Creo Medical Group PLC (AIM:CREO) said it made great strides in implementing its build, buy, partner strategy in 2021.
In its results statement covering 2021, the medical devices company focused on surgical endoscopy (tubes with cameras inserted inside the body), said the pipeline of clinicians to be trained under its clinical education programme has doubled since 2020, acquisitions Albyn Medical and Boucart Medical have been fully integrated into the company while heads of terms have been agreed with multiple partners, with advanced discussions with other potential partners ongoing.
As if to underline the point, Creo announced a new collaboration this morning with NASDAQ-listed Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) to optimise certain Creo products to be compatible with Intuitive's robotic technology.
Along with the optimisation of Creo's products, the agreement provides a framework to allow joint clinical studies to be undertaken and includes a number of milestone payments to be made to Creo. Future royalty structures have also been agreed upon for any products that may be sold in the future.
Last year saw the opening of the group's US headquarters which has helped support Creo's commercial roll-out in the key US market, while this year Creo has opened its regional hub in Singapore to support the commercial roll-out of Creo's products in the Asia-Pacific region, which is expected to satisfy the backlog of demand, following numerous distributor agreements being signed throughout 2021.
Despite COVID-19 disrupting sales channels and restricting access to clinical training and travel, total sales in 2022 rose to £25.2mln from £9.4mln the year before.
The loss before tax widened to £30.3mln, including share-based payments of £2.6mln, from £23.5mln in 2020.
Research & development expenditure in the year climbed to £12.9mln from £10.2mln.
Creo ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of £43.5mln, down from £45.1mln a year earlier, after raising £34.3mln through a share issue in September.
"Looking ahead we remain well-positioned to continue our commercial growth and will continue to evaluate further potential strategic acquisitions. We expect that as restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic continue to ease throughout 2022, we will see increased rates of clinical education and increased rates of use of our technology in elective cases,” said Craig Gulliford, Creo’s chief executive officer.
Culliford said Creo is delighted with its collaboration with Intuitive.
The combination of Intuitive's robotic platforms and Creo's Kamaptive Technology strives to provide patients with additional treatment options using state-of-the-art technology. The collaboration highlights the versatility of Creo's technology whilst validating the hard work that has been undertaken by Creo's engineering team to bring advanced energy to the field of surgical endoscopy,” Culliford said.
Kamaptive technology provides clinicians with increased flexibility, precision and controlled surgical solutions. Creo has developed the Kamaptive powered full-spectrum adaptive technology to optimise surgical capability and patient outcomes.
"Technological advancements are facilitating a paradigm shift in the way many surgical procedures are delivered and we look forward to working together to enable additional options for patients using this combined state-of-the-art technology. As well as exploring technical compatibility, our teams have agreed on commercialisation terms, including clinical and regulatory fundamentals in an open and collaborative environment, to establish what we hope to be a long-lasting collaboration centred around shared goals of using thoughtfully developed technology to help improve patient outcomes," Culliford said.