#FoundersFridays: Meet Dieuwertje Drexhage

What does Layco mean?

Layco comes from Layman’s terms—made for laypeople. Layco’s goal is to create products that everyone can understand and use. That’s why we don’t include instructions when testing our products. If you receive a product without any instructions, what happens? How do people figure it out? What challenges do they encounter? We pursue this because our products will also be utilized in low-resource environments: rural regions in sub-Saharan Africa where access to adequate training is scarce. Ultimately, you and I should also be able to operate a vacuum pump during a delivery without any problems.

Why did you start Layco?

I have a technical background and always assumed I would end up at Philips. That changed when I interned at a public hospital in Kenya and saw how all medical equipment was designed for single use—but was still being reused. The medical industry is far from sustainable. The current approach to equipment development generates unnecessary waste and excludes 76% of the world’s population from access to safe healthcare. That’s when I realised that by designing reusable equipment, we could make healthcare both more accessible and more sustainable—achieving two goals at once. Back in the Netherlands, I joined the research group Surgery for All, which focuses on making medical equipment accessible to low- and middle-income countries. 

Why a vacuum pump?

The research team at TU Delft was approached by a group of gynaecologists who had studied the use of vacuum extraction in sub-Saharan Africa. About 10% of births in the Netherlands involve vacuum extraction; in sub-Saharan Africa, it’s less than 1%. During a case study at a hospital in Uganda, vacuum pump usage increased from 0.6% to 2.6%, leading to a 25% reduction in stillbirths. The hospital was thrilled with these results, but the vacuum pump is disposable, which creates logistical challenges. Half the time, these devices are unavailable, broken, or out of stock. Hospitals were therefore very interested in a reusable vacuum pump, so we started developing the Vela®.

Can you explain how reusable medical devices both reduce the healthcare sector’s CO₂ footprint and improve global access to healthcare?

When we started testing, our main focus was accessibility. We wanted a reusable product to improve availability in low- and middle-income countries, reducing their dependence on the supply chain, where up to 70% of costs are incurred. This means hospitals in Kenya and Uganda often pay three to four times what we pay in the Netherlands—simply due to transportation costs. The cost per use decreases when a product is reusable. 

To avoid shipping test products to Kenya and Uganda repeatedly, we started testing in the Netherlands. Hospitals here quickly recognized the sustainability benefits and expressed interest in using them too.

I hesitated to claim that our products are inherently more sustainable at first, as they still require sterilisation after each use, which involves water, and energy. So, we conducted a Life-cycle Analysis (LCA) to assess the actual environmental impact—how much CO₂ is emitted during production, use, and sterilisation. Since our product needs to be more robust, it requires more material, which also results in slightly higher emissions. 

Our tests showed that after just three to four uses, our product becomes more sustainable than the disposable alternative. And it can be reused up to 100 times. Hopefully, in the future, we can extend this to 200 times—that's our goal for vela® 2.0! 

What has been a recent success for Layco?

When producing medical devices, companies must comply with strict regulations. In January, we underwent an audit and were officially certified to manufacture and sell medical products. We are in the final stages of product development and if everything goes according to plan, by the end of this year, our vela® device will also be certified.

And a recent challenge?

Product development is full of ups and downs. Some ideas seem great on paper but turn out to be less effective in real life. For vela®, we aimed to make it as easy as possible to clean. That meant reducing the number of components from 25–30 down to as few as possible. The fewer parts that need to be disassembled for cleaning, the better. Achieving this took a lot of trial and error.

What do you need to make even more impact?

Our vision for Layco is broad: We want to make healthcare more sustainable while simultaneously improving accessibility. One great thing about gynaecologists is that they care deeply about the planet they are leaving behind for their newborn patients. They are willing to transition to alternative products if necessary and actively work to reduce stillbirths in low- and middle-income countries. 

We are currently talking to several NGOs and tropical medicine specialists. If anyone reading this feels they should be involved, we’re always open to exciting new projects! 

That said, we rely on a lot of external partners for distribution and certification. If there are experts out there with relevant experience who can offer guidance and help us avoid pitfalls, we’d love to connect. 

And we’re always looking for funding. Over the past few years, we have been dependent on grants and donations. Fem-Start was the first to take a chance on us and invest, and we are incredibly grateful. Now, we can start taking real steps forward! 

If you’re an Amsterdam-based founder working on an innovative solution that solves an urban or social challenge, and you’d like to share your story with our audience, email impact@amsterdam.nl