Growth Investment

Jonathan Richards

CEO of Medibord Ltd

Jonathan started out making composite street lights to increase safety for cars in the event of an accident, technology was transferred to an R&D business whilst he developed and patented a fibre-reinforced mountain and kite board range for extreme sports and continued to promote a thermoplastic honeycomb panel into the UK.

Having been approached by Nottingham City Hospital (NCH) to develop a patient positioning board safe for MRI scanners, in 2009 Jonathan launched Medibord - a uniquely radio-translucent, MR compatible composite created in partnership with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) to improve radiotherapy positioning accuracy. It was developed in response to its oncologists’ need to fuse CT and MR scans in order to improve the treatment of diseases such as prostate cancer.

Medibord was able to retro-fit bespoke flat couch tops to its MR scanners and position patients with repeated precision to facilitate Linacs and MR image fusion. This has enabled NUH oncologists to achieve their long-term goal of precisely outlining prostate cancer patient scans.

This unique project has seen Jonathan raise seed capital and win an International export award for innovation in the Middle East as well as a Da Vinci Award for Best Newcomer from Loughborough University.