Innovative healthcare sector manufacturer Creo Medical has been listed among the finalists for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2021 MacRobert Award, the premier award for UK engineering innovation.
The MacRobert Award is presented by the Royal Academy of Engineering - supported by the Worshipful Company of Engineers - every year and goes to the team of engineers behind the UK’s most exciting engineering innovation.
Chepstow-based Creo Medical has been included on the finalists list - which also includes the likes of DnaNudge and PragmatIC SemiConductor - for its healthcare innovation in developing advanced miniaturised surgical tools.
These surgical tools uniquely integrate radio frequency and high frequency microwave energy for highly targeted, minimally invasive endoscopic surgery, dramatically improving patient outcomes for cancer care, while minimising the need for traditional surgical interventions, moving treatment out of the operating room.
Creo Medical’s new technology has the capability to transform clinical outcomes for patients, reduce recovery times, an avoid the risks associated with open surgery. It also enables cost savings for NHS hospitals of up to £10,000 per procedure, a 50 per cent reduction on the costs of traditional surgery.
Speaking after the potential financial savings for the NHS were confirmed by clinical data, Craig Gulliford, CEO of Creo Medical, commented: "We are extremely pleased to see this health economics data providing evidence that our Speedboat procedure could save the NHS over £10,000 per procedure.
"Our passion has always been to improve patient outcomes, not only through developing innovative medical devices to bring advanced energy to endoscopy, but to also offer economic benefits to healthcare providers, in turn allowing their limited resources to be applied elsewhere; this data demonstrates that.
"Following the commercial agreement we signed with the Department of Health and Social Care in 2020, offering health service bodies access to our devices at preferential rates, we continue our efforts to train more surgeons to use our technology, allowing the patients and NHS to benefit."
The core of Creo Medical’s new technology is the creation of the CROMA Advanced Energy Platform that delivers power to a range of flexible devices which transform traditional diagnostic instruments such as endoscopes, to technologies that physicians can use to not only navigate to tumours for diagnosis, but to then perform highly precise clinical treatments which can be either non-invasive or minimally invasive.
In 2020, Creo Medical successfully CE marked five new devices, which are now being used across the UK, Europe, the US, and Asia.
The MacRobert Award judges were impressed by the quality of Creo Medical’s precision engineering, medical instruments and integration with advanced energy solutions, which led to the company being named among the finalists. They also identified the future applications of the product within the robotic surgery market and potential ability to operate on areas of the body that are currently hard to reach, as demonstrative of the truly transformative potential of the product.
MacRobert Award judge, Prof Sir Saeed Zahedi OBE RDI FREng, commented: “The team at Creo Medical are a prime example of the UK’s ability to lead the MedTech industry. Their cutting-edge technology is hugely impressive and an extremely important innovation that truly has the ability to revolutionise cancer treatment and patient experience across the world.
“Their work benefits the local community in terms of high-tech sustainable design, development, manufacturing, and assembly of precision engineering that will directly benefit the NHS for many generations to come. It will also help the UK export market, creating revenue and enabling future robotic surgery.”
The winner of the 2021 MacRobert Award will be announced in July, with the winning team receiving the signature MacRobert Award gold medal and a £50,000 cash prize.
Everybody at The Leaders Council would like to wish the Creo Medical team the very best of luck!
