Welcome to the Health Matters’ case studies series, where we will be speaking to the business leaders who have successfully used our programme to take their product or service to new heights in the health and care sectors.
In today’s blog, we catch up with Miriam Rimmer CEO, Medistickit and Sue Trish, Director at Medistickit. Founded in 2018, Medistickit is a health tech company which has developed an innovative solution to a widespread problem concerning wound closure on the head, neck and face.
How did your company find out about the Health Matters programme?
We were introduced to the programme after receiving some support from the Health Innovation Exchange programme at Alder Hey.
What challenges was your company facing prior to receiving support? What do you think the main barriers are for using emerging technology?
We didn’t have any experience in the health tech industry and found it to be a really difficult world to navigate without any solid contacts. Some of our main barriers to entry were lack of industry experience / knowledge/ contacts, access to innovation funding to support the development of our technology.
Even without the challenges of Covid-19, being able to access hospitals, clinical expertise and product support proved difficult. We needed to understand our product in a clinical setting and gain feedback from the professionals who will use it.
What support did your company receive and how was it delivered?
Andy Cairns and the Health Matters team has introduced us to a widespread network of helpful professionals where we have been given access to crucial information to help develop our product and research. Despite remote working the last year, support has been given both virtually and face-to-face and the Health Matters team have adapted to these challenges to continue to provide unwavering support.
Although Covid-19 stopped play with our real-world validation, this is kickstarting again and we’re looking forward to seeing the results and understanding more about how our product can be integrated in a clinical setting.
What new activity was your company able to do as a result of the support?
The support has given us the opportunity to network with some great individuals and companies, all of whom freely offer their time and expertise. This has been a great learning experience for us, being able to share our challenges and understand how other business leaders have come to resolve them – making us stronger as a business and as a leadership team.
Our work with LJMU should also give us access to real-world validation report which we can use to support our own research.
What impact did the support have?
It has been reassuring to know we can reach out to Andy and the team whenever we need to. His network of professionals and industry contacts have proved very useful in widening our network, taking key learnings and developing our product further.
What are your company’s plans for the future as a result of this support?
With the support of the Health Matters programme and the real-world validation process, we want to move towards the commercialisation of our product. Given the learnings we have already gathered, in addition to the team’s continued support, we hope that this process will be much smoother than we originally imagined.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? Would you recommend the programme to other SMEs?
The main thing for us has been having someone to reach out to, someone to run things by and someone to ask when we are unsure.
The Health Matters programme was part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund to support local businesses, with innovative solutions, to access the health and care markets.
By providing bespoke, one-on-one assistance, we help businesses hone their products and services. Through real-world validation we demonstrate their practical and commercial benefits.
