Owen Mumford Celebrates 60th Anniversary 1952-2012  

Owen Mumford, one of the UK’s largest manufacturers of specialist medical devices is celebrating its 60th anniversary this autumn and to mark the occasion, the company has commissioned a book documenting the company’s history.

The company was founded in 1952 by Ivan Owen, John Mumford and Ivan’s father, Thomas and started out from a small lock-up garage in Oxford. Today, Owen Mumford is a multi-million pound global business with its head office and manufacturing bases in Oxfordshire employing over 700 people in the UK, USA, Europe and most recently, China.

How Owen Mumford began
As engineers, Ivan Owen and John Mumford started out by making improvements to existing medical products; including the Macintosh Laryngoscope after Professor Macintosh (Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford) proposed changes to make it easier to use. Impressed with their modifications, he commissioned them to redesign the Oxford Inflating Bellows and later a new version of the Radcliffe Humidifier.

Over the next 20 years the two men moved from developing medical products into designing aluminium moulds for the plastic injection moulding industry, automotive and other industries so that by the late 1970s Ivan and John had become innovators and began designing original medical devices using the latest moulding processes.

After a chance conversation with two professors in 1977 (Turner and Holman from the Diabetes Research Laboratory in Oxford), Owen Mumford was given the opportunity to design and manufacture a unique medical device, which they later called Autolet.

Autolet – the world’s first automatic lancing device for diabetes
Autolet was launched in 1978 and its global success not only impacted on the Owen Mumford business (it sold millions) but its introduction led to a substantial increase in blood monitoring for diabetes worldwide. It was the pivotal moment in the company’s history and by the late 1990s Owen Mumford’s product portfolio had become what it is today, 100% medical-based.

Three Queen’s Awards
In 1999, Owen Mumford received a Queen’s Award for Export Achievement and in 2008 was one of only four companies in the UK to be awarded two Queen’s Awards, for International Trade and Innovation.

Innovation is everything
A focus on product innovation is key to Owen Mumford’s success and standing still has never been an option. The company is known for designing and manufacturing medical devices where priority is placed on patient comfort and safety because the company recognised all those years ago, that compliance is fundamental to successful medical treatment and this philosophy has remained central to their thinking.

Jarl Severn, Managing Director since 2008 says: “Our founders, Ivan Owen and John Mumford still take an active interest in the running of the business which is important to us. Their experience combined with the latest in innovative thinking from our teams make Owen Mumford a very strong prospect for the 21st century and we are confident of achieving our 2020 VISION.”