While the pandemic continues to disrupt the world, one Melbourne company is triumphing, inventing new technologies, creating solutions, jobs and returning manufacturing to Australia.
Investment incubator fund, BRC is backing Australian businesses to help future-proof the local economy in the event of another COVID, SARS-2 or the next airborne pathogen outbreak.
The BRC Group develops and grows businesses with global potential, amplifying local innovation, producing local manufacturing, and creating new jobs.
What is 3DMEDiTech’s innovation?
3DMEDiTech uses 3D printing to mass manufacture personalised medical devices, and is most recently behind MEDiSwab, a world-first COVID testing swab.
Currently, most of the globe’s gold standard diagnostic COVID testing is done via uncomfortable and invasive nasal swabbing.
The 3D printed MEDiSwab comes in two versions, an ultra-fine nasal swab considered the gold standard for sample collection and diagnostic viral testing, and most recently a newly designed saliva swab used in broader COVID (and SARS) surveillance testing.
Both 3DMEDiTech’s MEDiSwab’s are patented, world-first designs and testing and the resultant academic papers1 show they are more comfortable than conventional nasal swabs.
The saliva MEDiSwab, used for surveillance testing, will more comfortably and accurately help Australians to get back to a more normal existence as testing continues across the community.
Who is purchasing the MEDiSwabs?
The products were designed and developed in Australia where they are manufactured.
Customers already include the Federal Government and various State Governments who purchased over two million nasal swab testing kits, saliva swabs and saliva testing kits.
Orders of saliva testing kits are growing from various State Governments and private pathology labs to underpin ongoing surveillance testing which will increase as borders reopen.
In February 2021, 80,000 MEDiSwabs were deployed during the Australian Open. Organisers used the MEDiSwab saliva swab to screen all players and support staff daily for COVID.
England’s £201.7 billion National Health Service and numerous other countries have also shown interest in this world-first Victorian technology.
“At the height of the pandemic, there were concerns with both the shortages and the efficacy of some of the COVID-testing swabs,” says Paul Docherty, founder 3DMEDiTech.
“So, we partnered with a number of academic and medical institutions to develop a solution – and we ended up creating two!”
