Creo upbeat on new data around economics of 'Speedboat Inject'

Surgical endoscopy medical device company Creo Medical announced on Wednesday that data from a new paper demonstrated that the use of its ‘Speedboat Inject’ product was “highly likely” to be a cost-effective strategy for treating both benign and malignant large non-pedunculated colorectal polyps (LNPCP).

The AIM-traded firm said the data could lead to cost savings in NHS hospitals of more than £10,000 per procedure, when compared to a traditional surgical outcome for patients, making for a saving of around 50%.

It said the findings, in the paper titled 'Cost-effectiveness analysis of Speedboat submucosal dissection in the management of large non-pedunculated colorectal polyps', was double the saving first suggested and announced by Creo in June last year.

Clinical data confirmed that the health economic benefits through using Creo’s ‘CROMA Advanced Energy Platform’ with Speedboat Inject provided “substantially more” cost savings for the NHS than initially thought.

The prospective database analysis of 50 patients with LNPCP analysed costs that were valued from the NHS and Personal Social Service, and concluded that the substantial cost-savings were driven by reducing downstream costs associated with recurrences of lesions, combined with procedure-related complications.

Endoscopists, using traditional techniques to perform a procedure, would ordinarily see a patient have 30 centimetres of bowel removed surgically under general anaesthetic, with the associated risks and costs of up to five days in hospital.

However, using Creo's Speedboat Inject device enabled the removal of gastrointestinal precancerous lesions under sedation, with patients generally able to leave hospital on the same day, Creo claimed.

“We are extremely pleased to see this health economics data providing evidence that our Speedboat procedure could save the NHS over £10,000 per procedure,” said chief executive officer Craig Gulliford.

“Our passion has always been to improve patient outcomes, not only through developing innovative medical devices to bring advanced energy to endoscopy, but to also offer economic benefits to healthcare providers, in turn allowing their limited resources to be applied elsewhere; this data demonstrates that.

“Following the commercial agreement we signed with the Department of Health and Social Care in 2020, offering health service bodies access to our devices at preferential rates, we continue our efforts to train more surgeons to use our technology, allowing the patients and NHS to benefit.”

At 1105 BST, shares in Creo Medical were down 1.21% at 201.54p.