The development of MOTIMOVE is based primarily on personal experience of the employees and the consultants of 3F-Fit Fabricando Faber acquired through the development and implementation of electronic stimulators and wearable systems for persons with disabilities at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, with experience in working on and running projects financed by the European community (FP6, FP7, H2020) and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Serbia.
Previous activities have resulted in patents transferred to one of the biggest distributors of rehabilitation equipment, Otto Bock Medical Systems (Germany) and the Tecnalia foundation (San Sebastian, Spain), which means that they've found customers in the European market.
The company 3F-Fit Fabricando Faber was formed right before the application for the Innovation Fund's Contest for the financing of innovative projects under the Early Development Fund, and the development of the MOTIMOVE business is also based on the cooperation with foreign partners crucial to the distribution.
The French foundation ANTS from Lyon co-finances 20% of the project financed by the Innovation Fund. EUR 80,000 was provided by the Innovation Fund for the development of the new device, whereas the French association provided EUR 16,000.
The newly acquired funds will be used for the production, whereas another EUR 100,000 has been invested in the development in the past year and a half, as an extension to the previous patents. The company has already started developing the final product (since the device is currently in the prototype stage) and they expect the sale of the science mode to start by the end of 2018 in smaller amounts. The procedure of certification for the CE tag is in progress as well.
Germany's Hasomed and Sweden's CEFAR produce similar systems in the market, but these are multi-channel stimulators, where devices are primarily used for the training of athletes and have preset functions for certain groups of muscles. In addition to upgraded functions, intelligent control and increased flexibility, the device of the Belgrade team will also be price-competitive. Stimulators in the highest mode (meant for research institutions, the so-called science mode) will cost around EUR 2,000, and those for home use between 250 and 500 euros, which is up to twice as cheap as other solutions in the market.
Prototypes of the MOTIMOVE system are now being tested in a clinical environment in cooperation with medical experts in line with the rules of evidence-based medicine and fully in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. This is possible thanks to the successful cooperation of many years with the Rehabilitation Clinic Dr Miroslav Zotovic in Belgrade, where 2 prototypes have been installed, whereas the device is also being tested in cooperation with clinics in France and Denmark.
The Belgrade-based company has also agreed cooperation with the Dutch company MOTEK Force &DIH, the biggest world distributor of rehabilitation robots meant for persons with disabilities, on the joint development of a hybrid system which makes parallel use of an exoskeleton and electrical stimulation to the end of optimizing the function.
If the MOTIMOVE device for movement assistance for persons with disabilities is your investment of the year favorite,
you can vote for it on the official website of the Aurea award.