21st November, London — Moises Barbera Ramos, Drill Surgeries Ltd has been awarded Best Technology for North West Region at The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards. Making the shortlist is an achievement in its own right given the calibre of competition, underlining the significance of Drill Surgeries win. Previous Winners: The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards have a strong track record of identifying exceptional entrepreneurs across nine nations and regions before they become household names. Beyond those mentioned in the release, previous winners include Johnny & Pauline Paterson of Dr PawPaw, Hannah & Sophie Pycroft of Spectrum Collections, Philip Belmont of Zilch, Justin Basini of ClearScore, Lizzie Carter of Only Curly, and Dave Linton of MadLUG. These entrepreneurs have been transformative forces in their respective sectors, paving the way for innovation and job creation. Francesca James, founder of The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards, said:
“I am thrilled to witness the extraordinary achievements of this year's winners. Their success stories are a testament to the dynamic and innovative spirit that thrives within UK entrepreneurship. These inspiring entrepreneurs embody the creativity, determination, and passion that are at the heart of our nation's business success. Their accomplishments not only celebrate their own journeys but also light the way for future generations of innovators and business leaders”. Richard Davies, CEO of Allica Bank, commented: “It has been a real honour to sponsor this year’s GBEA awards. Hearing the inspiring stories from this year’s winners really brings to life the important contribution British entrepreneurs make to our economy. At Allica, we couldn’t be more excited to see such a talented group of individuals making their mark in the business world and we'll be keeping a close eye on what they do next.” About The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards celebrate and champion entrepreneurs across the UK, building communities to support their endeavours at various stages of their journey. With stiff competition and a history of recognising businesses that become household names, the awards are a beacon of excellence in the entrepreneurial landscape. About the Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards: The Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards are more than just an awards programme. Known as the 'Grammys of Entrepreneurship,' the awards have become a community that supports, celebrates, and champions entrepreneurs at various stages of their journey. With more than 5,000 entries annually, the awards aim to discover and recognise the brilliance within the entrepreneurial business community across the UK. Judges: The awards are judged by a panel of some of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders, including the founders of Specsavers, Poundland, and Innocent.
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We have recently shared how starting a Startup is often seen as a glamorous job and that of the entrepreneur of the lucky guy that gets to leave the office early but, this is NEVER the case. Entrepreneurs put in long hours every day of the week to keep the business alive, fighting the most-times challenging cash flow and the ever-changing strategy to stay ahead of the competition In the case of our founder, Moises Barbera, the most challenging times (as with most things) were at the beginning, as a Theoretical Physics Master's Student at the University of Liverpool trying to launch Drill Surgeries from his dorm with the aim to Improve Healthcare Through Technology.
We must take into account that healthcare and especially Health Tech is a very challenging field for the level of knowledge and specialisation required but also because of how closed the industry is for outsiders so, having a 20 year-old talking with big Medical Device companies about a basic prototype using Artificial Intelligence to reduce radiation and operating times at hospitals wasn't taken seriously. That feeling of frustration and loneliness was tough to navigate but, luckily, Moises did not desist on his quest to disrupt the healthcare sector. 3 years later he is proving to the whole industry how Drill Surgeries' Artificial Intelligence Surgical Guidance System (ZAORY(TM)) is the future of navigated surgeries worldwide. Now things are going better, with countless media features, and awards including the "BEST STARTUP" at the National Business in Healthcare Awards 2022 or "ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR 2022", a growing team featuring the best international clinicians and secured grants and funding from INNOVATE UK and others. But despite the company's success, it is important to keep your mental health in check, and this is what our founder, Moises Barbera, talked about with HealthTech World this week. Sponsored by TATA Group and powered by NACUE, the TATA Varsity Pitch competition put together the best entrepreneurs in the UK to compete for a chance to win a £15K grant, exposure and of course, the winning title. After a lengthy selection process requiring 5 months and countless interviews to filter more than 200 candidates, 7 outstanding entrepreneurs got invited to the Grand Final.
Very valuable support was received on this journey from partners such TATA and The D Group. The BIG day was set for the 16th of November 2022, where all the founders of these 7 worth-winning startups met at the Royal Overseas League building in London to present their businesses in front of a curated judging panel and a hand-picked audience of successful entrepreneurs, investors, bankers and media outlets representatives.
ZAORY a technology, built over the past three years by a team of scientists, PhDs and medical professionals has the potential to reduce operating time, radiation and costs while improving patient outcome on millions of operations involving broken bones every year.
In front of this ambitious mission, Drill Surgeries Ltd. secured the highly competitive Innovate UK R&D grant, co-funding their initial route to clinical trials with £500k. For which Innovate UK said: “[Drill Surgeries’] innovation could dramatically improve performance and efficiency of surgeons in operations […], there are significant benefits to quality of life for patients and substantial productivity benefits for healthcare”. After the announcement, Drill Surgeries opened their first round of investment to cover the initial 30% match funding required for this award and an additional undisclosed amount to cover the additional expenses of launching clinical trials and regulatory compliance. Moises Barebra Ramos, Founder & CEO of Drill Surgeries, said: “I could not be more excited to continue bringing the best support possible into my startup. First our experienced team, then Innovate UK and now the best Angel Investor we could have asked for. We opened the round in July, and wanted to keep it open until December this year, but by September we already had several offers on the table, and this was one not to miss. Our investor is not only bringing in the money, but years of experience in the industry, contacts and expertise that we cannot wait to onboard”. At this stage and as their new investor transitions from their previous company into this new role, they asked to remain anonymous, yet they shared: “Over my 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry I have been a founding member, a Commercial Director and a Director for M&As. I have introduced many medical technologies and teams into foreign countries, establishing the company’s internationalisation efforts and I facilitated the sale for a 9-figure mark. “As I transition now to a new chapter in my life, I have been asked to get involved in a number of projects but there is no-one like Moises and his startup Drill Surgeries. They not only have an innovative technology solving a huge problem in hospitals, but they also have the potential to scale and capture an ever-growing market, they have the right team and the right strategy to succeed, and I am excited to be a catalyst in helping them reach their next stage”. With this new investment and support topping up the grant awarded by Innovate UK, Drill Surgeries has enough resources to bring their prototype into a fully functional product and they anticipate they will start clinical trials by summer 2023 in views for commercialisation in 2024. With enough runway to last until late 2024, Drill Surgeries is moving faster than ever to bring this technology into hospitals and start reducing operating time, radiation, costs and improving patient outcomes worldwide. For more details about Drill Surgeries’ growth plans post-investment, reach out through their website at: https://www.drillsurgeries.com/ The University of Liverpool recognises founder, Moises, with Plaque at the YOKO ONO LENNON Centre8/31/2022 ![]() At Drill Surgeries, one of the things we embrace the most is the arts and the creative characteristics these can bring into the personality of all of us. Either through music, theatre, dancing, painting magic... any discipline contributes to building character and thinking outside the box, a crucial factor when building a startup but also when growing as a person. This encouragement to support the arts and to welcome these into the lives of more and more people, be it as a performer or as mere spectators, comes from the love of Founder, Moises Barbera Ramos, for the theatre and his previous experience as a professional magician where he got to meet the best artists and perform all across Europe for almost a decade, winning the National Championship of Magic in 2017, the 3rd youngest magician to win it ever. A few years ago, when this initiative to contribute to building the marvellous YOKO ONO LENNON centre started, Moises Barbera Ramos was already on the radar of the University of Liverpool as a successful and involved student (having won a robotics award in China for the University or making exponential entrepreneurial moves before any programme of support was even started). It is then when the University of Liverpool, picking up on all of this and the work as an artist Moises still tried to carry out during the weekends travelling to theatres abroad, that they decided to reach out. In an article, they said: For the best part of the last decade, Moises has also been heavily involved in the theatrical arts where he has worked as a professional magician, performing around Europe to more than 8,000 spectators. Moises’ performances have received international praise and awards and he still dedicates some of his spare time to performing in theatres. It has now been a while since his last performance and his spare time and non-spare time are all dedicated to building Drill Surgeries and its technology, but we can still see him flashing his magic skills at networking events to make the whole experience a bit more memorable. His love for arts and constant collaboration and involvement with the University of Liverpool got Moises Barbera Ramos a dedicated Plaque at the main auditorium, The Tung Auditorium, located at the heart of the Yoko Ono Lennon Centre and seating 400 with space for a 70-piece orchestra. Moises said: “It is a true honour to have my name engraved in this remarkable auditorium for students and professionals to learn and share the love for arts. In life, not everything is reduced to books, equations and politics, even though some of these are in itself an art; at the end of the day we are humans, we feel and have emotions, and when these emotions can be crafted and exalted through means as simple as a music instrument, a poem, a performance… we are then contributing to humanity”. The quote reads: "NEVER GIVE IN" Words win battles and these are not an exception, remembering history: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” So, remember to never give in when you are following a passion you truly believe in, that's the only way to challenge the status quo and make this world just a little bit better. To finish up with this month's array of publications covering Mental Health management under the views of Drill Surgeries' Founder & CEO, Moises Barbera, STARTUPS MAGAZINE has now published a new version of the article. https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-medical-ai-founder-credits-team-sports-combatting-loneliness-proactively
If you are enjoying this series and would like to know more about our work at Drill Surgeries and/or thought leadership ideas from our founder, Moises Barbera, do not hesitate to follow us through our newsletter or on LinkedIn. Organised by Medilink UK, a national health technology business support network, the Business in Healthcare Awards are a reputation-making recognition to companies, universities, startups and projects, in general, making game-changing contributions to the healthcare sector through technology.
This year's ceremony was unique as it highlighted the 25 years since Medilink's founding. In order to have a chance at winning the national award you first had to win (or at least impress the judges) during the regional competitions held for the North of England, Midlands, South West, South East and Wales, earlier this year 2022. After earning the highly commended startup recognition during the "North of England" awards, Drill Surgeries Ltd impressed the judges enough to be a very close runner-up and as such earned us a spot in the National competition, facing the best startups of their respective regions to find the BEST STARTUP in the whole country working towards improving healthcare through technology. The black-tie ceremony to hand in the awards was held during the Med-Tech Expo conference at Birmingham on the 8th of June 2022, an exciting event showcasing relevant figures on the national panorama. With founder & CEO, Moises Barbera, in Africa volunteering at Kalangala's medical clinic, it was up to the Managing Director of Medilink, Tom Elliot, to receive the good news in our name.
Frustrated after growing up around hospitals, Moises experienced first-hand how scheduled 30-minute-long operations would turn into countless hours waiting around the operating room. He says: “I would spend so much time around hospitals and talking to surgeons as a kid that I knew the name of most implants and how to operate trauma operations before I turned 10”. And it is that frustration that got him to change the way 100s of millions of patients are operated worldwide.
Focused on broken bones, Drill Surgeries’ technology has the potential to reduce operating time and radiation during operations while reducing costs to hospitals and improving patient outcomes. Currently at prototype stage, Drill Surgeries has high hopes for their technology, Moises Barbera, CEO & Founder of the company says: “I feel proud to count on the support of Innovate UK to back this ambitious project, this is a sign that we are on the right place, at the right time and with the right technology. Millions of patients are operated every year using techniques invented in the Second World War, there is little to no innovation in this sector of the industry, and we are here to change that”. Innovate UK funds businesses and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D, and Drill Surgeries is exploiting that support to improve the healthcare sector worldwide. Innovate UK’s team of specialised assessors had this to say about the project: “Targeting a long-standing medical challenge, leverages novel technologies, has talented core team, shows IP awareness and carries out a realistic assessment of risk”. Going deeper on the technology and its impact, another Innovate UK assessor said: “The proposed innovation could dramatically improve performance and efficiency of surgeons in operations and reduces radiation exposure from repeated X-Rays. There are significant benefits to quality of life for patients and substantial productivity benefits for healthcare, ensuring surgeons could undertake more operations in the same amount of time.” Innovate UK award grants to highly innovative companies who demonstrate they are solving significant problems and represent excellent export potential. Grants are highly competitive with less than 5% of applicates being accepted. Drill Surgeries is now opening a new round of investment until December 2022 to match the UK’s equity-free funding into the startup. For more information about their investment round and how to get in touch, reach out in their website at: www.drillsurgeries.com The TATA Varsity Pitch competition is one (if not THE ONE) of the most challenging student/graduate-led startup competitions in the country, accepting entries from all over the UK, this competition is organised by NACUE - the leading charitable organisation for engaging students in enterprise. They work with college and university students, providing young individuals with opportunities to boost their skills, confidence and aspirations through student-led enterprise societies, practical programmes and inspiring events.
The new 2020 will start with very exciting news as we start producing our hardware prototypes and improving our communication with the media. Don't forget to join our newsletter to follow us in this journey. From our offices at Sensor City, thank you to everyone who is supporting us in our journey to bring 21st century solutions through MedTech Best wishes and happy new year, The Drill Surgeries team |