Inbentus takes advantage of "Murcian talent with competitive prices" to export its ventilators.
Rafael Valverde, CEO of the medical technology company, demonstrates the pull of healthcare innovation with crowdfunding of 200,000 euros in just 10 days
When the news of the pandemic began to parade in front of his couch, aeronautical engineer Rafael Valverde jumped at the still latent threat of a possible hospital collapse with the risk of not having enough ventilators. "I had never felt that sense of total helplessness before," he says. And he decided to focus efforts on giving oxygen to the victims of the persistent virus. "Within three weeks, we were able to produce a totally reliable emergency respirator," says Valverde. After 11 years as director of engineering at an aeronautical components engineering company, he knew how to get a technology off the ground safely.
The genesis of Inbentus is reminiscent of the epic beginnings of computer science, with the deployment of a home base of operations "in my son's bedroom, many sleepless nights and urgent contacts with the Autonomous Community, with the University of Murcia, which helped to manufacture the parts, and with the Samur, which provided its expertise," recalls Valverde. Medical expertise was provided by Dr. Mariano Martínez Fresneda, head of the ICU at the Reina Sofía Hospital in Murcia.
From that collaborative drive, he believes that there will be creative energy and "evidence of being more efficient, especially in health and clinical research, which should be extended to other sectors."
The urgency of the health crisis forced us to "be more practical, to correct on the fly, and that has made us faster to generate wealth," says the engineer. The SAV-19 ventilator has obtained public aid, provided by INFO, which adds 200,000 euros to the private investment of "own savings and partners". The biggest boost was received at the beginning of the year with the overwhelming response obtained from the crowdfunding campaign, carried out through the Crowdcube platform. In just 10 days they have raised 200,000 euros, 80% of which will be used to develop a high-tech respirator for ICUs, and the rest to expand the sales network in Latin America and Morocco, their target markets.
With the same speed inherent from its origin, Inbentus has decided to expand the crowdfunding with 100,000 euros more "to hire more personnel to accelerate the project and market it in Mexico and Eastern Europe, an interesting area because it has a connection with Russia", says Valverde. In the Inbentus market, despite growing competition, there are no limits in sight. In fact, respiratory pathologies are the third leading cause of death in the world, with more than 10 million deaths a year. And, according to experts, the 21st century promises to bring new viruses.
With what strengths will Inbentus travel to foreign markets?
EUROPEAN TECHNOLOGY AT ASIAN PRICES
Reliability is the main value with which the SAV-19 emergency ventilator is presented. The engineer points to the ventilator's Siemens technology. "It has limitations compared to high-end devices, but its reliability is proven, it is approved, and its price is a quarter of the 20,000 or 30,000 euros on the market," says the co-founder of the company from Murcia.
Its competitive price makes it the solution for hospitals in South America, where "they are torn between expensive U.S. devices and the less reliable inexpensive Asian ones," says Valverde. With the technological talent of Murcia, even at competitive prices, the entrepreneur believes that "we can offer emerging economies a European technological product at the price of Asian ones". At the height of the epidemic, Inbentus sold equipment to hospitals in Bolivia and Paraguay, in addition to the donations the company made to other countries.
Latin America and Africa, starting with Morocco, are already the focus of its expansion.
HOW TO ENDURE BEYOND COVID
"We were born with Covid, but we are much more and we will last," warns the engineer, who is clear that Inbentus will consolidate as a technology company from Murcia and with the energy of the projects germinated in the need. "Without that motivation to save lives, it would not have gone ahead, because you drag a lot, even the family," shares the entrepreneur. From the efforts of the entrepreneur -from not collecting his own salaries, to looking for partners under the rocks-, the project took business form "with the support of two 'partners', who gave us the impetus to meet the costs of entering Latin America".
It is not difficult to look beyond the context of Covid, which has already led to an increase in the demand for artificial respirators, since at least 10% of those affected need help to activate their lungs.
Never before have we lived so long, which poses a challenge for healthcare systems, including helping patients to breathe. Market studies predict that the medical ventilator industry will grow by 16% by 2030, partly because of demographic growth and also because of longer life expectancy. Inbentus has already set targets beyond the pandemic, such as solutions in the specialty of anesthesia, in addition to those that "we identify as needs in other countries," says the engineer.
MURCIA TECHNOLOGY: WEAKNESSES AND STRENGTHS
"The Region is competitive, because we have technology at a low price and because we have talent that has nothing to envy to German teams, although we earn less than them," Valverde describes.
To improve the business ecosystem and strengthen the entrepreneurial muscle of the Region, the entrepreneur believes that "we must create an industrial fabric that feeds back on research, on the model of the Basque Country".
Another pending issue to revive entrepreneurship, according to Valverde, lies in "that public financing has more speed; we need more agility and less bureaucracy". He believes that "the INFO is a lever of entrepreneurship at the level of financial aid, business contacts and cooperation. We need to give it more weight," he says.
The engineer misses "the Murcian private investor, because if he does not appear you have to go to mount a crowdfunding campaign". He believes that "if we want a competitive industry, the trinomial formed by the entrepreneur, the investor and the administration has to go together".
From his experience as an entrepreneur, he keeps the motto "don't stop. The difference between being successful or not is to keep going, redirect directions and correct mistakes as you go along". To those who forge a project idea, he says: "No matter how many 'no's' you get, don't stop".
