GHP January 2016

ghp

January 2016

www.ghp-magazine.com

Research, Translation, Commercialisation

Thumbs

Up?

Mark Sadler, founder of Hootvox, considers how customer feedback has evolved and asks what are the implications for healthcare?

New Ambition to Halve Rate of Stillbirths and Infant Deaths

Dr. Professor Alan Cameron, RCOG Vice President, Clinical Quality explains why between 60-65% of these antepartum stillbirths could have been prevented.

Free HIV Home Sampling Launched to Increase HIV Testing Initiative

Professor Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England tells us how HIV infection is still a growing problem within certain communities and why levels of HIV testing among high risk people remain too low.

Antibiotic Apocalypse

Professor Colin J Suckling OBE, DSc, FRSE, Research Professor of Chemistry, University of Strathclyde talks about what we are doing to avoid us entering a post-antibiotic era.

In Search of the Perfect Health System

ghp

Research, Translation, Commercialisation

editor’s note

this month’s foreword

inside this issue

Welcome to the January Issue of ghp Magazine.

06 News

In an exclusive foreword, Northern Ireland Health Minister Simon Hamilton details his department’s Making Life Better Strategy which reflects the commitment of the Northern Ireland Executive to “improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities, through co-ordinated and focussed action on the wider social, economic and environmental determinants of health.”

12 What Can Healthcare Learn About Patient Experience Tools from Travel and ECommerce?

16 New Ambition to Halve Rate of Stillbirths and Infant Deaths.

By Dr. Professor Alan Cameron 18 In Search of the Perfect Health System.

A new book by Mark Britnell

In this insightful and topical edition of global health & pharma, Professor Alan Cameron, RCOG Vice President, Clinical Quality discusses the ‘Each Baby Counts’ five-year initiative which “aims to halve the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled as a result of incidents occurring during term labour by 2020.”

Helen Donovan, Professional lead for public health nursing at the Royal College of Nursing argues that cutting public health budgets “intended to prevent health problems before they start – is incredibly short-sighted, and risky”.

Dr. Bryce G. Rutter, Founder & CEO Metaphase Design Group Inc. reveals his thoughts on the dignity of living, as we continue to make incredible advances in medicine, the importance the human factor” he argues.

Other topics covered in this edition include antibiotic resistance, HIV infection and drug development. Do feel free to contact me if you would like to submit an article for the next edition or for the global health & pharma website.

We hope you enjoy this issue.

20 The Dignity of Living.

Dr. Bryce G. Rutter 22 Professional Lead for Public Health Nursing.

By Helen Donovan

Northern Ireland Health Minister Simon Hamilton... talks us through his ‘Making Life Better Strategy’ which reflects the commitment of the Executive to improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities, through co-ordinated and focussed action on the wider social, economic and environmental determinants of health.

Page 4

24 Free HIV Home Sampling Launched to Increase HIV Testing Initiative.

By Professor Kevin Fenton 26 Antibiotic Apocalypse.

By Professor Colin J Suckling 28 Public-Private Partnerships in the Translation of Academic Innovation into Drug Development.

By Dr Julie Brady 30 Dr Xavier G. Medi-Spa clinic 32 Martin Graf, AIRBORN eyewear

“A world without antibiotics is a public health issue and avoiding the apocaplypse needs the public interest at its heart.”

Professor Colin J Suckling OBE, DSc, FRSE Research Professor of Chemistry University of Strathclyde

Global Health & Pharma, 39A Birmingham Road, Blakedown, Worcestershire, DY10 3JW Tel: +44 (0) 1234 567 890 | Email: info@ghp-magazine.com | Web: www.ghp-magazine.com

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foreword

Northern Ireland Health Minister Simon Hamilton My department’s Making Life Better Strategy reflects the commitment of the Executive to improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities, through co-ordinated and focussed action on the wider social, economic and environmental determinants of health.

The aims of Making Life Better are closely inter-woven with those of the Programme for Government – good population health and a fairer distribution of good health are essential to Building a Better Future.

Like other regions in the UK there remain challenges facing Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.

Our population is increasing in size and it is getting older. There is a rise in the number of chronic conditions people are living with. Unhealthy lifestyles are building up a ticking time bomb of problems. Miraculous developments in medical technologies and drugs are increasing demand and pushing up costs. And all of these challenges are amassing at a time when we also face unprecedented financial pressures.

Transformation will take time. It will take a plan. And it will take resources.

In the November Monitoring Round my department received an extra £47.6 million additional funding.

This funding boost for Health will immediately go towards tackling the significant pressures, such as waiting lists and elective surgery, my Department faces.

By being bold and by being brave and by taking necessary steps, I believe that we have the ability within Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care system to not just conquer difficult challenges that arise but also build that world class service that our citizens deserve.

We’ve responded to those challenges by spending over £750 million more on health over the last 5 years. Since 2011, we’ve have been able to employ 240 more medical and dental consultants, 930 more nurses and 460 more allied health professionals.

We’ve been able to use that additional investment and extra staff to increase out of hours GP contacts by 12%, increase inpatient admissions by 4.3%, reduce MRSA infections by 42% and increase domiciliary care hours by 7.5% over the last 4 years.

Despite these improvements, pressures persist.

No Health Service anywhere in the world will survive the assault of these challenges unless it focuses first and foremost on ensuring the highest quality and safety of care; it configures its services correctly and has an appropriate administrative structure.

We need to make changes to save our Health Service and set it on a path towards becoming world class.

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news

Health Insurers Speed up Digital Transformation Finding sufficient financial resources and embracing needed cultural change not be an easy task, according to analysis by Frost & Sullivan in November.

The company’s Health Insurance Information Technology: US Overview and Outlook, 2014-2020: Changing IT Priorities for Next Generation Health Plans (http://www.healthcareIT.frost.com) discovered that health insurers are actively deploying new types of information technology as a lever for required improvements in transformation and operational efficiency to increasingly consumer-focused business models.

New regulatory and compliance obligations have been brought to the insurance industry, due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has brought, thus upending traditional business practices and changing known IT priorities.

In addition, the pace and extent of industry change demands fresh approaches that need embracing cultural change on a huge scale.

Also, fundamental issues health insurers are encountering today include: • Continued cost inflation caused by hospitals, technology vendors and pharmaceutical companies; • Stricter contract negotiations with large employers and provider systems; • Higher levels of individual consumers demanding an increased level of service and lower premiums; • Growing experimentation with changing reimbursement models and risk-sharing arrangements that need a more cohesive approach to sharing information with providers and members.

As health insurers move towards to new market realities, IT will be at the heart of enabling their transition to new business models which is reliant on maximising containing financial risk and consumer engagement.

While IT spending for the industry is predicted to expand in line with premium growth, reflecting a surge of new covered lives due to ACA, Frost & Sullivan thinks the industry standard percentage of the total premium devoted to IT will not increase significantly overall due to the need to contain rising administrative costs and increasing margin pressures

Principal Connected Health Analyst, Nancy Fabozzi at Frost & Sullivan said: “ACA is an overwhelmingly disruptive force for the U.S. healthcare system. Health insurance organizations will continue to respond by aggressively containing administrative costs including IT purchasing. Significant shifts in how spending is allocated across IT market segments will force many vendors to develop new strategies and capabilities, particularly for consumer and analytics IT, which is imperative to remain competitive.”

The research predicts the U.S. Health Insurance IT market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.5% from 2015 and 2020. While IT spending will increase overall, allocation of the spending will shift with less capital devoted to IT infrastructure and core administrative systems to more spending consumer engagement solutions and analytics.

Therefore, the allocation of spend among a number health insurance IT segments will move to turn the spotlight on new business priorities resulting from the shift to a direct-to-consumer model.

Fabozzi added: “IT spending priorities for the health insurance industry will increasingly focus on new tools for data analytics, consumer engagement, as well as population health and care management, especially building out new capabilities capable of improving communication and engagement with members, including mobile and real-time decision support.”

The drivers of this trend include: • The need for patients to take on increased financial responsibility for their healthcare costs; especially with the rise of high-deductible health plans and; • Greater consumer access to medical information via the Internet.

The report concludes there is a strong upward trend in incentives from providers, payers and employers fashioned to build and grow consumer health awareness, cultural shifts in attitudes about patients’ right to access their personal health information, not to mention the rising use of mobile devices and apps by consumers and healthcare providers alike.

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India and the UK Cement a Strategic Partnership in Healthcare King’s College Hospital become the strategic clinical partner for the first Indo UK Institute of Health in New Chandigarh, it was announced in November.

Backed by up to £100 million of private investment, the project is the first of a proposed 11 Indo UK Institutes of Health which will concern the development of high quality hospitals, medical colleges and nursing schools throughout India.

When fully implemented, the initiative will represent a £1 billion investment into India’s healthcare system.

Indeed, the UK and Indian governments have set up an implementation taskforce to ensure speedy implementation and closer collaboration of these and other healthcare projects. These intend to bring the UK’s finest NHS organisations, universities and companies to India.

“I am thrilled that we are now able to share the expertise we have here in London to ensure patients in India have access to the highest-quality healthcare.”

“My ambition is to provide access to this fantastic service to as many of my fellow Indians as possible through the 11 Indo-UK Institutes of Health.

Dr Ajay Rajan Gupta, CEO of Indo UK Healthcare Pvt Ltd, added:

“I thank Prime Ministers Narender Modi and David Cameron for their support for this innovative healthcare project in India which will benefit both the NHS and India.”

“This project is all about bringing the ‘best of British’ healthcare to India - ‘NHS in India’.

© Crown copyright “As someone who has worked within the NHS as a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon for a number of years now, I have seen first-hand how lucky the UK is to have such a fantastic service.

Healthcare UK assisted Kings College Hospital and Indo UK Healthcare Pvt Ltd to bring this partnership to fruition and it will carry on supporting the development of the Indo-UK Institutes of Health.

George Freeman MP, Minister for Life Sciences welcomed the news, which was given during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the UK in November 2015: “It’s great news that King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has agreed to be the strategic clinical partner for the first Indo UK Institute for Health in New Chandigarh. This £100 million collaboration, a world first, is a sign of the huge global export market for the UK healthcare and life sciences sector.

“I would encourage other UK companies, academic institutions and NHS organisations to work with Healthcare UK to engage in the Indo UK Institutes for Health project. As one of the fastest developing economies in the world, with over 1 billion people, India is fast becoming a vast market for UK health services and technology.”

Lord Kerslake, Chairman of King’s College Hospital, commented: “I am delighted that King’s College Hospital is part of this flagship project to develop greater collaboration between the UK and India in the all-important area of healthcare.

“Over the years, Indian staff have made a vital contribution to developing the world-class reputation we are so proud of here at King’s.

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news

AMR Diagnostics in the Lime Light In October 2015, the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) pointed out that Jim O’Neill, economist appointed by David Cameron, published the fourth report by the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance ‘Rapid diagnostics: treating patients with infections better and more sustainably’.

JPIAMR welcomed the report, which underlines the topic of diagnostics use and development to lower antimicrobial resistance. Research mapping carried out as part of the initiative has shown that this field is underfunded. Indeed, just 1% of competitive national AMR funding is allocated to research projects on diagnostics and only 10% in terms of European funding, so there is a clear need for further resources.

In the view of O’Neill, approximately two thirds of the total antibiotic prescriptions in the US in a given year are needlessly given to adults. Unfortunately, these prescriptions were likely to have been ineffective in tackling the patient’s particular complaint, and they would have also each have contributed to worsening resistance, in the context of both the individual patients and wider society.

With improved diagnostics hospitals will be able to diagnose patients faster, which will have numerous benefits for them and those they treat. Mats Ulfendahl, Chair of JPIAMR’s Management Board said: “To develop better and faster diagnostic tools, we need research. We have to collaborate across national and topical borders to prevent duplication of results and to maximise on resources. Developing private-public partnership will also play a big part.

These are the cornerstones of JPIAMR.” The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance report considers: • The role that rapid diagnostics can play in improving how we use antimicrobials to treat infections better, • To slow down the rise of drug-resistance by decreasing the over-use and misuse of medicines, especially antibiotics, and ultimately change much of the approach to treating bacterial infections by allowing the advent of more precise and targeted therapies.

Jim O’Neill strongly suggest that the following are required: • Rapid diagnostics within 5 years in pharmacies, hospital and primary care settings globally, • To focus on the development of the correct diagnostics, • Further grant funding to companies investing in early stage and translational research and; • To support the building of hard evidence to prove that diagnostics work: including clinical, financial and operational evidence.

Committed to the One Health approach, JPIAMR and MRC organised a workshop in London earlier this year, which led to key recommendations in adoption, regulation and implementation, resources and sharing and connections concerning diagnostics.

The recommendations included: • Developing a better mechanism for advocacy; • Starting up an EU wide network for diagnostic development centres; • Centralising biobanks and; • Sponsoring multi-disciplinary activities including research.

This resulted in JPIAMR funding a call for Research Networks within the area of Diagnostics in 2016.

Arjon Van Hengel, Scientific Officer for Research Funding and Research Policy in the Area of AMR, European Commission, said during a podcast interview with JPIAMR: “We need to support research in the area [of diagnostics] to develop the proper tools and change the policy to support the uptake of diagnostics by prescribers as well as change the behaviour of prescribers.”

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Chinese and UK Companies, Universities and Organisations Collaborate for £2 Billion of Healthcare Trade Deals More than £2 billion of healthcare trade deals and collaborations have were signed between Chinese and UK companies, universities and organisations during President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Britain in October this year.

Speaking at the Life Science and Healthcare Business Forum, Minister for Life Sciences George Freeman remarked that the collaborations will provide benefits that go considerably further than the populations of China and the UK, and will have a positive effect on health globally:

The Minister then said: “All of these collaborations announced today show how Chinese and UK organisations recognise each other’s potential. Together we have a real opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives and improve the health outcomes for millions across the globe.

“With a population of more than one billion and a rapidly developing economy, China is set to become the world’s fastest growing healthcare market. Today’s £2 billion trade package for UK exports in research, hospital construction, training, diagnostics and drug discovery shows the huge potential of UK/Chinese Life Science trade.”

“UK leadership in Life Science is helping to support both UK economic growth and the sustainable development of emerging economies. This is a win-win for the NHS, UK and China.”

The Minister said both countries have long been admired for producing some of the world’s leading academics and scientists, whose advances have saved and improved the lives of millions of people suffering from serious diseases such as cancer:

UK-China Research and innovation toolkit Also in October, Baroness Neville-Rolfe announced the publication of a toolkit to enable UK-China research and innovation collaboration.

She said that the UK’s strengths in research and technology commercialisation complement the exciting work happening in China, outlining the following examples:

“Cancer is the number one killer of people in the UK and China and like many nations we are in hot pursuit to find an effective treatment. Which is why collaborations such as those being announced today between Warwick University and Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Centre on training and research to co-develop anti-cancer treatments are so important.”

•

UK patients will also benefit from China’s technological advancements with deals such as Cerno and United Imaging who collaborated to bring the most recent oncology imaging technology to the UK. The Minister stressed that the sharing of expertise will flow both ways.

•

UK organisations Glasgow Caledonian University, Annie Barr and Kings College London are supporting the training of Chinese health professionals in a number of cities in China as the Chinese government aims to train 150,000 doctors and 2 million nurses by 2020.

•

The UK is home to 4 of the world’s top 10 universities – Cambridge, UCL, Oxford and Imperial College London – and 30 of the top 200; These universities are equipped with first class facilities and talent, producing research that changes people’s lives around the world. According to industry data, 16% of the most cited papers in the world are first published in the UK; and The UK is also a world leader in technology commercialisation. We have strong university-industry links, and a track record of creating successful spin out companies. Our companies and universities have experience taking innovation to markets across the world;

The Minister then went on to say: “China is also now a leading global source of funding for scientific research, with R&D spending reaching 2.9% of GDP in 2014. Many of us in the IP sector have been

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amazed at the output of this research in China, with over 900,000 invention patent applications to the State Intellectual Property Office last year alone. “[As I mentioned earlier], the UK and China are jointly investing in £200 million of science and innovation projects over 5 years. But collaboration across borders can be challenging. Unfamiliar academic cultures, business environments and IP systems can create barriers to joint research.

“The benefits of solving these problems are significant.

Citation rates are higher for papers co-authored by British and Chinese scientists than for papers written in either country independently. Cross-border licensing of IP has unlocked revenues otherwise unavailable to both parties in a licensing agreement.

“This is why the Toolkit we are launching today is so important. It provides a clear framework for negotiating how IP will be managed in joint research projects. It includes a decision guide and translated model collaboration agreements. It is based on the Lambert Toolkit which was created for domestic collaborations, but has been specifically adjusted for both UK and Chinese law.” © Crown copyright

news

Innovative Treatment in Action Turning the spotlight on to Scotland, in late November Public Health Minister visited the Assisted Conception Unit in Edinburgh where innovative technology is delivering improvements for women receiving IVF treatment in Scotland.

Investment of more than £18 million by the Scottish Government means that for the second consecutive quarter (ending September 2015), 100% of patients waiting for IVF treatment in Scotland were seen within 12 months, so the target was delivered ahead of schedule in March.

Staff at Edinburgh Fertility Reproductive Endocrine Centre (EFREC) demonstrated the EmbryoScope installed there in 2014. The Scottish Government provided funding for all four NHS Assisted Conception Units to purchase EmbryoScopes which allow Embryologists to select the ‘best’ single embryo for implantation, which reduces the chance of multiple pregnancies and is likely to increase pregnancy rates.

The funding was part of Scottish Government investment of more than £12 million over three financial years to 2014/15, targeted to reduce IVF waiting times. To ensure waiting times remain at 12 months or less, a further £6 million has been allocated to IVF funding in 2015/16.

“The additional funding this year means that we can continue to meet our waiting times targets and give patients in Scotland access to a more generous and fairer service than elsewhere in the UK.” Reducing waiting times for IVF patients has potential to improve the chances of a successful outcome. The Scottish Government determined that the IVF waiting times target should be delivered for at least 90% of patients from 1 April 2015, as for some it may not be clinically appropriate for treatment to begin within 12 months.

The Scottish Government’s National Infertility group has reconvened to consider increasing the number of cycles offered from two to three; and current recommendations concerning couples who already have a child in the home. A report is expected to be released in early 2016.

The latest waiting times figures can be found here: http://www.isdscotland.org/ © Crown copyright

Public Health Minister Maureen Watt paid a visit to NHS Lothian’s Assisted Conception Unit to see the technology at work and said: “Scotland is leading the way in the provision of NHS IVF treatment and I am delighted to see first-hand some of the amazing work being done in this field.

“It’s quite fascinating to watch the EmbryoScope being used to select the best embryo for treatment, which potentially increases the chance of successful treatment for couples who need fertility treatment.

“The implementation and early achievement of this target was fantastic, but to reach 100 per cent for two consecutive quarters is truly to be celebrated.

“Our £18 million investment has had a dramatic effect, with patients from all 14 NHS Boards starting treatment in one of the four NHS IVF centres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, within 12 months.

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A law firm for lifescience and other innovative businesses Helping Life Science Businesses Make The Most Of Their New Ideas Bonaccord is an award winning law firm specialising in the life sciences.

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The life sciences sector is highly specialised with unique challenges.

Our insightful support and understanding of the industry, based on many years’ experience, aims both to protect your interests and support you in seeing your idea to market.

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Bonaccord was founded by life sciences lawyer Patricia Barclay.

+44 131 202 6527 enquiries@bonaccord.eu

www.bonaccord.eu

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innovation & technology

What Can Healthcare Learn About Patient Experience Tools from Travel and ECommerce?

Trip Advisor celebrates it’s 16th birthday next month and Amazon sold their very first book almost 21 years ago. Mark Sadler, founder of Hootvox, considers how customer feedback has evolved and asks what are the implications for healthcare?

Most feedback that you read on the internet is collected via an ‘open’ system for anyone who wants to leave feedback about a product, service or business. This system is also ‘open’ to non-customers leaving reviews for the wrong reasons. In the case of hotels, the reviews you read could have been left by a disgruntled ex-member of staff, the manager of the hotel next door, or the helpful friends and family of the hotel owner themselves.

The LA Times reported that up to 40% of all online hotel reviews are fake and that around 15% have been paid for by the hotels themselves in attempts to manipulate their online reputations. In November 2015, Amazon famously issued legal proceedings against 1,114 people who advertised their services as ‘writing ‘fake’ Amazon reviews’.

Lots of small businesses have been unfairly damaged by malicious fake reviews. Equally, fake reviews can lead consumers into making choices or purchases that they otherwise would not have made.

The way in which feedback is collected has a dramatic effect on it’s quality. Open review sites are just the tip of the iceberg; some businesses offer incentives for positive feedback, some hand out ‘feedback cards’ to selected customers only, and as Amazon and Trip Advisor discovered, others will simply pay companies to write fake positive reviews.

It’s increasingly common to be asked for your feedback by a member of staff who stands over you while you complete the survey on an iPad, or to be phoned up and asked to complete a telephone survey.

Feedback collected in person can often be 20% more positive than feedback collected remotely, and feedback collected by telephone is said to be in the region of 30% more positive.

Some businesses are working hard to try to improve online review collection. They ask customers to

register with a site before they can leave feedback, and some companies print a unique number on their receipts which customers need in order to leave a review on their website. However even if the customers are verified and the feedback collected off-site, an open review system is still open to significant bias.

When compared to customer surveys businesses listed on an open review site have 3 times more negative reviews and 35% fewer positive reviews. A likely cause of this bias is that in general, only people with extremes of opinion, Mr Angry or Mrs Extremely Happy will actively seek out a place to leave their feedback. The vast majority of customers who are quite happy with the service would be more than happy to provide feedback if asked, but do not go looking online for a place to do this.

Closed Review Systems From hotels to online retailers, the future of customer reviews is being led by software providers who use ‘closed feedback’ software to survey every customer of a business by email or text message. This type of proactive review collection can involve a little more administration but is clearly the next step away from the passive systems of open review sites. Even TripAdvisor is encouraging hotels to adopt it’s own version of a closed review system.

The feedback cannot be filtered by businesses but they do have the ability to respond to reviews, to say thank you or to apologise and offer to put things right.

The interactions between the customer and the trader are often made public for all to see, so that potential customers can see how a trader conducts themselves when a problem occurs. If a business has strong customer service, this is a great place to showcase it.

Because every customer is surveyed, they still get the extremes of opinion, but they also get lots of other feedback too with the average response rate across eCommerce sites being above 15%. Where the purchase is consid-

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innovation & technology ered or the price tag high the response rates can be much higher, and because all feedback is collected offsite there is even less opportunity for bias in the results.

Reports show that if the public sees feedback that shows a balance of opinion including both positive and negative feedback, they are more inclined to trust it because of the added authenticity.

In a recent survey: • 62% of people said they leave feedback because it gets companies to listen.

• 74% said that they like to help companies to make improvements.

• 90% said they like to help other people to make good decisions.

We also know that when people use customer reviews to help them make their purchasing decisions, they are much more likely to leave their own feedback if asked.

The Future for Feedback in Healthcare The last 20 years has brought us to a point where we know what works and what doesn’t. In April 2011, the OFT wrote a paper titled ‘Empowering Consumers of Public Services through Choice Tools’. Of all the feedback collection methods and companies studied, they concluded that a closed review system would be by far the most effective solution for both health and social care.

To date DoH, NHS Choices and NHS England have engaged with only open systems and the majority of feedback is collected on-site. There has been a slow adoption of technology, most likely due to a concern that not all patients have the internet or a smartphone.

However, as this changes, closed systems become viable and a valuable source of feedback. NHS Wales has recently started to use closed review software to gather feedback from confirmed patients off-site.

Patient feedback is most valuable when used to improve the patient experience.

In eCommerce, customer feedback is used by responsible traders to tailor their offering to meet the needs of the customer.

In healthcare, high volumes of bias-free feedback provides actionable insight that can stimulate and drive continuous improvement programmes, firmly placing the patients and their feedback at the centre of all that we do.

Good feedback software allows us to create bespoke surveys helping us to capture valuable insight on what’s most important to each ward. Powerful reporting tools can track trends in the ratings and make comparisons with similar wards in other parts of the hospital or other hospitals. Beyond hospitals, CCGs can use patient feedback to understand outcomes and commission services more effectively, collecting patient feedback from medical centres and surgeries, dentists, clinics, drop in centres and care homes. The possibilities are endless.

We have a lot to thank TripAdvisor and Amazon for, and whilst we need a ‘TripAdvisor for Care’ to provide the public, social services, CCGs and other bodies with effective feedback, we must be sure to learn from the mistakes that they have made and be sure not to repeat them.

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overview

New Ambition to Halve Rate of Stillbirths and Infant Deaths

By Dr. Professor Alan Cameron, RCOG Vice President, Clinical Quality

One in 200 babies are stillborn in the UK1 and according to the latest MBBRACE-UK report, between 60-65% of these antepartum stillbirths could have been prevented.

Although fewer babies in the UK are stillborn today, it’s desperately disappointing that the four recommendations from this report remain exactly the same as when the confidential enquiry took place 15 years ago.

In addition, of the 133 cases of stillbirths recorded in 2013, national guidance was not followed by hospitals in the majority of cases and there were too many ‘missed opportunities’ which could have potentially saved the lives of some of these babies.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) does not accept that all stillbirths are unavoidable tragedies, and last year we launched Each Baby Counts, a five year initiative which aims to halve the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled as a result of incidents occurring during term labour by 2020.

Local investigations following stillbirth remain an area in need of improvement so we are now collecting data from all UK units to help identify these avoidable factors, and consequently improve care and save lives. Every hospital trust in the UK has signed up to the programme and this will ensure that all incidents can be investigated at a national as well as local level.

Only by scrutinising this data on an annual basis will we improve outcomes.

Earlier this month, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced that the NHS hopes to reduce the rate of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and morbidity in England by 50% by 2030. In order to achieve this there will be a £4 million investment into cardiotocography (CTG) equipment and training. A further £500,000 will be invested in developing a new system to review and learn from every stillbirth and neonatal death, and over £1 million will be invested in

rolling out multi-disciplinary training packages, such as PROMPT, led by RCOG and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), these courses are designed to be used locally, and to improve the outcomes for mothers and their babies during obstetric emergencies.

This NHS campaign fits closely with our Each Baby Counts programme, and we support the initiative wholeheartedly. The RCOG will continue to work closely with our clinical colleagues and the Royal College of Midwives to provide better multi-disciplinary training packages and promote more effective team working. The challenges of reducing health problems and deaths in mothers and babies due to contributory factors such as smoking, obesity and alcohol will also require similar commitment.

Equally as important, training for healthcare professionals to provide sensitive and engaged care is vital in improving maternity bereavement care for stillbirth in the UK. The key to improvement is ensuring that bereavement care meets the emotional and physical needs of parents and healthcare staff receive the necessary training when dealing with sensitive subjects.

As leaders of the profession, The RCOG has an important role to play through educational material and projects such as Each Baby Counts. The MBRRACEUK report highlighted that investigations following antepartum stillbirth are in need of improvement but we have already taken a step in the right direction and are collecting data from every UK Trust on intrapartum incidents. Our ambition for the first Each Baby Counts report, due out next summer, is that we show how these national reviews are leading to real improvements in care.

1

The MBBRACE report, published 19 November

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overview

In Search of the Perfect Health System A new book by Mark Britnell investigates health systems around the world, seeking to showcase the best ideas from different countries which could be combined to create the perfect service.

Tell us about your book.

It’s an attempt to distil more than six years of relentless travel trying to improve health systems and organisations around the world. The first part identifies the twelve components of different countries that I think would constitute the ‘perfect’ system. The second part is a guide to the 24 most interesting and innovative health systems I’ve encountered during my travels.

Each country has its own chapter outlining the good, the bad and the ugly. The third part draws together lessons and best practice on the big global challenges in healthcare – like ageing, universal health coverage, quality improvement and climate change. I highlight why systems are often so slow to respond meaningfully to these challenges, and what innovations we would all do well to learn from.

Who is the audience for the book?

I like to the think it’s for health practitioners with an interest in policy and policymakers with an interest in improving practice. The field of global health has exploded over the last decade, and even those working at the coalface of local organisations are increasingly seeing the relevance of knowing about and learning from other systems. I also hope that patient groups, politicians and students in global health will dip in and out of the book.

What experience did you draw on to write the book?

Over the last six years as KPMG’s Global Chairman for Healthcare I’ve worked in 60 different countries, with governments, hospitals, home care providers, insurers, patients and physicians groups. Before that I had 20 years’ experience in the NHS, running a teaching hospital, a region of England from Oxford to the Isle of Wight, and eventually as a Director General of the Department of Health.

How do you believe your book could potentially change the market/ way healthcare is provided for the better?

The central message of the book is that every health system has something to teach and something to learn. I hope the book encourages those working in healthcare to look up and out, to learn from the incredible innovations of others, and their repeated mistakes. I hope I can challenge particular prejudices that people might have about certain countries, or highlight the great achievements of lesser known systems.

How is the book unique to others in the market?

There are other books comparing different health systems, but they have a tendency to be quite academic and dense. This book draws on a lot of research we’ve done on these countries, but it also draws on insights from meetings with hundreds of leaders and public officials running health services in these countries.

While I respect and protect the confidentiality of clients, the book is able to highlight some of the everyday feel and ‘mood on the ground’ of each system.

I’ve spent all my professional life being a healthcare leader and my book is written from this perspective. In this sense, therefore, it’s unique.

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The Dignity of Living Everyone talks about the dignity of dying, but what about the dignity of living?

Dr. Bryce G. Rutter Founder & CEO Metaphase Design Group Inc.

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overview Are you looking forward to aging and retirement? Do you look forward to using the types of products and living in the facilities that your loved ones are forced to accept as they age? As an industrial designer of medical, mobile and consumer products my mother and father endlessly remind me that just because someone grows old it does not mean that their love for good design erodes. It does not mean that they love their aluminum walker with tennis balls, the hideous reading devices my dad needs as his macular degeneration sets in, or all forms of drug packaging and self-medication devices they need to use daily.

Instead, everything about these products continuously reminds them they are aging, they need help, broadcast this message to everyone who sees them, and in so doing most tragically erodes their sense of dignity on a daily basis.

As we continue to make incredible advances in medicine, in far too many cases the state-of-the-art in healthcare being delivered to aging consumers overshadows the fundamental principle that drives good humanistic design; they ignore the importance the human factor. All the technology in the world cannot save a product that is hard to use, confusing, tiring and that grinds away one’s independence. The lack of empathetic design solutions for an aging population is nothing short of appalling.

There is a tsunami of need, like never before. One fifth of our population is 45 to 65 years old. The number of people 85 years old will increase from 6 million to 20 million in the next two decades. And 10,000 people a day will turn 65 years old for the next two decades. On top of these significant changes in the demographics of our society people entering retirement are doing so with the highest levels of disposable income in history and greatest awareness of what constitutes good design. Their bar is significantly higher and they have a low tolerance for lousy products. So I find myself for the first time in my career as an industrial designer where the intersection of societal needs and business are in total congruency. So what do we do to seize this momentous opportunity?

What is the best designed product that you own?

Think about how this product makes you feel every time you use it. Everything about it seems to be specifically designed for you and you alone. It feels perfect – its weight, balance, materials and textures...

It sounds just right -- not cheap or irritating... And it’s beautiful – its form, balance, color, and visual rhythm looks just right. This best designed product you own also creates an emotional connection that makes you feel good about yourself, makes you happy when you use it, and in many cases becomes a seamless extension of your body. It is through this potency in great product design that we can have a profound impact on the quality of life by designing products that allow people to age in place, with dignity and respect.

Products that are as much a joy and pleasure to use as they are invisibly compensating for those physical or cognitive functions that old man time chips away as we age.

But the challenge in developing products that allow people to age in place, with dignity is neither simple nor obvious. Traditional tactics simply do not work.

For example, so many brands around the world invest in detailed and costly market research studies to define the right feature sets to be combined with the

best styling options only to consistently experience disappointing financial results. Similarly, many global Brands rely on R&D or their manufacturing partners to create breakthrough designs which results in nothing more than a redux or mimicry of what is currently in the market today. Other brands have simply stood by their high volume winning products and watched as their business slowly erodes and manufacturing lines go quiet because of lower cost off-shore knock-offs.

There are however, a smaller number of brands, who recognize the strategic potency of good design and its direct impact on financial success. Super brands like Virgin, Nest, Apple, OXO, and Tesla, to name a few, have created new product categories, redefined industry standards, built cult-like brand loyalty, exceeded all financial projections, and changed markets forever. The successes of this exclusive club of highly successful Brands are directly linked to their ability to make a meaningful and valued connection with their customers. They have studied and designed each and every aspect of the user experience, from product to packaging to instructions through to their mobile interface. They have designed a comprehensive user experience, not just a singular product. They have designed the total ecosystem that surrounds the product and done so in a user centric fashion.

To be the best of the best you need thoughtful design solutions that look great, fit perfectly, perform flawlessly, that make an emotional connection between the Brand and its consumers. How a product feels, looks and sounds, combined with intuitive usability and performance excellence defines the DNA of your Brand Experience. Building on industry-wide best practices collaborating with elite global brands Metaphase has created and refined its User Centered Innovation Process. A design process that consistently delivers Unique & Ownable Consumer Brand Experiences and Successful Products that Sell and Drive Revenues – a process referred to by The Wall Street Journal as “…a gold standard plan.”

Metaphase has re-defined industry standards, invigorated sleepy brands, and created entirely new product categories. Over the last two decades its history of innovation spans all markets for numerous influential global brands including Medtronic, Bayer, Kellogg’s, Sony, P&G, Nokia, LG, Motorola, Steelcase, Hayworth, Gillette, J&J, Kimberly Clark, Kraft, Campbell’s, Microsoft, Dell, Gatorade, Coca-Cola, Newell Rubbermaid, Pfizer, Tyco Healthcare, and Bausch & Lomb, to mention a few.

So I invite all readers to join our revolution to create world class ergonomic designs that meet real human needs, not hyped up faux needs conceived by suits in a boardroom. And know that each of you reading this article get a vote, and that vote is at the cash register. Refuse to buy bad designs. Or when you have to because no other options exist, just don’t accept it but rather reach out to the manufacturer and start a viral campaign demanding that human needs be placed ahead of business as usual. Because brands that drive their innovation by how consumers think, feel and behave, paying attention to each and every human factor, create products that deliver stunning financial success, create an everlasting bond with their consumer, and allow users to age with dignity, vitality and happiness.

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health & social care

Professional Lead for Public Health Nursing

By Helen Donovan, Royal College of Nursing

Perceptions of public health have radically changed over the 19th and 20th century. Communicable infectious diseases are no longer the issue they once were.

This is by and large because people can now expect to live in a decent home, breathe clean air and drink water free from disease. This has all been alongside investment in vaccination programmes.

But we are not entirely without threat. Lifestyle related illnesses are on the rise needing smoking cessation and obesity services and there remain inequalities in society which lead to health inequalities.

The current government talks about working to tackle disease prevention, lifestyle changes and public health services but the finances are doing the exact opposite.

By placing public health “outside the NHS”, it is possible to flatline or even increase the NHS budget while simultaneously removing those funds that make it sustainable. Nurses working in some of our most deprived and vulnerable areas will be horrified to hear that this is happening.

Let us be clear. Cutting public health budgets – intended to prevent health problems before they start – is incredibly short-sighted, and risky. There is barely a person in the UK who will not be needing public health services at some time in their life, covering everything from obesity to tobacco and sexual health to alcohol.

Britain has the fourth highest child mortality rate in Europe, something which would horrify the public health leaders of a hundred years ago. With 1630 deaths per one million children, compared with only 911 in Finland, we are from delivering the best possible care to children.

Inequality and poverty are at the heart of this problem: the UK’s child poverty rates and differences in income are linked with its heightened rate of child death.

The Government has a duty to every child but cuts to services, from public health to social care, are exacerbating child health inequalities amongst the poorest in society. Efforts must be made to eradicate this inequality.

The UK spends the lowest percentage of any Western country on health – just 6.9 per cent of national income. Tragically, a lack of funding is translating into tragic outcomes for vulnerable children.

This year has been a time when radical action could and should have been taken. Time will tell how serious the consequences of not doing so may turn out to be.

Applying these cuts indiscriminately leaves deprived areas facing an increased burden and is undoubtedly going to add to inequality and the score of human misery. People living in deprived communities are more likely to suffer poor health, much of it caused by poor diets, smoking and alcohol. Ultimately, choosing not to invest in prevention will affect the whole NHS, the economy and the nation as a whole.

Rather than being about figures on a balance sheet, many people will face preventable poor health because help and advice is not available, while families and communities are plunged into a spiral of health deprivation which becomes almost impossible to break.

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health & social care

Free HIV Home Sampling Launched to Increase HIV Testing Initiative

By Professor Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England.

HIV infection is still a growing problem within certain communities and the fact is levels of HIV testing among high risk people remain too low.

New figures released by Public Health England in November show that an estimated 103,700 people in the UK were living with HIV in 2014, compared with 100,000 in 2013. Worryingly, around 17% (18,100) of people are unaware that they have HIV and at risk of unknowingly passing on the virus to others.

We do know that HIV infection remains largely concentrated among gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), and black African men and women; this knowledge helps us target our efforts for prevention and testing.

The national guidelines currently recommend, if having unprotected sex with new or casual partners, that MSM have an HIV test every three months and Black African men and women get tested regularly.

Among these two groups, 6,500 MSM remain unaware of their HIV infection, as do 3,900 men and women from black African communities.

HIV testing is key to prevention. Regular testing can also crucially help to improve rates of early diagnosis, which not only has major individual and public health benefits but ultimately reduces the burden on the health service.

Early diagnosis shrinks the cost of care as prompt treatment prevents further infections and reduces the need for treatment in hospital. In the UK, the annual cost of late treatment is estimated to be 22% higher than the cost of treatment at an early stage.

Improved treatment for HIV means those diagnosed early can have a life expectancy almost matching that

of people who are HIV free. Yet in order to realise the full benefits of testing for HIV, we need to improve access outside of traditional clinics, reaching out to those who may not usually engage with their local sexual health service.

PHE has piloted an innovative HIV home-sampling service for people at high risk of acquiring HIV. The kit allows an individual to take a finger prick blood sample at home and send it to a centralised laboratory for testing. This enables large numbers of people from the most at risk populations to test quickly and easily, reaching significant proportions of people who had never tested before.

A national HIV home-sampling service co-commissioned by PHE and 89 participating local authorities is now up and running. PHE is currently funding the distribution of home-sampling kits for those most at risk of acquiring HIV infection, and these can be requested online at freetesting.hiv The service offers an alternative to traditional testing offered by GPs and sexual health clinics, boosting the numbers of high risk people getting tested and supporting the fantastic work already being done at a local level to target at-risk groups. It’s great to see that in the first 11 days of operation 7,500 people have already requested the sampling kit, and more than 200 tests have been carried out.

The HIV home-sampling service forms part of a comprehensive HIV prevention programme that includes social marketing campaigns and working with local partners. Until HIV is a thing of the past, we must continue to tackle rising HIV infections and increase early diagnosis to help more people lead long and healthy lives.

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Antibiotic Apocalypse

By Professor Colin J Suckling OBE, DSc, FRSE, Research Professor of Chemistry, University of Strathclyde. c.j.suckling@strath.ac.uk www.strath.ac.uk

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innovation & technology There’s no shortage of headlines or catchy programme titles: the ‘Antibiotic Apocalypse’ is coming; the world is on the ‘Cusp of the post-antibiotic era’; ‘Fears grow over increased antibiotic resistance’, to take three from BBC news features this year. There are warnings going back several years from top politicians including Prime Minister, David Cameron, and government scientific advisers with top level reports and a UK antimicrobial resistance strategy (2013 – 2018). In the modern media-driven world, all these things might suggest quick action and rapid results. However providing the world with a new generation of effective anti-infective drugs for bacterial, parasitic, fungal, and viral infections is a huge problem with many dimensions.

A BBC radio series (March 2015) was entitled ‘Restarting the antibiotic pipeline’ so it’s fair to ask whether there are indeed appropriate starting points now; are there new antibiotics entering the pipeline?

Certainly there are many candidates reaching phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials. Traditional sources of new compounds, natural products and chemical synthesis, are still providing active molecules. Bacteria themselves continue to be a source; discoveries at Northeastern University in the USA have been labelled ‘Game-changers’ for medicine in headlines; using new technologies for screening the products of previously undescribed bacteria, a new antibiotic called teixobactin has been discovered and is being taken forward to development. Chemical synthesis also continues to provide new candidates. In the UK, Summit Therapeutics has a new compound with a new mechanism of action specific for Clostridium difficile infections; it is now in phase 2 clinical trials. This compound is a competitor for one of our candidate antibiotics discovered at the University of Strathclyde. We have a compound with a broad anti-Gram-positive bacterial spectrum of activity but formulated for C. difficile infections successfully completing phase 1 clinical trials carried out by our partner company, MGB Biopharma.

This picture shows the ideas behind our new drugs.

The stick molecules are binding to the minor groove of DNA

A distinctive feature of our work is that our compound platform provides compounds that we can tailor to be effective against different infective agents. Currently in addition to the highly active compound in clinical trials, we are developing compounds for Gram-negative infections, for tuberculosis, and for parasitic infections. In the last case, we are especially interested in African animal trypanosomiasis, for which we have compounds that are effective in mouse models of this disease of cattle. The impact of good and well-managed veterinary medical products must not be ignored despite the natural focus on human medicine.

No doubt more candidates will continue to come forward but there is a downstream problem, namely taking compounds from phase 2 to the market. For example, until very recently a new peptidomimetic compound specific for challenging Pseudomas aeruginosa infections was being developed by Polyphor with a partnership agreement with Roche for a phase 2 study. Roche pulled out. This is just one expression of the problems that big pharma has with antibiotics.

The current commercial model for drug marketing does not work in terms of providing what they would regard as an adequate return. With this in mind, both Astra Zeneca’s and Glaxo SmithKline’s senior management have publicly urged the establishment of a new commercial model.

As a scientist who works at the input to the pipeline, I’m not well qualified to know what this model should be. On the other hand, as a recent member of the Scottish Medicines Consortium with a personal responsibility for representing the patient and public interest, I’m seriously concerned that the commercial drive is not the only consideration. A world without antibiotics is a public health issue and avoiding the apocaplypse needs the public interest at its heart.

These pictures show our drug that has now passed phase 1 clinical trials. Left: MGB-BP3 formulated in capsules for treating Clostridium difficile. Right: a freeze-dried sample of MGB-BP3 for reconstitution as an intravenous medicine (courtesy MGB Biopharma).

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Public-Private Partnerships in the Translation of Academic Innovation into Drug Development

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innovation & technology

By Dr Julie Brady, Business Development Manager, Drug Discovery Unit

The increasing cost of developing new medicines is driving significant change in the pharmaceutical industry with companies aspiring to access up to 50% of their development pipeline externally, from biotechnology companies and academia, via risk-sharing partnership models. New models are emerging to facilitate a deeper engagement with academia to access novel drug targets including GlaxoSmithKline’s Discovery Partnerships in Academia, Daiichi Sankyo TaNeDS (Take a New Challenge for Drug diScovery), and the Rare Disease Consortium (RDC) between Pfizer and the Global Medical Excellence Cluster (GMEC) partners. Despite the development of these sophisticated models many novel drug targets discovered in academia are insufficiently validated for partnership with industry.

Whilst the role of BioPharma has long been recognised in the discovery and development of new drugs we have seen a more recent shift towards the development of academic drug discovery centres. Leading examples include the University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit, the Lead Discovery Centre GmbH (jointly developed by Max Planck Innovation and the Max Planck Society) and the Karolinska Institutet in Europe; as well as the Translational Research Institute at Scripps Florida and the Center for Chemical Diversity at UCSF in the United States. These centres work to diverse business models but are unified in their remit to capitalize on the potential of excellent basic research for the discovery of new therapies for diseases with high medical need in a way that is complementary to the BioPharma industry and can generate benefit to patients. A key role for academic drug discovery centres in the translational pathway, from novel target identification through to the delivery of new drugs, is to accelerate the identification of novel drug targets by accessing ground-breaking blue-sky research and providing early validation to support the delivery of tractable drug targets, with high quality lead chemical matter, to satisfy industry demand.

to develop a new TB regimen through collaboration in early-stage drug discovery research. Under the “umbrella” of the TBDA supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this partnership allows academic scientists to work closely with industry towards agreed target product profiles with master agreements in place to allow material and knowledge sharing across all parties.

Whilst PDP models common in tackling diseases of the developing world cannot be simply replicated in the more competitive, commercial disease areas there are learnings to be had from this type of interaction.

Although BioPharma is seeking to engage with academic investigators and drug discovery centres there remains a reluctance to truly recognise and reward the role that academic drug discovery plays in the validation of new drug targets, where attrition is high, and development of underpinning target biology. Possible advantages that could be had by a close collaborative relationship, sharing compounds and associated knowledge, can become swamped by concerns over intellectual property and downstream development rights and returns.

The anticipated establishment of new academic drug discovery centres and continued success of established groups; for example, the University of Dundee, Drug Discovery Unit’s malaria candidate entering clinical development with Medicines for Malaria Venture and Merck Serono, should see a greater trust develop between academia and industry. Appropriately resourced academic centres can deliver a pipeline of lead molecules and preclinical assets to bolster BioPharma pipelines providing greater opportunity to advance innovation in partnership for the benefit of patients.

The development of closer working relationships between academia and industry can provide powerful partnerships and bring different skills together that will undoubtedly optimise academic efforts in this area. Success lies in finding the right partnership and creating a true collaboration, based on mutual respect and trust, where the parties are delivering against shared goals and objectives. Such relationships can be exemplified in some of the many public-private partnerships models developed to provide treatments for some of the world’s most neglected diseases.

Partnerships such as the Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator (TBDA) show how industry and academia can work together in new ways to support global health innovation. A partnership between eight pharmaceutical companies, eight research institutes and a product development partnership (PDP), the TBDA is working

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our company in 60 seconds

Dr Xavier G. Medi-Spa clinic is a multi award-winning cosmetic dermatology and wellness clinic based in Southampton, UK. The clinic specialises in anti-ageing injectables and skin health, medical weight loss, hair regrowth, hair removal and intravenous infusion treatments.

What does your business do?

My clinic is a multi-disciplinary health and wellness solutions clinic that specialises in cosmetic dermatology and other anti-ageing treatments, weight loss therapies, laser therapies for hair as well as a range of other lifestyle services such as life coaching and nutritional therapies. I am pleased to say we are also the first REVIV clinic in the South offering intravenous (IV) vitamin infusions.

What makes your company unique?

We offer a locally-owned doctor-led service in a private and discreet setting where everything is arranged to ensure the service is personalised to a client’s needs.

We are a family-run clinic but with an award-winning national reputation. My team’s experience is extensive and we have been voted the UK’s best clinic a number of times by clients and by our peers at the Aesthetic Awards. I believe we are the only clinic in Southampton that offers such a comprehensive range of treatments and therapies under one roof.

ask questions. We provide a regulated clinic setting and only offer treatments with a trusted safety profile.

In addition, we always try treatments ourselves before offering them and clients have the added reassurance that we are a doctor-led clinic that is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Name: Dr Xavier Goodarzian Company: Dr Xavier G. Medi-Spa Clinic Email: reception@xavier-g.com Web address: www.xavier-g.com Address: 25 Queens Terrace, Southampton, SO14 3BQ Telephone: +44 (0)23 80 637 638

Who are your clients?

Our clients include people from every walk of life and demography. We attract clients from across the UK, Europe and beyond and our clients include doctors who also entrust their care to myself and my team.

What words of wisdom would you pass on?

The cosmetic treatment industry is largely unregulated and there are far too many practitioners offering cosmetic procedures in non-clinical salons that, quite frankly, should not be doing so because they are simply not medically-qualified and the procedures are not being performed in a proper clinical setting. Always ensure that you establish the background and experience of a practitioner first before you trust them with a needle, peel or laser device. Do your research and

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our company in 60 seconds

Please tell us about the products you produce.

We make wonderful and unique sunglasses from old, used aircraft material. Some styles are polished to high gloss; others still wear the original paint of the aircraft. The intention is no “greenwashing”, but give some pieces of metal a second life that tells a story about flying and travelling around the world.

Who are your clients?

As we are a young start up we are just looking out for our first clients. We know we will find them in the aviation business, in motorsports and in the collectors scene. It will be almost the same people who also love to spend a lot of money for an expensive mechanical watch.

What makes you unique?

As used airplane material is quite rare also every sunglass made by hand out of it of it is a unique piece of handcrafting. Same for the accessories like the handmade wooden boxes of oak wood which used to be the parquet floor of the airport in Kiev / Ukraine.

What’s the biggest challenge facing you at present?

Actually we are installing a serial production with small manufacturers in Germany. It’s quite difficult to produce eyewear from a material that nobody used before.

What’s the aim for your business?

On the one side making people happy to have found a unique product that can tell a special story. On the other side meeting exceptional people all over the world that we would never have met without this crazy idea.

What’s your company’s biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge was to open our own factory 4 years ago, to realize after a certain time that this was not a good idea - and still not to give up.

Please give us some examples of business people you admire and tell us why.

Entrepreneurs with visions like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Enzo Ferrari or Levi Strauss: Because they always believed in their ideas and never lost their goals.

Name: Martin Graf Company: AIRBORN eyewear Email: info@airborn-eyewear.com Web Address: www.airborn-eyewear.com Address: Steiner Strasse 31, D-78337 Oehningen Telephone: +49 7735 9191957

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