.

With projected revenues in excess of £10M by 2021, the turnkey commercialisation service is anticipated to create more than 20 local jobs within the first two years of launch with a further 50 jobs created within five years.

Street added “The products that Inovus will be manufacturing will also address some of the medical conditions which have a higher than average prevalence in the St Helens and wider Merseyside area.”

Kevin Moreton, business development manager of MIA sponsor Trustech NHS Innovation Service, said: “The Turnkey Commercialisation Service offers enormous potential in terms of benefiting the Merseyside economy and offering improved treatment options to the local population.”