A MedTech business that is working closely with Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT), has received a £200,000 equity investment from the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund (CIOSIF), managed by The FSE Group.
The funding is part of a £0.4million funding round and will be used to support job creation and the overall growth of the business.
Peninsula Medical Technologies (PenMed) produces medical equipment and technology to improve the safety and outcomes of patients in the critical care environment. The company has been awarded an Innovate UK Biomedical Catalyst Grant for project costs of £1.2m to take its modular ventilation/anaesthesia device into clinical trials.
The PenMed modular system provides ventilation and anaesthesia without needing to disconnect the patient, improving patient safety and workflow. It was developed following work by PenMed in the final stages of the UK Ventilator Challenge at RCHT and addresses many of the needs of pandemic ventilation so that such a challenge would not be needed in a future pandemic.
Dr Sebastian Brown, PenMed founder, said: “With the grant funding in place to take the device through the next two years of testing and clinical evaluation, this CIOSIF investment will allow us to create the jobs needed to undertake this process. It will also support the development of a further medical device based on the same architecture, helping move towards our goal of delivering more innovative solutions to the healthcare industry and providing high-quality medical devices for the benefit of patients. We are delighted to be working with FSE on this journey.”
Ralph Singleton, Head of Equity South West at The FSE Group, added: “PenMed’s management team has a strong background of successful product development in the medical sector and impressive knowledge and expertise of the ventilator market. This, and their close ties with the industry, leave them poised to make a significant impact in the medical sector. They have received promising feedback from expert reviewers in their NHS market research and we are thrilled to be supporting them on their journey to revolutionising the use of ventilators and anaesthesia equipment in hospitals.”
The global ventilator and anaesthesia market is worth around £2.5bn. Boasting several advantages over its competitors, including enhanced patient safety and data-driven healthcare advances that ultimately lead to better patient outcomes, PenMed is well-positioned to capture its targeted 9% share of the £124m UK market by 2028.
The £40m Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Investment Fund was established by the British Business Bank in partnership with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to provide debt and equity finance to help growing small businesses across the region.
Funding through CIOSIF came to an end in December 2023 but wider funding is now available through the British Business Bank’s £200m South West Investment Fund providing loans from £25k to £2m and equity investment up to £5m.
CIOSIF has been supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.