Case Studies
The Prince's Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT) – Aircraft Medical
Industrial Designer, Matt McGrath is the founder of Aircraft Medical, an Edinburgh based company which specializes in airway and diagnostic hand held medical devices, including the award winning McGrath Laryngoscope.
Matt set-up the business in 2001 with support and funding from The Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust (PSYBT) - he later received a £25,000 PSYBT Accelerator Loan to assist with a move to dedicated office premises. Today, the company is worth an estimated £25million and has just signed a distribution deal in the United States for its portable video laryngoscope.
The original prototypes of the McGrath Laryngoscope attracted the highest award from the Royal Society of Arts as recognition of outstanding design achievement. The design subsequently won a further award from the Audi Design Foundation and attracted the John Logie Baird ‘Young Innovator of the Year’.
Of the 100 million general anesthetics carried out globally every year, over half of the patients are intubated with the laryngoscope. Run on only one AA battery, the device has an inbuilt imaging system that gives a clear view of the patient’s airway and larynx on a miniature LCD screen, similar to that used on a camcorder. This allows hospital staff to intubate patients more easily without damaging teeth, tissue or vocal chords.
The company now plans to apply this technology to redesign other hand held medical devices to make advances in infection control and cleanliness of instruments, as well as improving ease of use, thus shortening training times.
Click here to visit the PSYBT website.