Medovate unveils US plans for SAFIRA anaesthesia innovation
Medovate, the medical device development company, is breaking into the US market with the launch of its FDA-approved SAFIRA regional anaesthesia innovation.
The Camboro Business Park-based company, which was launched by Health Enterprise East in 2017 to commercialise in-house NHS innovation, will unveil SAFIRA (SAFer Injection for Regional Anaesthesia) at ASRA 2020, the 45th annual regional anesthesiology and acute pain medicine meeting of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine. ASRA 2020 takes place in San Francisco from April 23 to 25.
Managing director Stuart Thomson said: “Launching in the US is a statement both of our ambitions for international expansion and of the confidence we have in the medtech devices within our portfolio.
“With a healthy innovation pipeline, including a ground-breaking device for airway management to come soon, we hope that the launch of SAFIRA is the first in a series of exciting new developments for Medovate this year.”
The launch, two years after Medovate was established, “is evidence of the company’s ability to fast-track the development and commercialisation of medtech solutions arising from within the NHS, for the benefit of healthcare systems around the world”.
Medovate now enjoys an expanding portfolio of innovations from the NHS and beyond, with a particular focus on the fields of anaesthesia, airway management, critical care and surgery.
SAFIRA is set to radically advance standard clinical practice with regards to regional blocks in a number of ways.
Firstly, the device contains a safety feature that helps prevent anaesthetic being injected at unsafe pressures, reducing the risk of significant or peripheral nerve damage.
In addition, because SAFIRA makes the regional anaesthesia process a one-person procedure by a single anaesthetist (current processes require two operators, an anaesthetist and a technician), he or she has full control throughout.
This has the knock-on effect of reducing theatre time, and is expected to deliver savings of up to $102 per regional block. An estimated 10 million regional blocks are carried out each year in the US.
At ASRA 2020, US clinicians will have their first opportunity to see Medovate’s SAFIRA in action. As silver sponsors of the conference, Medovate will be running demonstrations and allowing experts in regional anaesthesia and pain medicine to view the device up close, as well as to meet Medovate’s US-based distributors.
To extend its reach into the US market, Medovate has also joined the Association of British Healthcare Industries (ABHI) US accelerator. This 12-month programme is designed to support medical device companies seeking to access US buyers and will allow Medovate to plug into ABHI’s expertise and connections within the US, including major hospitals and group purchasing organizations (GPOs).
Crucially, SAFIRA has been designed so that its application for regional anaesthesia procedures is the same in all markets, meaning that no additional modifications are required for the US or any other market, and that the product can be seamlessly integrated into the clinical pathway.
