What made you decide to start the CIM Med business?
Manuela Deverill: That is very simple – I saw the opportunity and took it. There were no doubts that the business plan would work. I had been working with the market leader for some years and had grown frustrated with the lack of response to what the market needed. Knowing that nobody else was going to react opened the door for us. CIM Med was born of enthusiasm and a clear opportunity.
What is your product and what market gap did it fill?
At first glance, the product is a simple one. We manufacture arms that hold medical equipment, typically patient monitors. Just like a television is mounted to a wall, we connect the patient monitor to whatever it needs to be mounted to. The big difference is that we are specifically designed to cater to the medical world, where clinical excellence is the driving factor. That means our products have to be medically certified to current EN 60601 standards.
There weren’t many players in the field, and for decades hospital staff had essentially been given the same solution for mounting patient monitors next to the patient bedside. These offerings had serious issues with cable management. We are talking about the cables transmitting power and data to the monitor. When they break free of their housing, they simply lay or hang free. They get dirty, and are difficult and time-consuming to clean. We took the simple and practical step of internalising the cables and integrating them into the arms. The cables could not fall out and no longer required cleaning as they are contained; hence the name CIM – cable integrated mounting.
We were the first to market this product, and were able to patent the design for doing so. The benefits for infection prevention are enormous and starkly obvious.
Initially, how was the market reception of your product?
Like any new business, it takes time to get traction, but honestly, the market loved it and continues to. We introduced ‘zero maintenance and five-year warranties’, which is exactly what it says. If the products are set up correctly from day one, they simply won’t let you down. So we didn’t just introduce the cable integration; we introduced a level of engineering that had never been applied to this type of product before. The feedback from clinical staff is a resounding: ‘Yes – we like it.’ That’s very satisfying.
We can’t rest on our laurels, however. Our competitors have started to follow in our wake, and we invest in a programme of continual improvement. There is no bigger compliment than influencing your competitor to make changes in reaction to your presence. We are happy to lead the way, and we will continue to do so.
What does the future hold for CIM Med, and what challenges does it face?
I always say, ‘I’ll go in any direction, as long as it’s forward’, and it is the same for CIM Med. We are celebrating our first decade at MEDICA this year, but we won’t be looking back.
We aimed to manufacture the highest-grade medical mounting solutions in the world and that is the mantle we shall retain. We have a lot of exciting things on the horizon, and we are gearing up for our first global agreement with one of the large manufacturers. We have the longevity to show that we are here to stay and we have the capacity to treble our output. So that’s the next ceiling to break.
