News and trends from the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress 2022

13 September 2022

A contingent of the Springboard team attended the European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress 2022 – an annual event that brings together the world’s respiratory experts to showcase all the latest advances in respiratory medicine and science.

The congress was very well attended, being the first to be held in person since the COVID-19 pandemic, with companies from as far as Australia travelling to Barcelona, Spain. We had many fascinating discussions about recent innovations, as well as the challenges hindering progress.

Technologies on show included, to name a few: ventilators, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, exhaled breath diagnostic devices, and bronchoscopes. Across the medical industry Springboard are seeing a trend towards patients caring for themselves at home, and that was evident in this field. There was a strong emphasis on continuous monitoring and data collection to be uploaded and shared with the clinician, particularly for homecare ventilators and CPAPs.

We were struck by the sheer volume of data received by a doctor. Medics are famously busy people, and it will certainly be a challenge to distil and visualize this data in such a way that makes it easier, rather than more difficult, for a doctor to monitor and review their patients.

One topic that seemed to be absent from the majority of conversations was sustainability. This is in contrast to the discussions happening in other fields, particularly around drug delivery devices. This could be due to most devices displayed at the congress being inherently more reusable than single-use drug delivery devices. Alternatively, it might suggest that sustainability is a greater factor for devices that are used directly by the patients. Springboard anticipates that sustainability will become a more prominent talking point at future events, as result of governmental pressure following COP26.

We had a great time exploring the conference and the sights and sounds of Barcelona! If you didn’t have the opportunity to meet us there and would like to talk about your product development, you can get in contact here.

Written by: Heather Jameson