Southern Enterprise Awards 2019

13 | SME NEWS - Southern Enterprise Awards 2019 Digital Healthtech Start-Up SmartMed Signs Major JV Collaboration Agreement With Malaysian State Government Agency Johor Corporation A start-up specialising in digital healthtech has announced a major strategic collaboration with its Malaysian counterpart, which will help propel the promising British SME to the next level. British company SmartMed Global, part of the SmartIdeas Group, has signed a joint venture agreement with high growth Malaysian technology company N2W Corporation Sdn. Bhd (N2W), the 100% subsidiary of the state government agency, Johor Corporation (JCorp). The deal is particularly significant due to the wider opportunities it presents for SmartMed to grow its presence in the digital health sector in Asia. JCorp also owns KPJ Healthcare Berhad (KPJ), Malaysia’s leading private healthcare services provider, which operates a network of 32 specialist hospitals in Malaysia, with a further presence in Australia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. A formal Document Exchange and Inauguration Event took place at an event scape in Cyberjaya, Malaysia’s start-up equivalent of the Silicon Valley area, which is in close distance of the new collaboration company NewWave Health Sdn Bhd, on 11 September 2019. Under the terms of the joint venture, the collaborators will invest significant sums over the next three years to develop LifeMed, a remote health diagnostics and monitoring solutions as a tool to enable patients to better manage their medical conditions and clinicians to better monitor them and, if necessary, make timely interventions. The initiative aims to add value to all healthcare providers, with the ability for clinicians to monitor their patients round-the-clock. SmartMed was created in 2011 to provide digital technology solutions that better support patient care in the community. The London based company’s range of digital mobile solutions allows healthcare providers including the NHS to remotely monitor patients’ vital signs, symptoms and general wellbeing using the latest mobile and Internet technologies. As part of the company’s development, company owners and founding directors Zaki Husein, Saadi Hussain, Simon Eyre and Neil Hunt worked closely with Hill Dickinson’s Life Sciences team. The team, led by Jamie Foster, provided legal support on negotiation of the joint venture agreement, including corporate, commercial and IP advice, and liaison with local counsel. Commenting on Hill Dickinson’s role in advising SmartMed on the deal, Jamie Foster said that exciting prospects now lie ahead for the SmartMed team. He said: ‘Innovation in healthtech lies primarily with small, innovative, start-up businesses that have the ability to see opportunities and adapt quickly as the market develops. SmartMed is a classic example of a business that has seized an opportunity despite the additional complexities of working with a partner based outside the UK. ‘Where healthtech businesses of all sizes inevitably need support – and where Hill Dickinson’s Life Sciences team is ideally placed to assist – is in ensuring they are aware of, and can successfully navigate, the complexities of the frameworks that surround this highly regulated field, as well as being able to successfully commercialise their products. The future for SmartMed is potentially very exciting and we wish Saadi, Simon and Neil every success in this new venture.’ SmartMed CEO, Simon Eyre, commented on the negotiations: ‘A collaboration project of this size and magnanimity is always going to be complex, and our chosen partners being so distant and different culturally added to this challenge. With the assistance and guidance from Hill Dickinson, we were able to overcome the complexities of international law and the hard work and common-sense of all parties involved finally paid off. This is now a major opportunity for SmartMed and it also shows UK continues to lead in innovation for digital health globally.’ SmartMed is a previous winner in the first Mayor of London MedTech Business Awards, a business support initiative run by SEHTA in collaboration with MedCity, held in 2018. Following participation in an earlier accelerator programme run by DigitalHealth.London, which aims to speed up the adoption of technology in London’s NHS, SmartMed has also been accepted onto the UK government’s G-Cloud framework, an initiative targeted at easing procurement by public-sector bodies, which helps it provide more services to the NHS. Hill Dickinson is a leading international law firm with expertise in life sciences and healthtech. As part of its commitment to supporting SMEs in the digital health space, Hill Dickinson has partnered with SEHTA, the South East Health Technologies Alliance, and Medilink North of England Ltd, to provide legal support to the organisations’ members. Both membership bodies act as representative bodies for the healthcare technology sector, supporting SMEs and fast growth startups.