Cape Town - A South African investment holdings company focused on bringing innovative technologies to the African medical industry through its investment has launched its wireless ultrasound solution.
This comes after, earlier this year, Innov8 Group Holdings co-founders Dr Chad Marthinussen and Abdul-Malick Salie inked a successful partnership with an Irish-based fund and family office.
It said the partnership between the Irish and Innov8 Group Holdings has resulted in the company externally valued in excess of R250 million, with initial seed investors reaping a 60% return on a partial exit as well as a significant capital appreciation.
Now, the duo, boasting almost three decades of experience in the corporate finance and investment space, as well as healthcare and technology industries, have inked a five-year distribution deal with international healthcare giant Avacare Global for the distribution of their cutting-edge U-Image wireless ultrasound solution.
U-Image was conceptualised by Marthinussen, a qualified medical doctor, in 2018 while he worked in a government hospital in the Western Cape.
He quickly came to the realisation that access to ultrasound machinery within the emergency departments of hospitals was limited and that the units available were old and not fully functional.
Marthinussen said he was further left hanging as there was no training for the devices to be used.
“There was no training on how to operate these devices; I had to consult YouTube for a tutorial. That's what sparked the idea to look at developing my solution,” he said.
Early in 2021, Innov8 Group Holdings received accreditation from the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) and immediately hit the ground running to build a device around their probe.
The U-Image wireless ultrasound is said to be the world’s most affordable point-of-care ultrasound device.
While it may be smaller than a smartphone, it provides world-leading performances across various medical specialities.
The device, which is a 3-in-1 ultrasound probe, can produce whole-body scanning capabilities in any environment.
The device, which has already been put to use, is said to already be a game-changer as it allows medical professionals to improve bedside examinations and clinical care, detect symptoms and reduce intervention time. A win for patients already suffering in the already overburdened healthcare sector in South Africa.
The tech company said the U-Image ecosystem is also designed to seamlessly connect the scanner and scanned data to its medical artificial intelligence (AI) imaging pipeline, which allows for real-time analysis and decision-making. This provides doctors with the information they need when they need it the most.
It has taken the team based in South Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia three years to build the technology, refine the hardware and optimise its business models, as well as get the buy-in from universities and doctors across South Africa.
One of the first institutions to procure the U-Image into its medical student base was Stellenbosch University.
“U-Image is committed to enhancing the healthcare experience through technology for all – regardless of the patient’s socio-economic status,” Marthinussen said.
Hospitals in the Western Cape, such as Tygerberg Hospital, Khayelitsha Day Hospital, and Worcester Hospital, have since successfully and effectively engaged with the device and technology.
Family and sports medicine physician at the Mitchells Plain Community Healthcare Centre in Cape Town, Dr Roland Kroukamp, said the device had been a boon not only for himself but for his patients as well.
“U-Image has revolutionised my clinical practice, I now use it more than my stethoscope, and also do my best to train and expose all the doctors who work in my facility to become comfortable with using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), as it is without a doubt the stethoscope of the future
“I use it for a range of applications: from obstetrics, musculoskeletal, to ophthalmology and internal medicine - as my scope of practice is wide,” Kroukamp said.
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the Innov8 Group, Marlon Parker, said U-Image is committed to enhancing the healthcare experience through technology.
The founder of Africa Intelligent Machines, Storm Rhoda, said the combination of the U-Image ultrasound device and its AI imaging pipeline offers a complete solution for medical professionals, providing accurate, efficient and immediate results.
Group executive of Healthcare Consumables Devices and Equipment at Avacare Global, Uma Nadumpalli, expressed how proud they were to have signed this deal with Innov8 Group Holdings for the U-Image device.
“We have built an incredible track record for only distributing and supplying affordable quality healthcare products to our customers - which span over 12 territories across Africa - into both state and private sectors, giving us a very strong footprint that aligns with the U-Image vision of driving adoption across the continent,” Nadimpalli said.
Co-founder Salie said this transaction had given the business a solid revenue base to work from which allows focusing its efforts on research and development, particularly software and data infrastructure which will be rolled out alongside a suite of probes in the pipeline.