Mount Maunganui-based product-development company Locus Research has played a leading role in securing major international recognition. Locus teamed up with Christchurch's The Merino Company to win a Medical Design Excellence award in the United States.
They won the general hospitals devices and therapeutic products category, beating major international medical companies. Theydesigned a range of merino-wool compression garments, called Encircle Compression Therapy, to help people with circulation problems.
Locus teamed with AgResearch Textiles Group and Medical Research Institute of New Zealand to develop the product, which comes in three pressure grades, from light to firm. The knee-high Encircle garments can be pulled on and zipped up, like a snug sock.
More than 40 per cent of people over 45 suffer circulatory problems. The chronic venous disease is treated with compression bandaging and hosiery which are difficult to apply and seldom re-used. They are mainly synthetic and not compatible with skin tissue - unlike merino wool.
The merino is placed inside the Encircle garment, creating a comfortable micro environment around the skin to assist in improving the affected area.
Bythe Rees-Jones, lead designer for Locus's Encircle project, said the team believed merino could offer significant therapeutic advantages for sufferers of chronic venous disease when merely used as a fibre - it has unique moisture absorbent, antibacterial, anti-microbial and odour-inhibiting properties.
Locus Research and The Merino Company are also finalists in the DuPont Australia and New Zealand Innovations awards, to be announced in mid-May.
