MedicalTech —Scaleo Medical
French Tech follows the latest e-health news and interviewed Cédric ETLICHER, General Manager of SCALEO Medical in Russia, with whom we discussed the medical market and development of high medical technologies in Russia.
Cedric, you moved to Russia in 2003, what did you do here?
I moved to Russia in 2003 for work. From 2003 till 2016, I worked in various fields: cosmetics trade, import of French products and technology transfers from France to Russia and from Russia to France. In 2019, SCALEO Medical offered me to become the General Manager of the Russian entity they created. Based in Montpellier, SCALEO Medical (https://scaleomedical.com/) is a French developer and producer of medical equipment for hospital and home use. We focus on oxygen therapy, respiratory orthopaedics and patient transfer tools. The company is now developing a brand new concept around e-health devices.
How exactly the distribution process of SCALEO Medical’s products is organised in Russia and what are the difficulties you are facing?
We have partnered with the main Russian distributors in each field. This makes our work easier as competition is tough and we entered the market late.
Our biggest challenge is getting our products Russian certification. It takes up to 18 month and tens of thousands Euros for each device. Tests we made in France in order to get the European certification (CE Mark) do not help. Initially we were outsourcing certification but in 2020 we hired our own certification specialist and cut down time and cost by two.
What products of SCALEO Medical are currently in high demand in Russia?
Because of COVID-19, our oxygen concentrators are in high demand all over the country. The demand is such that our products are sold and delivered immediately upon arrival in Russia from our factory. SCALEO Medical’s products are different from our competitors’ because they are affordable all whilst following high French quality standards.
We are working on localizing part of our production in Russia. Because of legislation passed in 2020, most state purchases in oxygen therapy by 2023 will have to be labelled “made in Russia”. We are currently working on our planning and are aiming to start production by Q4 2022.
What products of SCALEO Medical are the most innovative?
SCALEO Medical is developing new devices for e-health and telemedicine. We are developing new tools for patient monitoring as well as remote treatment solutions. This follows the current general development of telemedicine services that will allow patients go less often to the hospital.
We are also developing tools to increase the connectivity of our devices, to make them easier to follow for both repairs and patient monitoring. SCALEO Medical owns a patent for a connected oxygen delivery system based on oxygen blood saturation and we are to develop R&N projects, including in Russia, to allow our devices to send information directly to doctors, in real time, letting them measure treatment efficiency.
Our devices are natively connected and the next step will be to use them as transmitters for big data and machine learning. AI will support doctors in decision making. Today, big data and AI are mainly used for larger medical devices, such as X-Rays and Scanners whilst we’ll be introducing AI into respiratory and cardiac monitoring.
We have many more ideas to complement our range of products and we are now working on integrating various solutions in both France and Russia. Our goal will be to bring Russian solutions in France (and Europe) while facilitating the integration of French solutions for the Russian and CIS markets.
How can you describe Russians in business?
Fire and flames! Doing business with Russians spices life up!
Do you participate in French Tech activities in Moscow?
I’m an active member of the French community in Moscow and since 2020 I’m a board member of French Tech Moscow for the e-health sector. Many interesting events to come!
