The Knowledgebase Collaboration project helped this innovative software development company to bring their prototype software to market. This has led to new income being generated from installations in the UK at 5 NHS hospitals, including South Manchester University Trust and a trial at University College Hospital, London and secured an order from BMI Group, a private sector operator to install systems at all 39 of their hospitals.

Biotronics3D Ltd is based in London, and develops and markets innovative software applications under the brand 3Dnet for the medical diagnostic imaging industry. To bring new products to market, there are lots of regulatory hurdles to overcome as medical products require stringent testing and accreditation to appropriate standards (BSI in the UK and FDA in the USA) before release.

The founder and Chief Executive Haralambos ‘Harry’ Hatzakis commented “we were struggling to find proper experts who understood manufacturing of a health care IT product as a medical device”.

The software takes data from CAT/MRI scanners and turns it into 3-dimensional colour images, which a doctor can view on a standard laptop in the clinic, home, office or wherever they happen to be working.  Doctors can visualise the patient’s colon, lung, or even full-body scan and analyse the data however they prefer. This improves their access to the rapidly increasing volume of diagnostic information, with prodigious benefits to workflow for busy hospitals.

The innovation project was successful in large part because it started by obtaining clinical feedback from early users who trialled the software, rather than carrying out traditional field trials. This invaluable input was used to refine the commercial product. They also set out to secure commercial agreements with distributors with an existing presence in target markets like North America and now have fifteen such partnership agreements in place.

The sales results speak for themselves and Dr Hatzakis believes that the largest opportunity is in the North American market, where private healthcare decision makers act quickly, especially when there are cost reductions and efficiency gains on offer.

Early sales are starting to bring in revenue and the company is preparing for its next stage by restructuring to bring in additional skills and investment. Dr Hatzakis says he is anticipating faster growth in 2008. He has recently secured an order from another UK operator and is starting to make inroads to the European small to medium size hospital sector.