Prevent Biometrics & OPRO Partner to Support the Growing Demand for Head Impact Monitoring Mouthguards
The partnership combines Prevent’s market-leading Head Impact Monitoring Technology with OPRO’s globally renowned mouthguard manufacturing capabilities.
August 8, 2023 – Prevent Biometrics, provider of the world’s most independently validated Head Impact Monitoring Mouthguard Technology (IMM), and OPRO, a two-time Queen’s Award winner for Enterprise: Innovation and the global leader in manufacturing technically advanced mouthguards, today announced a strategic partnership. The collaboration will integrate Prevent’s sophisticated Version 2.0 sensor technology with OPRO’s internationally recognized custom and instant custom-fit mouthguards.
“Combining the latest technology in Instrumented Mouthguards from Prevent Biometrics with OPRO’s reputation for providing comfortable, custom-fit mouthguards will further increase the number of elite players wearing Instrumented Mouthguards during contact training sessions and matches. This will help accelerate our understanding of the frequency and magnitude of head acceleration events caused by head impacts in athletes. This is a key step in our ambition to reduce head acceleration event exposure in both matches and training.”
Simon Kemp – RFU, Medical Services Director
With over 25 years of experience and a track record of supporting over 10 million athletes, OPRO is a trusted global leader in sports protection. By leveraging OPRO’s world-class manufacturing capabilities, this partnership aims to offer a top-tier safety device, making head impact safety accessible to athletes at all levels. OPRO’s advanced manufacturing operation will immediately accelerate Prevent’s growth and distribution within the rugby market, with the shared goal of reducing the cost of Prevent’s IMM to ensure widespread adoption across all levels of the sport.
“Prevent is experiencing rapid growth in demand for accurate Head Impact Monitoring across sports and age groups, especially with our expanding rollout at the highest levels of rugby. Our partnership with OPRO ensures that the increasing global demand for Prevent’s Instrumented Mouthguards is met through their world-class manufacturing. The combination of OPRO’s mouthguard expertise with our head impact monitoring technology will drive the expansion of head impact safety.”
Mike Shogren – CEO, Prevent Biometrics
Prevent & OPRO serve leading rugby clubs, 500+ prominent schools, major cup tournaments, and top-tier professional leagues in Australia, England, Fiji, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, and Wales. Rugby leagues and governing bodies worldwide use the Prevent IMM to provide comprehensive, data-driven insights into the number, magnitude, and total head acceleration workload experienced by athletes during training and matches.
“At OPRO, we have built a reputation for providing the most comfortable, high-quality mouthguards with the highest safety standards. Incorporating Prevent’s revolutionary and market-leading head impact monitoring technology into our mouthguards will provide a complete safety solution for athletes across all sports.”
Anthony Lovat – Chairman, OPRO Group
About Prevent Biometrics
Prevent Biometrics®, a Cleveland Clinic spin-off, was founded in 2015 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, to provide a proactive solution to head impact risks in sports. The Prevent IMM is the most independently validated and widely used head impact monitoring system, with data featured in over a dozen peer-reviewed publications. Objective, data-driven insights from the Prevent IMM support the majority of current research on head impact exposure across different sports and age levels.
World Rugby is at the forefront of advancing research on head impacts and is committed to reducing the forces experienced by players. Prevent’s data is actively used by rugby stakeholders to develop informed injury-prevention strategies, supporting the sport’s research-driven efforts to protect athletes. The Prevent IMM is widely used for monitoring contact workload in both training and competition.
As part of World Rugby’s research and player welfare initiatives, over 3,000 players in community and elite professional rugby union have used Prevent Biometrics IMM over the past two years. Additionally, more than 900 players in rugby league have implemented the IMM to support similar injury-prevention initiatives.
For more information, visit PreventBiometrics.com.