HE left school at 15 and spent two decades underground, mining coal and blasting sewer tunnels.

Now, at 62, when many are thinking of retiring, the former miner from Fife is carving out a new career as an entrepreneur and inventor, and his range of healthcare products he developed in his Kirkcaldy kitchen is attracting attention from Australia to Alabama.

Brian McCormack has developed a ground-breaking series of products he believes will transform the way the healthcare world treats burns, screens for bowel cancer, and utilises wet wipes.

Mr McCormack devised a usable dissolvable bandage that works like conventional crepe dressings from a soluble material he sourced in the US.

His soluble bandages have been praised by academics and he is now in advanced discussions with one of the world’s largest healthcare companies over taking the product to market.

A potentially more convenient bowel cancer sample collector is going through tests in South Africa.

The Herald:

The soluble wet wipe is about to go into European manufacture with one of the leading UK makers, and he says he has now been advised that his wet wipes will meet stringent new Fine to Flush standard.

McCormack Innovation is receiving emails daily from large-scale medical firms, government issuers and the cosmetics industry, has had initial discussions with the NHS and Scottish Water, and has been contacted by companies from as far afield as Australia as well directly by the University of South Alabama State Medical Centre.

The firm has been approached by a leading stoma care provider which "has a keen interest in our adhesive removal wipe".

The wound dressing could cut hours of agonising removal for people with injuries such as burns.

He believes his screening pack could help boost uptake levels, which are typically low around the world, and in Scotland for 2015-17 was at 55.6 per cent.

Read more: Former Fife miner invents soluble bandages that could ease pain of millions

The soluble wet wipes, licensed for European production with Guardpack in Chelmsford, which produces 100 million wipes a year, could help ease environmental contamination.

He says: "I would really like let people know that this is a guy who started in the kitchen, an ex-coal miner that’s flourished to the state that I’m now working alongside University of Dundee and Heriot Watt University (where tests were also held) with their testing. I’ve been told by the academics I’m way ahead with this.

"I’ve got a nephew who says it’s brilliant, so I think it inspires people to think, do you know what, if he can do it, I can do it’."
He said: "I’ve put in a lot of hard work.

"I blew the door off the microwave twice in the kitchen.

"My brother said he can imagine me standing there with the black smoke and wee white eyes.

"A lot of hard work, but as the lawyer said, if I’d tried this ten year years ago nobody would’ve been interested in me."

Read more: Herald Entrepreneur: 'I never dreamed I could achieve anything like this'

His legal team at Brodies have helped guide him through the process.

He said: "I met up with a team of academics up at the Ninewells Hospital.

"One in particular was interested in diabetic foot ulcers.

"When you remove a wound dressing form a diabetic foot ulcer there’s a slight chance you will always take a wee bit of the tissue.

"I was asking if it was possible to remove a wound dressing without damaging tissue and also would a soluble dressing remove the trauma away from removing a dressing, especially in a child, or any burns victim, because it just washes off."

He said: "The foot would be placed in a tank and the dressing would remove itself."

Read more: Herald Entrepreneur: Experience is everything for events company boss

With the bowel screening kit, he said: "I was just looking at the method of collecting the sample.

"So your package comes out to you, you've to go to the toilet, and collect it in a plastic container."

Toilet paper can also be used, under existing screening guidelines.

He said: "I thought all you needed is something that comes with the bowel screening pack that you can use to collect it on like some kind of soluble cardboard.

"Straight away you can see that this can be used in hospitals as well.

"With my device the sample can be taken in the confines of the toilet, sealed and the residue flushed away."

The Herald:

Above: Mr McCormack meets Guardpack managing director Jeremy Freedman. 

He said: "My daughter is a nurse and I couldn’t even show her the trial when I was doing, and when I could show her, she said 'wow!'. She was crying."

He added that his other product, soluble wipes have also arrived timeously: "It is just at the right time when my wipes are getting tested."

Wipes will need to pass strict tests to gain the approved Fine to Flush logo, with Water UK creating a new official standard identifying that wet wipes can be flushed down toilets safely.

Mr McCormack said interest is growing: "I get about 1,000 hits a month. Most are from the States, and China’s interested, but when you look at it, every country in the world has had a look at it.

"Most of them are in the States.

"If I got that soluble wet wipe into the States that would be big, eh?

"That’s what the lawyers say to me, next year you’ll not need to worry about money.

"They have looked after me. I could have made a few blunders.

"I tried a few things that haven’t worked."

He has released a series of trademarked FlushAway products, and while talks have opened with healthcare providers in this country, swifter progress is being around the globe.

He said: "Obviously, there's values been put on each of these products and that's great, but one of the most interesting things for me is probably the wound dressing.

"My daughter said 'Dad, you'll never be able to calculate how much pain and suffering you have saved people'."

Above: One of the McCormack Innovation demos from the firm's website

The grandfather sold a taxi business to fund the project, and is still driving a taxi. His wife Iris, 62, works with special needs children.

He said: "Two and half years ago I discussed it with the wife first, because I knew there were financial implications in it and she was all for it.

"You always get negative, oh I don’t know if that will work, are you sure you’re doing the right thing, but do you know what, the people that are trying to do something shouldn’t be held back by the people who think it can’t be done.

"Do what you’re going to do.

"I drive a taxi now, but my lawyers are telling me my taxi days are numbered."

Read more: UK plastic waste to rise by a fifth without action, report warns

He added: "In recognition of my efforts to raise compliance levels for bowel cancer I was invited Her Majesty the Queen’s garden party."

McCormack Innovation has worked with a development team from University of Dundee led by Professor Robert Keatch and Dr Jan Vorstius, who said in a product report: "All materials under test performed well, keeping their integrity and structure until exposed to water.

"The proposal to use this material as a secondary wound dressing would therefore be viable providing the outer dressing can be kept dry until removal is required.

"This method would certainly reduce trauma inflicted during bandage removal and retain all the features of the conventional cotton and crepe bandages used.

"Further studies on solubility when exposed to body fluids need to be done if the material is to be used as a primary dressing."

He says: "My success at my age will be not so much governed by money, it will be more governed by if the project goes ahead, to keep the hub of it running in Scotland and we will save lives, and pain and suffering."

Mr McCormack said: "What really pushes me, I’m not interested in big piles of money at my age, I’ve seen the world, done all the things, brought my family up, everybody’s healthy, but a lot of it for me would be, somebody said on the wound dressing report, somebody said to me this will relieve trauma for burns victims, we are talking worldwide here, Brian, think about it, how many lives.

"Could you measure the pain you will have saved people?

"What a good feeling."

Q and A

What countries have you most enjoyed travelling to, for business or leisure, and why?

For business it was Mumbai in India, where we were looking for material, and for leisure it would be Adelaide which is absolutely beautiful, it’s the only place I’ve not wanted to come back from.

When you were a child, what was your ideal job? Why did it appeal?

It was always mechanical, you know. Anything mechanical. I would have loved to have been an engineer.

What was your biggest break in business?

The biggest break so far was signing a lucrative contract with a manufacturer of wet wipes who is a massive distributor. We have signed a contract to let them sell my product through the UK and Europe.

What was your worst moment in business?

I was disappointed that my production has not gone ahead in Scotland. I tried hard to keep it Scottish and I could not get anybody to open a door. When Guardpack (the wet wipe producer) saw it, they were straight in.

Who do you most admire and why?

Sir Tom Hunter. He came from humble beginnings, from the heartland of a coal mining area and through hard work and determination look where he is, he’s Sir Tom Hunter. I’ve met him and he has helped me, I didn’t even have the ability to send an email. He said: “Neither can I.” He has built his business up, probably against all odds coming from a mining area. I would like to model myself on somebody like him, or Andrew Carnegie. The good thing is they have put their money back in. 

What book are you reading and what music are you listening to? What was the last film you saw?

I watch documentaries all the time but the last film I watched was The Day After Tomorrow. Right now I’m reading the Making of Scotland by Robin Smith. That’s a book you need to get a hold of. It’s a comprehensive guide to all the villages and towns. I also like reading articles by Sir Tom Devine. I'm not big on music, but any kind of Scottish music – fiddle music.

CV

Brian McCormack left school at 15 and worked between coal mines and the development of sewage tunnels for about 20 years.

He initially worked above ground before taking to the coalface by the age of 18.

The main pit he worked in was Seafield Colliery, and later he would travel to wherever there was tunnel work, such as the Lake District, where he worked for a year.

He later ran and then sold a taxi firm and is currently working as a taxi driver.