We’re on a mission
To improve patients quality of life and
reduce unnecessary deaths
and to become the worlds partner
for surgical training
1.5 million deaths occur a year because we don't have enough surgeons to perform life saving operations.
1.5MThe problem
Traditional approaches to surgical training cannot keep pace with modern demands.
The antiquated ‘apprenticeship style’ model of see one, do one, teach one, where most of the early learning curve is at the patient bedside cannot train enough surgeons to meet modern demands. Simulation in training is still seen as a ‘nice to have’ with Virtual Reality solutions being too costly, difficult to access and scale and not realistic enough to shift the paradigm of training to ‘simulation first’.
143 Million
extra surgeries needed per year
5 Billion
people lack access to safe surgery globally
The solution
An evolving ecosystem of surgical simulators, connecting practice to procedure.
We are driving a fundamental shift in the training continuum for surgeons. Placing simulation at the center of the pathway by creating technology that is more affordable, more accessible, and more realistic and powered by our digital surgery platform, Totum.
Train
500,000
more surgeons
Making surgeons
41%
more efficient
Delivering on our mission with strategic partnerships.
Our strategic partnerships are delivering standardised surgical training at scale, across the globe.
Positively Impacting
48 million women
across North America
By training 10,000 gynecologists as the exclusive partner to the EMIGS training program.
AAGL appoints Inovus Medical as exclusive partner for EMIGS national training and testing program
Inovus Medical were announced as the exclusive partner to the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL) for the delivery of the Essentials in Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery (EMIGS) program in December 2022.
The EMIGS validated Training and Testing program has been approved for use by the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology (ABOG) to meet the standards for board eligibility by OBGYNs across America.
EMIGS is the culmination of ten years of dedication by a team of expert educators so committed to advancing MIGS that they were driven to create this exceptional training and standardized testing platform. While the FLS will still have its place, EMIGS addresses the complexities of minimally invasive gynecologic surgery, in particular and will now be the standard for qualifying MIGS surgeons.
Following the initial partnership announcement, Hologic Inc. (Nasdaq: HOLX), a global leader in women’s health, joined the partnership in November 2023, naming Hologic the chief provider of hysteroscopes for the program. In addition to providing one Omni Hysteroscope to all residency programs across North America, Hologic funded the access to one LapAR and one HystAR simulator at every residency site as well as supporting access to Inovus’ digital surgery platform, Totum. The multi-million dollar support from Hologic has enabled the EMIGS program to be standardized, using the Inovus simulators, to ensure equitable training for all OBGYNs across North America.
Our collaboration with Hologic and Inovus provides the vital infrastructure needed to bring EMIGS to life. This will allow us to provide equitable access to high-quality hands-on training tools to future OBGYNs. We chose Inovus Medical because of their innovative perspective to training and testing, and we felt that they would be a strong partner to assist now and in the future.
About AAGL and ABOG
AAGL is the premier global association in minimally invasive gynecologic surgery (MIGS) with membership of over 6,500 physicians across 110 countries. ABOG defines standards and provides certification to obstetricians and gynecologists (OB GYNs) in the United States and Canada. Both organizations seek to facilitate ongoing training in best practices and systemize the qualifications of physicians to ensure the highest quality of healthcare for women.
Exclusive partners delivering the
only recognised laparoscopic skills curriculum in the UK
Training the general surgeons of tomorrow through RCS England sanctioned courses.
ALSGBI appoints Inovus Medical as the official partner for the LapPass training programme
Launched by ALSGBI in 2015, the LapPass is a nationally recognised certificate of proficiency in the technically demanding skills required for laparoscopic surgery and the only validated laparoscopic skills curriculum in the UK. The LapPass certificate can be added to a trainee surgeon’s portfolio when a series of timed laparoscopic skills tests are successfully passed.
The original LapPass tasks were designed such that they could be created by off the shelf materials to keep costs to a minimum. With a growing uptake of the curriculum across the UK and overseas it became increasingly difficult to ensure standardisation of the tasks and as such the ALSGBI sought a partner to help create a standardised and scalable platform for the LapPass curriculum.
Mr Ananda Nanu MBBS, MSOrth, FRCS, MCHOrth, FRCSOrth, RCSEng QA Lead and Chair of the Committee that governs QA and Accreditation commented: “Congratulations to Inovus Medical for this achievement. This accreditation demonstrates their commitment to the highest standards of surgical education and training.”
The ALSGBI are pleased to be working in association with Inovus Medical on the delivery of the LapPass programme. The partnership brings improved standardisation to the tasks which we believe will further improve the experience of trainee surgeons who are working towards their LapPass certification. Inovus Medical’s ethos of affordable, accessible and functional surgical training is something that aligns with the ideals of the ALSGBI and stands to make this a successful collaboration.
Following the launch of the partnership, the LapPass curriculum has been integrated into the LapAR laparoscopic simulator and Totum digital surgery platform. The integration offers an opportunity to deliver remote training and certification on LapPass as well as the ability to collect objective performance metrics through the Totum platform. Accreditation of the platform by the Royal College of Surgeons for England in 2022 also means trainee surgeons are able to collect Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points while working towards their LapPass competency on the LapAR and Totum.
Deemed as a quality mark for surgical education, the accreditation covers Inovus Medical’s LapAR and Totum ecosystem which allows simulation and training centres to deliver both face-to-face and remote surgical training. The enhanced augmented reality-based platform connects trainees and faculty through a digital surgery training system that provides objective metrics and performance tracking, including video recording and the ability to give subjective comments from faculty prior to completion of formal assessments.
Mr Ananda Nanu MBBS, MSOrth, FRCS, MCHOrth, FRCSOrth, RCSEng QA Lead and Chair of the Committee that governs QA and Accreditation commented:
Congratulations to Inovus Medical for this achievement. This accreditation demonstrates their commitment to the highest standards of surgical education and training.
The simulator of choice for
6,000 hysteroscopists
Training the Global Community of Hysteroscopy.
Inovus Medical Appointed as Official Simulation Partners by Global Community of Hysteroscopy
Inovus Medical is the official simulation partner to the Global Congress of Hysteroscopy (GCH), with the partnership being announced on stage at the opening address of the 2023 GCH congress by GCH Founder and Chair Dr Sergio Haimovich and Inovus Medical’s CEO, Dr Elliot Street. The partnership recognizes Inovus's portfolio of hysteroscopy simulators and Totum® digital surgery platform as the official simulators of the GCH.
The partnership enables Inovus to work closely with the GCH to advance hysteroscopy simulation training and provide cutting-edge training technology to hysteroscopists across the globe. As part of the agreement, a research partnership has been established, which commenced with a multi-centre prospective validation study led by GCH faculty. The aim of this study is to further validate the HystAR simulators and Totum digital surgery platform for delivery of remote hysteroscopy skills training and certification.
The partnership will see Inovus’ range of hysteroscopy simulators placed at the forefront of GCH sanctioned training events across the globe with the simulators playing a major part in the hands-on skills training workshops at the annual GCH congress. The partnership announcement will also result in improved access to Inovus’ portfolio of simulators for GCH members.
Dr Sergio Haimovich, Founder and Chair of GCH, commented:
GCH is committed to Continuous Medical Education (CME) globally, and we believe that with the help of Inovus’ simulators we will be able to improve our CME programs, with special emphasis in developing countries, helping to enhance the level of intrauterine surgery and hysteroscopy.
The Global Congress of Hysteroscopy (GCH) is the premier global society focused on hysteroscopy. GCH aims to promote the practice, teaching and research of hysteroscopy to improve women's health worldwide.
Join us on our journey of remastering surgical training.
My recent presentation at KPMG’s Global Tech Innovator finals will give you a quick insight into our progress towards achieving our mission so far. If, after watching the video, you are interested in learning more, please reach out on email at the link below.
Dr Elliot Street
Co-Founder and CEO
Following the successful launch of the LapAR platform in 2020 and having positioned itself as the market leader for surgical training technologies in the United Kingdom, Inovus raised a $7million scale up round in 2022. The investment will be utilised to expand direct commercial operations across North America and accelerate new product development. The round was led by a majority investment from Norgine Ventures.
Norgine Ventures is backed by Norgine, a private, European healthcare company with 116 years of experience in the pharma space. Norgine Ventures was started in 2012 to diversify Norgine’s activities and foster innovation in the healthcare sector. Norgine Ventures provides debt and debt-like financing to innovative, fast-growing companies in the fields of healthcare and life sciences, in Europe and the US. To date, Norgine Ventures has invested in over twenty businesses, including specialty pharma, diagnostic and medical device companies, at various stages of their life cycle.
For further information visit https://www.norgineventures.com/
With strong foundations laid and major growth opportunities in the domestic and international markets, the company welcomed its first equity investors onto its journey to help capitalise on the opportunities in the market. In late 2018, Mercia Asset Management invested through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund as part of a £700,000 round.
The growth capital has allowed the company to strengthen its domestic commercial team and make important strides in overseas markets. Mercia is a proactive specialist asset manager with a focus on regional businesses seeking venture, private equity or debt finance to scale their businesses. Mercia has c.£800million of assets under management with just under half being unrestricted free cash to invest over the next two to five years. Mercia continue to support the ambitious growth plans of the company.
With the landscape of surgical care changing, NHS England and the SBRI Healthcare team highlighted the need for improved pre-operative surgical simulation, the subject of their Autumn 2017 funding call. Inovus were successful in phase one and phase two funding, receiving £1.1million in total. The SBRI Healthcare funding accelerated the development of the company’s ground-breaking high fidelity laparoscopic simulation platform, LapAR.
The LapAR combines a unique approach to Augmented Reality with computer vision tracking and artificial intelligence to deliver connected surgical training at scale. The technology has been shown to save healthcare systems over $115 million per year in operative efficiencies. LapAR was launched in the summer of 2020 following the successful completion of the SBRI phase 2 project and is already in use in the NHS and overseas territories including North America and Asia Pacific.
Innovate UK
Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the national funding agency investing in science and research in the UK. Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion, UKRI brings together the 7 Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Innovate UK offered £10 million to fund projects focussed on sustainable economic recovery from COVID-19.
Inovus were lucky enough to receive this funding as part of the Sustainable Innovation Fund. The company is running a project that aims to help re-skill surgeons who have been affected by disruption to normal services from the pandemic.
Inovus have been supported through a number of investments originating from the British Business Bank including investments via the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund by Mercia and MSIF.
The British Business Bank is a government-owned business development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses across the UK, they exist to help businesses overcome challenges, make the most of opportunities and keep moving in the right direction.
Having developed a late stage prototype for the bozzini Hysteroscopy simulator, Inovus were seeking funding to accelerate the product to market readiness in 2018. The company were supported in an application to the EIT Health Headstart programme by the local Academic Health Science Network, the Innovation Agency.
Following a successful application to the programme, Inovus were one of 10 companies to be awarded a share of 500,000 Euros. The funding accelerated the final development stages of the bozzini Hysteroscopy simulator which has been a major success since its launch, now used across four continents for hysteroscopy skills training.
Having outgrown three premises in the space of four years, 2017 saw the need for the company to move again. With Inovus’ growth continuing to accelerate the company also needed to upscale its manufacturing processes and fulfilment infrastructure. Through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, MSIF were able to support a £240,000 manufacturing scale up project that enabled the company to keep pace with its ever accelerating growth.
Having successfully implemented the use of additive manufacturing in the production of many of its products, the company was keen to scale these manufacturing modalities by bringing many of them in house. In 2019 Inovus took on an ambitious project to in house production level 3D printing. The 3D printing technology (SLS) allows the company to manufacture precision parts at scale. The project included the purchase and installation of a ProX6100 printer from 3D Systems as well as the installation of post processing equipment and new manufacturing lines.
The £250,000 project was match funded through the KEEP+ programme. The KEEP+ funding drastically accelerated the project delivery timelines, allowing Inovus to keep up with the growing demands for its products.
By in housing the technology the company has been able to reduce its printing costs. Passing these cost savings onto its customers whilst manufacturing the highest quality parts is enabling Inovus to deliver on its values of affordable and functional surgical training.
The Future Innovation Fund was launched by the Liverpool Metro Mayor in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The £3million Fund was established to support Liverpool City Region’s (LCR) small and medium sized enterprise (SME) community with an aim to incentivise SMEs to innovate, adapt and diversify in response to or in spite of the challenges and opportunities presented by the pandemic and its associated impacts on the economy and society.
Inovus were one of only 5% of applicants to be awarded funding in the first round and will be using the funding to drive internationalisation in North America. The funding also supported the installation of new capital equipment to help service the demand from growing export sales.
The Department of International Trade have been supporting Inovus’ export journey since 2015. The company has been the beneficiary of a number of export grants which have supported direct market access activities. The DIT export grants have enabled Inovus to explore new markets including North America and the Middle East. On-going support from DIT is focussed on the company’s key growth markets of North America, Asia Pacific and Europe.