PneumaCare The med-tech start-up pursuing a shorter road to reality
By Dr Colin Smithers
The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills defines innovation as ‘the successful exploitation of new ideas’. Too many companies think the key to success is in the ‘new idea’. PneumaCare, a med-tech start-up, thought – and acted – differently.
The start-up stereotype
The stereotypical image of a med-tech start-up company is one we are all familiar with:
a group of passionate,
creative and often tee-shirted entrepreneurs working into the early hours of the morning, desperately trying to get a prototype ready for a critical demo. After several failed attempts, the team has a ‘eureka’ moment and everything slots into place – including the development and production of the product. The rest is, as they say, history.
All too often the reality is rather different. The entrepreneurs may discover that development plans that had once seemed clear-cut start to prove unrealistic. Tough questions have to be asked. When will the first customers be able to trial this technology? Will it even work effectively in the clinical environment? Are these early designs and prototypes suitable for mass- production? If the product has to be modified, can the current budget cover
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the necessary development work?
The investors may also
have concerns. Their entrepreneurs may be brilliant people, but will they be capable of taking this idea all the way through to market? Have they considered every aspect of the technology and the production, or will it prove too costly to mass- produce?
A smarter road to reality
Many promising start-up companies stumble and fall at these early hurdles, but
for medical start-up company
PneumaCare this was not the case. It’s approach was different from the very beginning: it saw an urgent clinical need, and developed a product to meet it. Established in 2009 by a group of budding entrepreneurs and clinicians, PneumaCare created a revolutionary concept based on 3D imaging technology developed with the University of Cambridge, the PneumaScan™. This low cost, non- contact platform for lung function assessment is based on motion- capture technology, light scanning, and image processing. This medical
device is a radical improvement on the traditional methods of monitoring lung function, which can be uncomfortable for patients and are associated with the risk of infection.
PneumaCare’s different way of doing things did not stop at the concept stage. Its aim was always to meet a need, translate a good idea into a profitable product, and get it into clinics to benefit patients as swiftly as possible. Consequently, rather than going it alone, PneumaCare made the decision to enlist the help of local design consultancy Plextek. As well as contributing extensive expertise on product development, Plextek’s considerable experience of getting a product into the hands of the customers – and knowledge of avoiding potential pitfalls – was invaluable. Plextek was
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