Press Release

For Immediate Release

Oval Medical awarded Technology Strategy Board Smart funding award

Cambridge, UK. 14 April 2014 – Oval Medical Technologies Limited (“Oval”) announced today they have received a Smart funding award from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board, of £228,256 for a project that will progress the development of the manufacturing process for their innovative drug container for their autoinjector technology.

The Technology Strategy Board Smart funding award provides funding for innovation projects in high growth potential SMEs focusing on science, engineering, and technology research and development projects.

Oval’s autoinjector technology currently uses an innovative drug container closure system consisting of a cyclic olefin vial with a polyethylene cup seal and aluminium foil. The process of foiling plastic containers is widely used across a variety of industries, one being ophthalmology with contact lens packaging. However, this process has not previously been used in an aseptic parenteral drug filling environment. To date pharmaceutical companies have manufactured auto-injectors using glass syringes from the 1950’s which have been known to be unreliable and can be incompatible with modern biological drugs. Oval’s novel container closure system has been developed to overcome such deficiencies and studies have shown a very high level of patient preference for Oval auto-injectors. This award provides funding towards the development of prototype foiling equipment that will form the basis of a commercial system, demonstrating the viability of this innovative technology.

Commenting on the grant, CEO of Oval, Barbara Lead says, “I am delighted that Oval has been selected to receive this award from Technology Strategy Board. This additional investment will allow Oval to accelerate the commercialisation of our autoinjectors.”

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About Oval:
Oval Medical Technologies is a medical device company developing revolutionary autoinjector technology. Oval’s unique approach allows for devices that are smaller, easier and safer to use than any other device currently available. Pharmaceutical partners can utilise Oval’s technology to deliver viscous formulations and sensitive biological drugs that would otherwise not be possible to deliver in current marketed injectable devices. Oval can tailor the technology for specific patient populations providing auto-injectors that are best for patients.
For more information, visit www.ovalmedical.com

About the Technology Strategy Board:

The Technology Strategy Board is the UK’s innovation agency. Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation. Sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy. For more information please visit www.innovateuk.org.

Managed by the Technology Strategy Board, the Smart scheme offers funding to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to engage in R&D projects in the strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge. http://www.innovateuk.org/deliveringinnovation/smart.ashx

Contact:
Barbara Lead
Chief Executive officer
+44 (1223) 437140
Oval Medical Technologies Ltd