Sydney-based medtech startup Navbit Sprint has won the HealthTech category at the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence for its compact tech solution making hip replacements safer and cheaper.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence were presented at a black-tie gala dinner at The Venue Alexandria in Sydney on Wednesday night.
The HealthTech Award was presented on the night by NSW government Member for Strathfield and Assistant Speaker Jason Yat-Sen Li.
Navbit Sprint took out the HealthTech award for its efforts to bring laser-like precision to hip surgeries around the world, with a compact, single-use surgical device that helps improve the accurate positioning of the hip replacement process.
Navbit Sprint is based in Sydney and launched seven years ago. It began selling its flagship product in Australia in 2021, and signed an exclusive distribution deal with British medical tech giant Smith+Nephew in 2023, which was expanded earlier this year.
Smith+Nephew is the fourth largest orthopaedic multinational operating in the joint replacement space, and this partnership made Navbit Sprint available in Japan and across Australia.
More than 50,000 hip replacements are performed in Australia each year, and this number is 500,000 in the United States.
Following these procedures, post-operative dislocations are the second most common complication afterwards, as less than half of the acetabular cups placed during these operations are accurately aligned when manual instrumentation is used.
This can lead to expensive and painful complications for patients.
Navbit Sprint is looking to solve this issue and has developed a simple tool the size of a small carton that aims to assist with these accuracy issues.
The small tool is quicker and simpler than other offerings, and functions as an add-on to the existing process rather than a whole new product. This means it can be used in hospitals of all shapes and sizes.
Navbit Sprint is based in Sydney’s National Innovation Centre and has secured a $1 million grant through the Commonwealth Accelerating Commercialisation program, and has also received support through the Boosting Female Founders scheme and an Export Market Development Grant.
Navbit was co-founded by Professor Bill Walter and Lynette Walter, who also serves as the company’s chief executive.
The other finalists in the HealthTech category were Artrya, Nuroflux and VueMotion.
The InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence are supported by the Australian Computer Society, Investment NSW, Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Technology Council of Australia, TechnologyOne, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO’s ON Innovation Program, Reason Group, Q-CTRL, University of New South Wales, South by South-West Sydney and IP Australia.
Protecting your great ideas with intellectual property (IP) rights can lead to lasting benefits for your growing business. IP refers to creations of the mind, such as a brand, logo, invention, design or artistic work. Head to the IP Australia website to find out more about IP, and how it might help your business.
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