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British-designed muscle stimulators help stroke patients to walk, across the country and around the
Added: (Mon Dec 03 2007)
Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys
Press release (Photos available)
27 November 2007
British-designed muscle stimulators help stroke patients to walk, across the country and around the world
As a newly-independent spin-out company, Salisbury-based Odstock Medical is no longer bound by health service red tape. It now has the commercial flexibility to expand beyond the local area and supply its patented disability aids throughout the UK, Europe and North America – a market estimated to be worth £380 million.
While senior scientists at Odstock Medical were still part of Salisbury NHS Trust, they designed a sophisticated electronic device that was helping some of the hospital’s stroke and spinal injuries patients unit to walk. But NHS red tape meant that it was almost impossible to offer the device to patients outside the Salisbury area. Now the new company has the freedom to supply patients, Primary Health Care Trusts and medical device companies across the UK and around the world.
Odstock Medical’s lead product, the Odstock Dropped Foot stimulator (ODFS), is a patented Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) device. It is used mainly to correct ‘dropped foot’ – the inability to lift the foot properly when walking. The condition is generally the result of neurological disease or injury, such as Multiple Sclerosis or a stroke. The Odstock Medical device detects when the wearer’s heel leaves the ground and instantly applies a controlled burst of electrical pulses to the appropriate muscle, causing the foot to lift and greatly improving the user’s ability to walk. The ODFS electrodes can be attached to the skin or, in the STIMuSTEP version, can be surgically implanted.
Although FES devices have been around since the 1960s, early versions were crude and bulky and had very few users. New control circuitry and a more intelligent interface make Odstock Medical’s FES device smaller, more adaptable and much more reliable than its predecessors. So far, the company has sold 6,000 units worldwide and Salisbury NHS Trust has used the device to treat over 2,500 patients. There are millions more people in Europe and North America who could benefit from Odstock Medical’s technology.
Intellectual property rights
Ian Swain, now clinical director of Odstock Medical, and his colleague Paul Taylor developed the FES technology while they were running the Clinical Science and Engineering department at Salisbury District Hospital. At Odstock Medical, they are now working on improvements to the STIMuSTEP, as well as a new device for treating partial paralysis of the arm. The IP (intellectual property) rights for any new technology will be owned by the spin-out company, who are working with patent attorney Helga Chapman and her colleagues at Salisbury-based Chapman Molony, to make sure their work is protected by patents in all relevant markets.
The new company’s commercial strategy is being driven by chief executive Jon Lewis, who was recruited from the private sector for his track record in developing other medical and healthcare businesses.
“As an autonomous company, it’s crucial we are in control of our own intellectual property rights,” said Jon Lewis. “There’s been a lot of investment in getting the product to this point, where we believe it to be a market leader and we want to make sure that we can control its quality and effectiveness. Our patent attorneys are now very much part of the team here. The value of their input is enormous – they understand the market and the technology, as well as giving us advice on all aspects of IP, such as patents and trade marks.”
Sales of the ODFS have been increasing at a rate of 47 per cent annually and this is set to accelerate. “We’re already up to a team of 24 people here,” says Ian Swain. “Now that we’re free to advertise and market our products, we plan to grow much faster.”
Initially, scientific papers outnumbered patients
Ian Swain first got involved in developing a Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) device in the 1980s, while working with the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre at Salisbury. “Although FES had been shown to be beneficial to patients,” he recalls, “It was no exaggeration to say that there had been more scientific papers published than patients who had actually been helped.
“Once we got involved in designing and fitting devices that helped people to walk, we soon realised that we would be able to progress faster if we had access to many more patients. There are around 800 new serious spinal injury patients each year, as against 140,000 or so stroke patients. We very quickly found we were able to help a large number of stroke patients and, at the same time, dramatically increase the amount of feedback we were getting from users. This helped us to speed up the product development and the data was important in getting regulatory approval, such as an FDA licence in the USA.”
Under the new corporate structure, Salisbury NHS Trust owns 68 per cent and its hospital charity 18 per cent of Odstock Medical. Other shareholders are the staff, with 12 per cent, and Bournemouth University, with 2 per cent.
According to chief executive Jon Lewis, Odstock Medical is the first NHS-owned spin-out company that has the potential to earn a good income from its technology – income that “will be ploughed back into more R&D, leading to new and better products which will help more and more patients to improve their mobility and the quality of their lives”.
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Issued by the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys
www.cipa.org.uk
Institute manager: Nicholas Pope, tel: 020 7405 9450
For further information, see:
the Odstock Medical website www.odsdtockmedical.com
the Chapman Molony website www.chapmanmolony.com
or contact:
Peter Prowse, CIPA Tel: 01372 271234, mobile: 07973 213039, or
Ian Swain, Odstock Medical Tel: 01722 429065, enquiries@odstockmedical.com or
Helga Chapman, Chapman Maloney, Tel 01722 782559, helga@chapmanmolony.com
Photos available.
For high resolution JPEGs of the photos below, contact Peter Prowse:
peter.prowse@waylines.co.uk
Ian Swain (right), Chief Technology Officer of Odstock Medical, explains to patent attorney Helen Chapman how FES can help even very young patients regain the ability to walk.
Paul Taylor (left) demonstrates Odstock Medical’s latest FES technology to patent attorney Helga Chapman, by attaching the electrode to Ian Swain’s arm.
Background
A Patent Attorney (formerly known as a patent agent) has qualified by experience and examination for entry of his or her name on the Register of Patent Attorneys. Patent attorneys are specially trained and experienced in the art of drafting patents and in knowledge of intellectual property law. They are entitled to deal with related areas of law such as designs, copyright and trade marks as well as patents. The majority of patent attorneys are also Chartered Patent Attorneys, European Patent Attorneys, and Registered Trade Mark Agents.
The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) is the professional body representing Patent Attorneys in the UK. CIPA was founded in 1882 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1891. The majority of patent applications in the UK and Europe are submitted by Patent Attorneys on behalf of clients. Entry on the Register of Patent Attorneys provides patent attorneys with the right to conduct litigation and to act as advocates in the Patents County Court. Fellows of CIPA can also acquire an additional qualification (Litigator’s Certificate) entitling them also to conduct litigation in the Chancery Division of the High Court (including the Patents Court) and to conduct appeals from the Patents County Court, the County Court and the Chancery Division of the High Court in respect of Intellectual Property litigation.