Planet Innovation has been recognized as a leading example of resilience, innovation and excellence at the 41st Governor of Victoria Export Awards (GOVEAs).
PI was one of nine companies named as a 2020 Export Champion for the way they adapted their business to help in the fight against coronavirus, found innovative ways to serve their customers or established new products or markets.
Speaking at the online awards ceremony yesterday, Minister for Trade Martin Pakula said: “Victorian businesses have shown amazing resilience and adaptability this year, exemplified by the efforts and achievements of our GOVEA winners.”
PI has not only showed significant resilience to the COVID pandemic, but actually expanded to meet demand for products used in the fight against the pandemic.
About 100 jobs were created in our manufacturing division as we rapidly scaled up production for international clients such TOMI Environmental Solutions, whose SteraMist® decontamination product is used worldwide for infectious disease control. Production also ramped up for local clients like Scinogy, who is successfully competing on a global stage with their innovative cell processing platform.
PI also supported spin-out company Lumos Diagnostics to establish trials using its rapid FebriDx test to help triage potential COVID-19 cases. The test can detect in 10-minutes if a patient has a viral infection (rather than a bacterial infection), meaning they could be isolated while more time-consuming lab-based tests were conducted to see if the virus was COVID-19.
PI co-CEO and co-founder Stuart Elliott said the Export Award was a testament to the hard work and dedication of PI staff to ensure the business not only adapted, but thrived under very challenging conditions.
“There is nothing good in a pandemic, however, as a medical device innovator, PI has been fortunate to find itself in a market that has experienced unprecedented demand over the past eight months,” Stuart said.
“I’d like to thank our staff who have been outstanding in their response – whether productively working from home or establishing new COVID-safe protocols in production – they have continued to go above and beyond for our local and international customers to deliver game-changing innovations that are also saving lives.”
