Liverpool company Drill Surgeries, based at Sensor City, are a healthcare company and the creator of ZAORY – an artificial intelligence surgical system which guides surgeons during trauma operations involving broken bones.
Their patent pending technology will mean faster, safer and less invasive surgeries, with tests showing the potential to reduce operating times by 75% and radiation by 60%.
The development of this technology has been helped by Growth Platform facilitating access to funding streams for Drill Surgeries. One of these was Made Smarter – a programme which helps grow UK manufacturing industries. This allowed the company to recruit an intern during the 2021/2022 period to support research and development, which led to Drill Surgeries building its first demonstration kit which was presented to potential clients and investors.
Moises Barbera, CEO and Founder of Drill Surgeries, explained: “Having a fully working demo kit, as completed by the intern we worked with through the Made Smarter initiative, allowed us to increase our reach as we were no longer showing a pitch deck but a physical product prospective clients and investors could touch and play with. We additionally received highly valuable feedback on what to improve and what to discontinue which accelerated our product development efforts substantially.”
Moises continued: “Since this support, we have continued to build upon the feedback received and we have a fully working product ready to undergo clinical evaluation in the next couple of months. Looking at the future we are currently embarking on completing our regulatory certifications and clinical trials with aim to start commercialisation in the next 12 months. We have grown considerably over the past 6 months, bringing four new individuals on board and aiming to hire two more in the next couple of months.
“Our current product offering gives surgeons a universal guidance platform to fix broken bones faster and safer, while we are currently ready to trial this one on broken femurs, we have started development to fix humerus and we have a plan to bring the tibia and hip onto our platform soon.”
Growth Platform have also helped Drill Surgeries access other support including New Markets 2 – which provides a 35% grant towards the cost of consultancy or agency fees, also LCR 4.0 START which was a European Regional Development Fund initiative designed to support Liverpool City Region SME business leaders and companies, and Health Matters – an initiative also part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund to support local businesses with innovative solutions to health and care markets.