From medical devices to monitoring endangered species – 25 years of innovations improving lives

For 25 years, we’ve had one goal: to improve lives through innovation. To mark our first quarter-century, we asked some of our partners to talk about their personal standout projects. Their answers reveal how CDP innovation has built a better future for thousands – from facilitating treatment for breast cancer patients, to monitoring wildlife and detecting poachers in the most remote landscapes.

Bringing breast cancer treatment into the physician’s office

Sanarus Technologies’ Visica 2 uses extremely cold temperatures to scarlessly destroy tumors. We completely redesigned this cryoablation system, enhancing performance and facilitating treatment in the physician’s office. Our advances reduced consumable cost by ten times and equipped our client with a strong IP position. Visica 2 was created to treat benign tumors – but it has since demonstrated impressive efficacy in clinical trials for malignant tumors, too.

Matt Brady, Head of Medical Therapy: “Our work on the Visica 2 breast cancer cryoablation system still excites me years later. We doubled performance and drove down costs, and clinical trials continue to prove the astounding efficacy of this no-scar, 30-minute procedure. Then there’s the human part: Sanarus Technologies’ chairman and CEO, BJ Hardman, shared her own Visica 2 treatment story, bringing to life the impact we’ve had on thousands of patients.”

Groundbreaking sustainability project addressing plastic waste

Pulpex, a collaboration between Pilot Lite Group and Diageo PLC, is a patented, first-of-its-kind pulp packaging innovation. Renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable, Pulpex enables brands to completely rethink their packaging proposition. CDP set up an automated, short-run manufacturing line, helping to move this innovation from early concept to reality. 

Chris Houghton, Head of FMCG: “Breakthrough innovation is what I’m most passionate about – pioneering new ground to improve lives. Tackling single-use plastic is a major challenge facing our generation, and our work with Pulpex promises to provide an alternative that’s better for the environment, encouraging consumers and society to live more sustainably.”

Point-of-care PCR COVID-19 testing instrument

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, our team of mechanical, electronics and software engineers, as well as manufacturing and regulatory experts helped QuantuMDx develop their Q-POC point-of-care diagnostic instrument, which detects COVID-19 within around 30 minutes using PCR. Using our short-run manufacturing capability, we produced the first batch of instruments which were deployed to hospitals for COVID-19 testing studies.

Dan Haworth, Head of Diagnostics: “We worked at speed to develop QuantuMDx’s point-of-care molecular diagnostic device from an early prototype to a complete product for CE-IVD marking. We turned our meeting rooms into bustling labs, prototyped and tested over 100 design changes, and manufactured the first batch of 45 Q-POCs for QuantuMDx in little over 16 weeks. This was an extraordinary team effort and an emotional project from start to finish – one that our team is immensely proud of.”

Satellite-enabled monitoring protecting endangered species

The Zoological Society of London’s Instant Detect 2.0 satellite-connected system monitors wildlife and detects poachers in the most remote and unconnected landscapes. The military-standard system is battery-powered and backpack-portable, so it can be deployed anywhere. 

Nicki Sutton, Head of Healthcare Insight & Strategy: “We created something with enormous conservation potential. Not only does it guard endangered species, but it can also monitor wildlife health, climate change, and the impact of ocean plastics.”

Complete therapy management with adherence built-in

The Klarus drug delivery system improves the outcome of medical self-injection by eliminating the burden of everything a patient needs to think about, such as storing the medication at the correct temperature, dealing with sharps waste, and ordering repeat prescriptions. 

Uri Baruch, Head of Drug Delivery: “This shows how patient-centered design can change lives by considering every aspect of self-injection. Not only does it have the potential to improve medical outcomes, but it’s a more environmentally friendly solution, decreasing the waste normally linked with disposable autoinjectors.”

Taking a complex drug delivery device to market

Kind Consumer’s Voke is a smoking cessation product designed to imitate the experience of smoking regular combustible cigarettes while administering a pharmaceutical formulation. It’s a licensed medicine and a safer alternative to smoking.

Wade Tipton, Head of Manufacturing and Quality: “CDP quickly stepped into this project when the launch was at risk, overcoming complex engineering problems to gain regulation and take the device to volume production.”

David Lewis, Head of Tobacco Harm Reduction: “Our engineering expertise helped bring to market a product that went on to become the first nicotine inhaler to obtain a product license from the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).”

Novel approach to energy management

Biscuit’s AI-powered smart building system monitors and controls building infrastructure to maximize comfort and minimize environmental impact. Its sensors report on essential parameters: energy consumption, temperature, humidity, air quality, pressure, VOCs, sound pressure, motion, and light levels.

James Baker, Head of Industrial: “We spend much of our lives in buildings, and they add up to nearly 40% of global CO2 emissions. Helping companies develop and deploy new products and technologies that help with the global need to decarbonize is always a ‘must-take-on’ challenge for us, and one where we can really help our clients succeed.”

Smart packaging illuminating consumer behavior

Miniature sensing technology inside the dispenser of Avon’s ANEW Reversalist Infinite Effects Night Treatment Cream tested if users would rotate it every seven days to stop their skin from adjusting to the regime. The smart packaging trial revealed valuable insight about the intended product use experience when applied in a real-world context, and additional unexpected opportunities for innovation.

Ben Strutt, Head of Consumer Insight & Strategy: “Our proprietary sensing technology achieved the consumer research holy grail – capturing and quantifying natural human behavior, in context, over an extended trial period, and side-stepping the reliability issues associated with some traditional methods. This is especially valuable to clients whose objective is to build an understanding of current regimens or a new experience over several weeks, to log an event that may only take place once or twice over weeks or months, in support of device validation, or particularly in situations that are sensitive – such as personal care and intimate health insight research. There aren’t many brand owners that wouldn’t love more detailed longitudinal insight about how their product works in the real world, and are looking for an upgrade to a diary study.”

Steering wheel to push the limits

Bloodhound’s goal was to break 1,000mph in a land speed attempt, inspiring a whole new generation of engineers along the way. Our role was to produce a titanium 3D-printed steering wheel to precisely fit the driver’s hands with custom controls for throttle, rocket boost, communications, and brakes. 

Jez Clements, Business Development Leader: “In this project, everything got driven to its limits. It was a completely one-off experience: we got involved with schools, gave talks on 3D printing, and got to see the development of the car up close.”

Our clients trust us to identify, design, and build innovations that drive their success. Want to learn more? Explore our work here.