Presenter:
Ricardo Garcia-Rosas, Co-Founder and CEO of Virtetic.
Startup:
Virtetic is empowering the prosthetics community through virtual reality.
Transcript
[00:00 – 03:03] Ricardo
If you were to get a leg or an arm amputated, you’d need to wait over four months to get access to a prosthesis. While you wait, you lose function in the affected limb and become more at risk of suffering phantom limb pain throughout your life. This time delay costs healthcare systems around the world over $5 billion every year.
I’m Ricardo, co-founder and CEO of Virtetic, a digital health company enabling people to kick-start their journey with a prosthesis through the power of games and immersive technologies. By practising with a virtual prosthesis, people can start functional rehabilitation and learn to use a prosthesis as soon as they can start with therapy.
We co-design our gamified clinical interventions with the community to ensure they are evidence-based and representative of living with a prosthesis. Ultimately, our products help people to be able to fully use their prosthesis from day one.
Our first product, Myo-Hand XP, allows people to learn to use a prosthetic hand through guided practice in VR. Our second product helps people manage their phantom limb pain through active limb visualisations in VR. Our products can be used in the clinic or at home as prescribed by a qualified clinician, which can be covered by disability insurance, like the NDIS, TAC and iCare.
Virtetic provides all the hardware, software, training and support that both clinicians and their patients need to use our products. We partner with prosthesis manufacturers to feature their products within our system, helping them reach potential customers at an earlier stage.
That is why for the past two years, the number one prosthesis manufacturer, Ottobock, has been collaborating with us to incorporate their products into our system.
We have submitted the regulatory application in Australia for our first product, and we plan to submit the application for the second product in the first quarter of next year. We work with two clinics in Melbourne who are ready to pilot our products to validate their clinical effectiveness and the business model of our offering. These pilots will inform our commercial roll-out throughout Australia and how we can work with Ottobock to bring our offerings to the world.
We are a diverse and passionate team with a wealth of experience in the development and research of virtual reality and prosthetic devices, complemented by expertise in finance and management consulting. Our clinical advisors are expert clinical practitioners and world-leading researchers in prosthetics, rehabilitation and pain science. Our commercialisation advisors are global leaders in the commercialisation of medical devices.
But most importantly, we share a passion about making a positive impact in the lives of people living with limb loss. Following regulatory approval, we will launch our first product with partner clinics. To help drive revenues and growth, we’ll be seeking further capital in the next six months to scale our product offerings in Australia. If you are interested in joining us, please reach out.
