With the product development phase of the Sutrue devices close to competition, in Q4 2018, our Managing Director, Stephen Squire, is leading the next phase of the road to market for our revolutionary devices. As with all medical devices, the Sutrue devices need to be put through rigorous medical evaluation and testing, so Stephen has utilised the signposting service at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to begin this process. Sutrue has started to build relationships with NHS Trusts with the aim of establishing suitable partners interested in testing the automated suturing devices.
The NIHR operates twenty Biomedical Research Centers in the UK, and we are extremely pleased that so far four of them have expressed an interest in partnering with us to pilot both the Handheld and Robotic devices. All the institutes who have approached us have an interest in developing specialist surgical techniques. This incredibly positive market response is double the level we were led to expect and reinforces the strong need for the Sutrue devices in the medical industry. We are currently in the process of establishing the most suitable partner to carry out the clinical tests and evaluations.
Furthermore, in order to achieve our forecast revenue, Sutrue only requires two NHS Trusts to procure the Sutrue devices by the end of the third year of sales, so it’s incredibly encouraging that there is already twice as much interest from the medical market. Our market penetration expectations look set to be exceeded early, validating the market demand for these intrinsically safe devices.
The need for the Sutrue devices in the veterinary market is also being explored through discussions with vets and the building of a relationship with a large veterinary distributor who is very interested in the potential of the Sutrue Handheld device. As devices used by vets require significantly less testing, the roadmap to commercialisation in this market is far shorter, with our first case studies expected to be completed within 2019.
The next stage of the commercialisation roadmap requires appropriate funding, so, whilst carrying out market research, we have also recently launched a crowd funding page which can be found here: https:/sutrue.envestry.com/
Investors’ funds will help us to revolutionise the process of medical stitches into a faster, safer and more accurate automated process, which will significantly benefit patients, surgeons, healthcare workers, healthcare institutions and vets throughout the world.