Nurturing your Clinical Innovation with AUSCEP

In a special series dedicated to the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program (AUSCEP) we introduce you to some of the passionate health professionals taking part in this 12-month program to develop their innovative ideas into products and enterprises.

Ibrahim Samaan is a senior physiotherapist and Managing Director of Purifas, an award-winning company developing and manufacturing clinically proven hygienic products for allied healthcare - like its FaceShield - now available in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK. 

The company is now branching out to develop a new innovation - Recyclable Single-use Hospital Bed Linen for hospitals and the aged care sector. Ibrahim shares his company’s journey and how being part of AUSCEP with like-minded innovators was important in nurturing his entrepreneurship and business acumen. 

The program’s third cohort has been delivered in NSW and Victoria, in partnership with MTPConnect and Australian Society for Medical Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ASME) and supported by LaunchVic and NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI). The next 2025/26 cohort is open for Victorian applications until 20 June 2025 – apply at auscep.au.

This episode is hosted by MTPConnect’s Caroline Duell and Elizabeth Stares.

Chapters

• 0:00 MTP Connect Podcast Introduction
• 1:16 Meet Ibrahim Saman of Purifas
• 1:36 Innovative Medical Hygiene Products
• 4:59 Growing an Australian MedTech Business
• 6:00 Product Testing and Validation
• 7:54 Sustainability in Medical Products
• 9:15 Hospital Linen Innovation
• 10:04 AUSCEP Program Benefits
• 13:05 Purifas Future Directions
• 15:01 Advice for Healthcare Entrepreneurs
• 15:57 Episode Wrap-Up

Transcript

Natalie Vella: 0:01

This is the MTP Connect podcast, connecting you with the people behind the life-saving innovations driving Australia's growing life sciences sector from bench to bedside for better health and well-being. Mtp Connect acknowledges the traditional owners of country that this podcast is recorded on and recognises that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are Australia's first storytellers and the holders of first science knowledge.

Caroline Duell: 0:33

Hello and welcome to the MTP Connect podcast. I'm Caroline Duell. Do you have a dream to translate your healthcare ideas into real world solutions? Join us as we meet some of the passionate health professionals doing just that and taking part in the Australian Clinical healthcare ideas into real-world solutions. Join us as we meet some of the passionate health professionals doing just that and taking part in the Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program. This 12-month innovation program is led by MTP Connect and the Australian Society for Medical Entrepreneurship and Innovation, with support from Launchvic and New South Wales Health, and it's making a difference from bench to bedside. My co-host is MTP Connect's Elizabeth Stares, who is the Innovation and Translation Lead for AUSCEP program.

Ibrahim Samaan: 1:16

My name is Ibrahim Samamn, Ibby for short. I'm a trained physiotherapist that's worked in both the public and private sector for over 16 years and, more recently, the founder of Purifas, which is an innovative and evidence-based medical hygiene manufacturer.

Caroline Duell: 1:33

What does Purifas make? What are your products?

Ibrahim Samaan: 1:36

So we have innovated medical hygiene barriers to improve hygiene practice, initially in the allied health space and now moving into the healthcare space and aged care.

Caroline Duell: 1:52

So we're talking about the sort of products that you might find at a physio. If you go into a physio and you're lying on the physio bed, there's a cover for your face or something over the bed that you lie on that type of thing.

Ibrahim Samaan: 2:05

Yeah, yeah, that's correct. So essentially, anyone that has a consulting room would put a physical barrier on the bed. So we have innovated specific designs or fit for purpose products is probably the best way to put it to make it simpler and more hygienic for business owners and clients alike.

Caroline Duell: 2:29

The innovations that you've developed? How is it different from sort of current, I guess, products that have been available on the market, and I'm thinking sometimes it feels like you're lying on paper, correct, yeah, I'm not sure about that, but what are the innovations and the improvements that you you've been able to develop?

Ibrahim Samaan: 2:46

so the first product that we developed, um our probably our flagship product, is the face shield. So this came about, um when I realized that people receiving treatment that often, often have their face in this hole. They're talking, they're coughing, they're salivating, and there was absolutely nothing protecting them or the next patient who's making direct contact with the with the same same space. Um so we essentially developed the product that would um provide 100 coverage both inside the hole and the top of the hole, and then product development through that process essentially led to the breast protecting the rest of the bed, amongst other things.

Caroline Duell: 3:33

And what was your inspiration for this? Is it really just through your practice as a physio that you kind of started to think about that?

Ibrahim Samaan: 3:41

It wasn't one of those light bulb moments in terms of how we commercialize the product. It was a bit more of a journey. I've always had a penchant for cleanliness, probably something embedded in my upbringing, but the idea began when I first entered the private sector. I simply saw the quote hygiene barriers that were being used and thought these aren't protecting anyone. It wasn't until I opened up my own clinic. I essentially developed what were my first prototypes for use in my own clinic, and it pretty much stayed the status quo until about 2017, when I decided to commercialize it. There are a couple of factors that led to that decision. I think that the biggest factor was client feedback, because they had obviously seen what was being used elsewhere and they often complemented the product I was using. And the other factor I was expecting my first child at the same time and, with most of my physio work being after hours, I realised I needed a job with a bit more flexibility to be able to raise a family and give them the time that they needed.

Caroline Duell: 4:59

You've developed them to be manufactured in Australia.

Ibrahim Samaan: 5:03

When we established it, the idea was that we established manufacturing in Australia, so we developed the products with Australian manufacturing in mind. At the moment they're currently being manufactured overseas, but we're essentially trying to get to a certain volume to make it cost effective to manufacture in Australia.

Caroline Duell: 5:24

Okay, so some challenges there around your business model as well, I guess. Tell us about the size of your business. Are you selling these products overseas, or is it still just the Australian market?

Ibrahim Samaan: 5:36

No. So we've got distributors in three countries the UK, japan and Hong Kong and we sell directly to Australia and New Zealand for the allied health um products. We're doing quite, we're doing quite well in such a short time.

Caroline Duell: 5:54

it's been a it's been a pretty good journey talk me through, like the the sort of, I guess, the testing of your prototypes. Have you had to do sort of clinical trials with your products?

Ibrahim Samaan: 6:04

yeah, so we've done. We've done a fair bit of testing on the hygiene aspects of our product, um. So the the first bit of testing that we've done, um is done, is testing for bacterial filtration efficiency. So essentially what that test is they push through the bacteria through the product and they see how much comes out the other side. The only standard of testing is for a surgical mask. So we've essentially adopted that, that testing process, and it was shown to have over 90% bacterial filtration, which is pretty good. We also supported an independent microbiologist to run a clinical trial in the allied health space health space. It was preliminary at this stage because we needed to understand the number of subjects to make it statistically significant. So for that trial we had seven subjects. It showed bacterial filtration reduction of over 94% on average. We do. To make it more statistically significant at this stage we needed to get 20 people in a trial, so we're not far off. Other testing was more market testing and client feedback testing, which were all positive as well.

Caroline Duell: 7:29

Yeah, so I'm assuming you've probably got a few physio colleagues that you could call on to start using your products and giving you feedback.

Ibrahim Samaan: 7:38

Yeah, that's exactly how we did. In fact, the colleagues were more used to test our prototypes as we were developing and we'd give it to them and they'd trial it in their clinics, give us some feedback and, yeah, quite helpful.

Caroline Duell: 7:53

Are they recyclable? What do you do with them at the end? Is it? It's a one use product?

Ibrahim Samaan: 7:59

Yeah, so, being a hygiene product, they needed to be single use, but they are 100% recyclable. So, yeah, we sustainability. It was a crucial focus during our development and there are multiple ways in which they can be recycled. We're currently working on a circular solution where we can repurpose the recycled material for hospital-based products, such as sharp containers, to keep it within the same ecosystem. So we've actually got a couple of partners on board. Our recycling solution is quite unique in that, for the hospital space, when you've got um fabrics contaminated with bodily fluids, um, they often have to go into either clinical waste or, if you're laundering them, they've got to be um either incinerated or cleaned in a specific way. Our recycling solution involves a stage where we use a microwaving device to decontaminate the linen. So essentially, you can recycle the linen 100% of the time, whether they've been contaminated or not. 100% of the time, whether they've been contaminated or not.

Caroline Duell: 9:14

You've told us about these. I guess you'd call them bed covers or treatment bed coverings. Have you got in your plan to develop something more like a hospital sheet for sleeping in?

Ibrahim Samaan: 9:34

Yeah, so, as the story goes, we developed a cover for the consulting rooms and, in truth, we probably Over engineered the product. So what we did from there is we adapted that technology to develop a recyclable, evidence based for hospital beds, with the idea of replacing the linen with a more hygienic, single-use, recyclable solution, and that's the most recent product that we've developed.

Caroline Duell: 10:04

And so what was your sort of inspiration really to apply for the Australian Clinical Entrepreneurs Program?

Ibrahim Samaan: 10:11

To be honest, the hospital linen was the reason that I applied. I hit a stumbling block with the product and I didn't know how to get around it. So previously, when working in the private allied health space, it's generally quite easy to get to the decision maker a simple email, a phone call, a pop-in. You have your conversation. They either decide to purchase the product or they decide it's not, it's not a suitable fit for them. But either way, you, you have a, you have an answer. You know how to move forward. Their healthcare space is is a lot more complicated.

Ibrahim Samaan: 10:50

So osep helped me realize that there are a number of stakeholders involved in the procurement process that you needed to address these stakeholders and they Gave me some guidance on on how to get into the home. Sometimes it's I mean, in most cases it's not through the front door. So, for example, where I was knocking, I said taught me, maybe you can Peep through the window. You might find a patient that would help support you. And if they can't open the door, go to the side of the home, have a look through the window. You might run into the infection control manager who might try and pry the window open. She may bring along the sustainability manager to give you a hand. They might bring along the COO, who then may like the product and give you access to the linen manager and the nursing director. So it was very helpful in that regard and, truthfully, if I had done the course earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of expensive mistakes.

Caroline Duell: 11:53

Wow, well, great to hear that it's been so valuable for your startup and for this sort of next phase, I guess, of scale up.

Ibrahim Samaan: 12:00

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely been very, very helpful, really helps provide guidance. So I saw firsthand throughout the course that the participants and myself included the approach to commercialization. In fact, the idea itself and the offering itself would often evolve into something that could be commercialized.

Elizabeth Stares: 12:37

It's really good to hear that, Ibby, because obviously you were more advanced than some of the others in the cohort, and it's great to hear that OzSep has been able to provide you with learnings that have been able to transform and help you create the new aspects of your business alongside those who just had the concept, and they've learned the same lessons as you in terms of going to find their customers and how to find them. So what's next for Purifast? I know you had a little bit of work on bedsores.

Ibrahim Samaan: 13:13

Yeah. So I mean, as I mentioned, the business is currently has two audiences. So for the allied health space, which is, I would say, semi-established, the idea is to really strengthen our foundation in Australia In the healthcare space. Our short-term goal is essentially to strengthen the value proposition with additional research and more trials supporting the use of our product. We've recently learned, as you mentioned, that our hospital linen, in addition to improving hygiene, cost and sustainability, may also reduce the risk of pressure sore injuries. Sustainability may also reduce the risk of pressure sore injuries. So we're always looking for people interested in giving it a trial just to help us establish more research in this space.

Caroline Duell: 14:02

And I guess it must have been interesting for you to be part of OSSAP with other clinicians and allied health professionals. You know generating ideas to make improvements for areas of health care. You must have found that quite inspiring it is.

Ibrahim Samaan: 14:17

It's great to be around like-minded innovators. I think, as as health professionals, we're natural problem solvers, because it's what we do. We have a problem in front of us. Our job is to solve it in. In saying that, I don't think entrepreneurship and business acumen is something that's embedded into our training, which is why programs like OSSEP are so important, because otherwise these great ideas, these great solutions simply stay that way. They stay as ideas as opposed to helping people, helping the greater good.

Caroline Duell: 15:01

It's great to see that you've got your products on the market in a number of jurisdictions and you're looking to continue to develop products that are going to make a difference.

Ibrahim Samaan: 15:07

Yeah, thank you. It's been a beautiful journey. If there's any advice for any people that are interested in following the same journey, there's a. Can't recall the book it was from, but it essentially said with a startup, you either you only have two emotions. You have really big highs and really big lows. But well worth it, don't hesitate, just do it. It's it's. It's a great program. It will help your growth for the idea, regardless of what stage you're at. It'll give you tools that you can implement in other areas. Yeah, only benefit can come from it, and I'm a big believer that any education in any area helps people grow.

Caroline Duell: 15:57

That was Ibrahim Saman, a senior physiotherapist and managing director of Purifas, an award-winning company developing clinically proven hygienic products for allied healthcare, like its face shield, now available in Australia, new Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK. The company is now branching out to develop a new innovation a recyclable single-use hospital bed linen for hospitals and the aged care sector. To find out how to be part of the next Australian Clinical Entrepreneurs' Program, visit the AUSCEP website to find out more. A-u-s-c-e-p dot A-U. You've been listening to the MTP Connect podcast. This podcast is produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people here in Narm, Melbourne. Thanks for listening to the show. If you love what you heard, share our podcast and follow us for more Until next time.