Cape Town - When Alexandra Miszewski was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at seven, she had no idea that the obstacles she overcame with her horse Emma would become the driving force behind her businesses today.
Miszewski, 22, runs three businesses that stems from her relationship with her horse who was diagnosed with a career-ending tendon injury. But after all the obstacles they leaped over, Emma's recovery led to the success of EquineTendon, Regenesis-Vet and Novita Biotechnology.
Miszewski’s businesses aim to help with traditional treatment through the use of superior diagnostic rehabilitation tools for equine athletes who suffered tendons and ligament injuries similar to Emma.
“I think in today’s society, one of the things I really do not value is how easily things can be discarded, and how easily people give up. I'm a big believer in ’if something is broken, you try to fix it’. You don't just discard the problem and replace it with something new,” said Miszewski.
With Emma’s rehabilitation treatments being costly, Miszewski put her focus on extensive research, which led her to a leading equine vet from the Netherlands who had developed an innovative and cost-effective system for treating tendon injuries.
When the vet agreed to send a team to South Africa, Miszewski developed a business plan and helped him roll out the technology to horses with similar injuries in South Africa, and that was how her first business, EquineTendon, was born.
“When I heard about Dutch Vet, I was relieved. The special patented technology combined with scanning technology that had quite a synergistic effect, it was one-of-a-kind. It can be seen as a moon boot on steroids, if I could say. It has a unique system that manages the injuries in equines to a point where they could be rehabilitated.”
“In addition to using conventional sports medicine treatment like cortisone injections, Emma definitely improved up to a certain point, but six months down the line she ended up re-injuring herself, with a different type of injury. From there, I searched for other options to help her, and that was when everything expanded,” said Miszewski.
With EquineTendon growing steadily, Alex began a degree in Business Science at UCT, which culminated in her being placed on the Dean's List, and joining the Golden Key International Honours Society. She was also accepted into the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, which aims to promote entrepreneurship and provides bursaries and support to students who have the potential to become high-impact entrepreneurs.
In her second year at UCT, driven by Emma's next set of injuries, she enlisted the help of top vets and biomedical scientists to start her second business – Regenesis-Vet.
"When Emma re-injured herself again, I then ran into a problem where the conventional treatments that were available, like steroid injections and stem cells, were not a sustainable solution. They are proven to work but were short-term, so I wanted to find a long-term rehabilitative treatment solution that not only aids healing, but is also safe and effective," said Miszewski.
Regenesis-Vet developed the world's first and only commercially available systemic regenerative equine treatment, derived fully from a unique system of processing autologous blood. Growth factor therapy makes use of specific growth factors, carefully extracted from the blood to stimulate healing and regeneration of injured or damaged tendons, ligaments and joints. The finished product not only boosts immune response, but also aids with recovery.
In 2019, the treatment was commercialised and two years later, Miszewski enlisted the help of leading biomedical scientist Dr Judey Pretorius (PhD Pharmaceutical Chemistry) to further develop and improve the system.
“I think because of my ADHD, I have realised that my mind, just for whatever reason, works differently. I see so much of myself in Emma because she did not fit the conventional mould. She was quite traumatised when she first arrived. She was highly-strung, skittish and scared. One could just see that no one had tried to play to her strengths and she was only punished, and with me growing up with ADHD, I too did not fit the conventional mould," Miszewski said.
With EquineTendon and Regenesis-Vet both performing well, the harsh reality of gender-based violence in South Africa hit close to home when two of her close friends were brutally murdered.
"A few months prior I had lost my best horse, Key Major on the operating table. Then both Nene (Uyinene Mrwetyana) and Meghan (Cremer) were murdered, and not long after that I also lost my best friend to suicide, which is probably one of the most horrible experiences I ever had to go through. It was a really bad time for me, and for the first time in my life, I felt hopeless.
“I enlisted the help of a trauma counsellor who introduced me to the concept of post-traumatic growth, and through that, I got the strength to give hope to both myself and other,” said Miszewski.
Compared to EquineTendon and Regenesis-Vet, Miszewski's third business, Novita Biotechnology offers affordable niche health-care products in the orthopaedic, aesthetic, veterinary and ophthalmology spheres. Not only does Novita provide affordable health care products, but it also gives hope. Thirty percent of the profit goes towards social initiatives for people, pets and the planet – Miszewski's take on the triple bottom line.
Wellington Animal Hospital Group veterinarian Nellma le Roux said that what sets Miszewski’s companies apart is their focus on the support of tendinopathy and joint diseases.
“Novita’s HA (hyaluronic acid) is effective in maintenance and treatment of joints, whether given intravenously or intra-articularly, I have patients with existing bone/joint pathology maintaining work, without showing signs of lameness or accelerated degeneration despite high work. And there are patients using the product as a maintenance preventative measure, instead of oral formulations of joint supplements.
“Novitas and Regenesis are able to produce a product at lower costs, making therapy affordable and maintenance sustainable for more equine owners.”
“While the Regenesis product’s technology is still very new, I have used it in clinical cases of tendon pathology, and spinous process articulation to great effect to help with a few maintenance cases with hard-working, competitive horses,” said Le Roux.
"For people, Novitas products will be used in the facial reconstructions of gender-based violence victims, as well as burn victims. In terms of pets, we want to reduce the number of arthritis-related euthanasias, by working with animal welfare organisations. For the planet, our aim is to be carbon negative, removing more carbon than we emit into the atmosphere, through planting trees and other initiatives,” said Miszewski.
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