MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE OCTOBER 2019
A FAMILY AFFAIR
Twenty years ago, the Paxman family was rocked
by tragedy. From that, however, has grown an
award-winning manufacturing fi rm that is
changing lives across the world
BY CHRIS BECK
We often talk about
the value of
manufacturing in
economic terms:
the latest Make
UK fi gures, for
instance, show that the sector
is worth over £190 billion to the
UK economy (see p8). What
is often overlooked, however,
is the value manufacturers
can have on the wider society
through the products they make.
Huddersfi eld-based Paxman
is one such company. In the
early 1990s, Sue Paxman was
a healthy mum of four in her
30s. However, a diagnosis of
late-stage breast cancer rocked
her – and her family’s – world.
Told to put her life on hold
for the foreseeable future,
Sue underwent a programme
of aggressive chemo and
radiotherapy, a side-eff ect of
which was hair loss.
Her son, Richard (pictured,
above inset), picks up the story:
“Our local hospital was off ering
a treatment called scalp cooling
and mum gave it a go,”
he explains. “Within
three weeks of her fi rst
treatment, she began
losing her hair, and
that was the fi rst time
prognosis. It was a really
she really confronted her
visible sign that she was unwell.
My siblings and I were relatively
young, and seeing our mum lose
her hair was very traumatic.
Even though my mum survived
until I was 17, my last memories
of her were without hair, which
isn’t how I want to remember
her. My sister cut my mum’s hair
off in the bathroom, which is a
horrendous thing for anyone to
have to do, let alone a 14-yearold
doing it to her mum.”
The experience deeply
aff ected the family; having
seen the impact it had on the
children in particular, Sue’s
husband, Glenn decided to
look into the scalp cooling
technique. Along with Sue’s
surgeon, Richard Sainsbury,
and his brother Neil, Glenn
founded the Paxman family
business. “He was driven by
the passion to make something
diff erent and better than what was
already on off er,” explains Richard,
who is now the company’s MD.
“He’s an engineer by background, but
most of the passion and drive to look
for a solution came about because of my
mum. That legacy still remains today. If you
speak to anyone in the business, the name Sue
Paxman will always come up.”
Success from tragedy
Today, Paxman is the leading global supplier
of scalp cooling technology. It has treated over
100,000 people across the world, with a 50-
60% success rate. Within the UK alone, around
1,000 systems are installed across the country,
encompassing 98% of the NHS. The real growth,
however, will come from the American market:
Paxman has installed over 500 systems in US
hospitals in just two years.
For any ordinary company, a market of 300
million potential customers would be an exciting
proposition. Paxman, however, is understandably
careful to approach the subject with sensitivity.
“It’s such a horrendous way of judging the scale
of a market,” says Richard. “Most businesses will
see numbers like that and jump for joy, and it’s
obviously good for us on a purely fi nancial level,
but it means there’s an awful lot of people getting
cancer. We have to look at it as an opportunity
to make their lives a bit better. It’s a question of
weighing up how we describe them – at board
meetings we often actively avoid the words
‘business opportunities’.”
In spite of this rapid growth (turnover has
grown from £2 million to £6 million in under
three years), Richard and the rest of the Paxman
family are keen to retain the family feel to the
company. “We always have to remember why
we’re here,” says Richard. “If we can do that, we’ll
always make the best decisions for the company.
If we lose sight of that, we’ll turn into a very
diff erent business to what we are now.”
However, as the company has grown in
Richard Paxman
believes in the
societal power of
manufacturing
How the technology works
The patient wears the cap for 30 minutes before chemotherapy, during the
chemotherapy and for 90 minutes following it. The cap cools the scalp to 18oC, at
which temperature a process called vasoconstriction restricts the blood fl ow to the
hair follicles, limiting hair loss. Metabolic rate also drops; metabolism causes cell
division, and if that can be limited then it can stop the cancer spreading.
In partnership with the University of Huddersfi eld, Paxman is undertaking research
into the science of scalp cooling, including pre-treatments such as mousses and
shampoos, and development of cap sizes to fi t the seven basic head shapes and sizes
that exist around the world. This represents a £1 million investment over the coming
fi ve years – a signifi cant sum of money for a relatively small company.
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