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March 27, 2017 Issue

CEOCFO MAGAZINE

 

Revolutionary Device Helps to Reduce Pain and Fear for Patients by Allowing Practitioners to Buffer Local Anesthetic Safely and Precisely

 

 

Cameron Perkins

Chief Executive Officer

 

Anutra Medical

www.anutramedical.com

 

Interview conducted by:

Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – March 27, 2017

 

CEOCFO: Mr. Perkins, what is the idea behind Anutra?

Mr. Perkins: The idea behind Anutra is that we do not like to see a patient experience pain with a shot in the dental chair. We do not like to see the dentist experience the inefficiency that local anesthetic brings into their daily schedule in their dental office. We have a product that leverages a science that has been around for fifty years called buffering. What buffering does is neutralize the preservative in the anesthetic and allows the patient to experience minimal, if any discomfort with the injection. It allows the anesthetic to work almost immediately for the dentist versus the ten to twelve minutes it normally takes with traditional, unbuffered anesthetic. We have a medical device that streamlines the buffering process.

 

CEOCFO: How can this not be in every dental office today? How are you getting the word out and who is using now?

Mr. Perkins: The reason everyone is not buffering today is because historically, the process of buffering lidocaine was complicated. Our system streamlines that process, allowing every dentist and every healthcare provider that uses lidocaine for local procedures such as dermatologists, plastic surgeons, emergency medicine physicians, podiatrists and so on, to be able to leverage buffering as well in a system that allows you to draw that buffered lidocaine on demand.

 

CEOCFO: How are you able to do the buffering in a way that is more effective than what has been done in the past?

Mr. Perkins: We have a closed dispensing mixing system that allows the provider to mix and draw buffered lidocaine into a syringe as they need it, versus them having to pre-mix the solution and having to mix it in large batches.

 

CEOCFO: How are you reaching out to the medical and dental community?

Mr. Perkins: We have a sales team and a marketing team that spends time educating and marketing to the healthcare providers as well as patients. Secondarily, we have developed distribution partnerships that also sell our product into the healthcare provider’s office.

 

CEOCFO: How do you get attention? Once people look, do they move on it or are they reluctant?

Mr. Perkins: Over the past three to five years in medicine in general, there has been a tremendous amount of attention on a patient’s experience from the payer side, the patient side and the provider side. The reason our products are getting attention is because there has been little innovation around the local anesthetic or the medicine we use to get a patient numb for the procedure. Over the past two years, there has been an interest and a “buzz” around buffering lidocaine that has been generally accepted for fifty years. Now there is a streamlined way to do it that is cost effective, consistent, and that is safe. Providers are now paying attention to these things to enhance the patient’s experience and increase their workflow. Typically a dentist or physician has to wait ten or fifteen minutes after giving the injection before they can start their procedure. With buffered lidocaine, after they give the injection, they can start their work within 1½ to 2 minutes. The patient experiences little to no discomfort with that injection, so everyone wins. When you create products like that, when you create innovation, you typically get attention.

 

CEOCFO: Where does cost fit in and what is the cost of disposables that go along with the product?

Mr. Perkins: Most dental practices and medical practices are already buying the disposables. They are already using these products in their everyday procedure based appointments. From our standpoint, when they are trying to increase and enhance the patient experience and they are trying to gain efficiency, the return on investment is that word typically spreads quickly about whether you had a great experience at your dentist or dermatologist etc. or not. We are seeing the healthcare providers using our product, gaining a return both on growing their customer base, their patient base, as well as their gained efficiency. If you can take off ten or fifteen minutes in a procedure, then you are saving an hour to two hours a day. That allows the provider to buy that time back to go do something more meaningful in their life or to put another patient in their schedule.

 

CEOCFO: Are you finding dentists more interested than dermatologists and are there particular areas that are gaining more traction?

Mr. Perkins: We are focused right now on the dental market and that is where our primary growth and revenue is. We have been to several dermatology events where dermatologists have bought our product but our efforts right now are focused in the dental space.

 

CEOCFO: Is there much training involved?

Mr. Perkins: We built our system so that it would be easy-to-use for chair side buffering, meaning there is little training that has to occur. We recognize thought that people who are interacting with the medical device need to be trained, whether that is a dental assistant or hygienist, the dentist, a nursing assistant or RN. We have created a proprietary training system which allows the office to have an iPad and continue to engage and interact with it as they not only learn our products but use our products. That allows us to get feedback as they are engaging and interacting with that training device so that we know when and how to engage if they need our support. That has been very powerful for us as a manufacturer to support our customers. It has been very welcome on our customers’ behalf because as we are trying to make them more efficient, we can engage with them where they need to be engaged.

 

CEOCFO: As professionals have started to use the system, what has changed and what have you learned that you did not expect in the beginning?

Mr. Perkins: I do not know if anything changed. I think what has been a welcome surprise to me is the feedback that we get from the dentist about how good they feel when a patient looks at them when they are already getting numb, and asks when are they going to get an injection. Having had the buffered lidocaine myself multiple times and as a healthcare provider, I have buffered lidocaine and delivered it in the emergency room and in urgent care environment, it is amazing when a patient does not experience any anxiety and they do not experience any pain. As a healthcare provider, that is unbelievably satisfying and has been a welcome surprise that one of the things that dentists say to me the most often is that they enjoy hearing their patients tell them it was the best experience they have had. We are the most awarded dental anesthetic product to date.

 

CEOCFO: What is next to get the word out to more dentists?

Mr. Perkins: Moving forward, we will be continuing to sell our products and working with our customers very closely so that they can achieve all of the benefits and successes for their patients and in their practice with the Anutra Medical local anesthetic delivery system.

 

CEOCFO: Are there ways to reach out to patients or is it just too far around?

Mr. Perkins: We were invited and we have done several TV programs. One was Moving America Forward, hosted by William Shatner. We were on a PBS special. We have some press releases that have some of those conversations. There are users of ours that are notating on their website that they are leveraging our technology for an improved patient experience. That is the way we get the word out to the patient.

 

CEOCFO: How is business?

Mr. Perkins: Business is growing and is where we want it to be as we continue to move into the dental market. We continue to see inbound interest from other healthcare fields around our product because it solves multiple obstacles and challenges that they face in their daily practices and inside healthcare systems. The future is bright.

 

CEOCFO: Are you working globally or thinking about it?

Mr. Perkins: We have a very strong patent portfolio on our products, both design and utility patents. We have filed for those as well in Europe and Canada. We have a tremendous amount of inbound interest right now from the Canadian dental market as well as Australia and the European Union area. Our focus right now is on the United States. There is a large enough market and strong enough demand here that this is where our key focus lies while we explore the opportunities in Canada, Europe and Australia.

 

CEOCFO: Final thoughts, what is the takeaway for our readers?

Mr. Perkins: I would say the takeaway is to both pay attention to Anutra Medical and its products and growth as well as experience it first hand as a patient and it will transform the way you view the dental chair.


 

“The idea behind Anutra is that we do not like to see a patient experience pain with a shot in the dental chair. We do not like to see the dentist experience the inefficiency that local anesthetic brings into their daily schedule in their dental office.”- Cameron Perkins


 

Anutra Medical

www.anutramedical.com



 



 

 


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