Dr Anthony Lovat BDS founded OPRO in 1997 after qualifying as a dentist from University College Hospital, London, in 1981. With both parents also working in dentistry, his grounding in oral health and clinical practice informed a career that moved from the surgery to the boardroom. Frustrated by the number of preventable dental injuries he was seeing in young athletes, he set out to address the problem through better product design and innovation. What began as a modest operation from the family home has since grown into one of the world’s most technically advanced mouthguard companies, employing 50 people and selling products in close to 70 countries.

Under his leadership, OPRO has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2007 and 2019, and the King’s Award for Enterprise in 2026, making it one of a very small number of British businesses to have received major UK innovation honours across three separate decades. He remains closely involved in the business on a day-to-day basis, with a continued focus on research, development and innovation.

OPRO has won the UK’s top innovation award in three separate decades, most recently the King’s Award for Enterprise in 2026. What has driven that culture of continuous innovation for nearly 30 years, and how do you ensure that each milestone becomes a springboard for what comes next?

“I think innovation has genuinely become part of the DNA of our business. We have never viewed it as something where you develop one good product, put it on the shelf and simply enjoy the success that follows. We have always believed that there is a better way of doing almost everything, and we have maintained a mindset of continually asking questions and looking for improvements.

“The fact that we have been fortunate enough to receive Queen’s and King’s Awards across three separate decades of this century says something important to me. It suggests that we have not had one successful moment, but rather that innovation has become embedded in the culture of the company. Every achievement quickly becomes the starting point for the next challenge. We enjoy asking, “What can we do better next time?” That continual evolution is what still excites us nearly thirty years later.”

In your first year, you made the decision to bring manufacturing in-house and build your own specialist laboratory. Looking back, how much did that early move shape the business that OPRO has become?

“I think it was probably one of the most important decisions I ever made. Initially, we worked with an external laboratory because it allowed us to get started quickly, but we very rapidly realised that if we wanted to control our own destiny, particularly around quality and innovation, we needed to control manufacturing ourselves.

“Having manufacturing and development under one roof creates an enormous advantage. It means that when you have an idea in the morning, you can be testing it in the afternoon rather than waiting weeks or months. That closeness between ideas, design and manufacturing has been one of the major reasons why we have been able to keep improving our products over the years.”

OPRO has built a reputation for bringing professional-level protection within reach of athletes at every level. How do you approach the challenge of developing products that meet the demands of elite sport while remaining accessible to the grassroots player?

“We recognise that the athlete at the top level and the child playing sport for the first time are not really different in one very important respect. Both deserve the best protection possible.

“Professional sport helps us understand the highest performance demands, whether that is comfort, retention, fit or confidence, but our challenge is then taking those learnings and applying them in ways that remain practical and accessible to a wider audience. We have always believed that good protection should not be reserved only for elite athletes.

“Many of the technologies and ideas that begin at the professional end of sport eventually work their way through into products used by schools and grassroots players. We see that as an important responsibility because our original motivation was preventing injuries, particularly in young people.”

OPRO now operates in close to 70 countries and partners with organisations including England Rugby and the UFC. What were the biggest challenges in scaling internationally from a base in Hertfordshire?

“One of the interesting things about scaling internationally is that whilst the core need remains the same, namely protecting athletes, every market can be very different in terms of culture, sport, distribution and buying habits. Something that works in one country does not automatically work in another.

“One of the important lessons for us has been recognising that whilst the route to market may differ, the product itself often does not. Fortunately for us, the mouth is a relatively similar shape across societies, so the core need for protection remains remarkably consistent around the world.

“Where we do need to think carefully is in the way we approach each market. The wording, language, attitudes and ways people engage with sport can all differ significantly. Building strong relationships with local partners and listening carefully to their understanding of their markets has been very important. Sometimes it is simply a question of fine-tuning the approach, rather than changing the product itself.

“Over time, that willingness to listen, understand and adapt has helped us build long-term relationships and steadily grow the business internationally.”

The COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges that very few businesses could have anticipated. How did you lead OPRO through that period, and what did the experience teach you about building a business that can adapt and find opportunity even in the most difficult circumstances?

“COVID was undoubtedly one of the most challenging periods we have experienced because, almost overnight, organised contact sport around the world effectively stopped. For a business whose products are closely linked to participation in sport and specifically contact sport, that could have become a very serious situation as our sales effectively stopped.

“Rather than standing still, we looked carefully at the skills and capabilities we already had. We realised we had expertise in manufacturing, materials, PPE certification and production processes that could be redirected. We established a surgical mask manufacturing operation and produced close to ten million masks during that period.

“The experience reinforced something important for us, which is that resilience often comes from being adaptable. Difficult periods force you to think differently and move quickly, and sometimes opportunities emerge from places you would never have expected.”

OPRO manufactures everything in the UK, including packaging and associated components, at a time when many businesses have moved production overseas. What is the commercial case for keeping everything onshore, and do you believe British manufacturing carries more weight in global markets than it is often given credit for?

“We are incredibly proud to be a genuinely British manufacturer. Not only do we manufacture all our mouthguards in the UK, but also the packaging and many of the associated components. That level of control is increasingly unusual today.

“From a commercial perspective, it gives us important advantages. We retain control over quality, innovation, speed of development and supply chains. If we want to improve something, we can act very quickly rather than waiting for changes to move through a long overseas process.

“I also think British manufacturing carries significant value globally and perhaps more than it is sometimes given credit for. There remains a perception internationally that British products are associated with quality, standards and trust, and we are proud to be part of that.”

Your sons are now Co-Managing Directors, and your daughter leads the team division, making OPRO a multi-generational family business. How have you approached bringing the next generation into leadership, and what has that process meant for the long-term direction of the company?

“One of the most enjoyable things for me has been seeing the freshness and energy that the next generation has brought into the business. They have introduced a far more modern and 21st century approach to areas such as sales, marketing and communication, and they see opportunities and routes to market that simply did not exist when we first started.

“At the same time, OPRO has been part of their lives for as long as they can remember. The business was talked about around our dining room table when they were growing up and, to a large extent, still is today. There is a huge amount of commitment and dedication there, and they care deeply about the business and where it is going.

“I think what has been particularly pleasing is seeing the combination of fresh thinking and new ideas sitting alongside the values that helped build the company in the first place. It creates a balance between continuity and evolution and gives the business a very long-term outlook.”

You have chaired a British Standards Institution committee on sports PPE, playing a direct role in shaping industry standards. How important has that kind of involvement been to OPRO, and what does it mean for a business to help set the benchmark in its own field?

“Standards are incredibly important for us because they ultimately exist to protect people. We have always believed that if you are working in an area involving safety and protection, you have a responsibility not just to follow standards, but wherever possible to help improve them.

“Alongside chairing a British Standards Institution committee relating to sports PPE, I have also been involved over many years in helping develop draft standards for mouthguards at both British and European level. Not all of those ultimately became formal standards, although getting broad agreement can sometimes be quite challenging, particularly when trying to align the views of many different countries across Europe.

“Being involved in that process has given me a valuable insight into the wider PPE world and how standards evolve. It also gives you a better understanding of the balance between science, practical application and real-world use.

“Perhaps more importantly, it creates an opportunity to contribute positively to the future of athlete safety. I think helping shape standards is both a privilege and a responsibility.”

With more than 10 million athletes protected and products sold in close to 70 countries, OPRO is well placed to capitalise on the growing global conversation around player safety and injury prevention. Where do you see the greatest opportunities ahead, both for the business and for the wider industry?

“I think awareness around health, safety and injury prevention has changed enormously over the last twenty or thirty years and continues to evolve. People increasingly understand that prevention is far better than dealing with injuries after they happen, and I think that trend will continue.

“For OPRO specifically, we still see substantial opportunities for growth internationally, both in existing and new markets. We also see opportunities around new technologies and new ways of helping athletes understand and manage protection more effectively.

“One area that illustrates that evolution particularly well is instrumented mouthguards. We have been involved with virtually every instrumented mouthguard project that has achieved any meaningful level of commerciality over the past decade. In fact, our involvement goes back much further than the recent growth of the category. We were working with researchers in the United States long before instrumented mouthguards became an established field in their own right. At that stage, they were being used primarily as scientific tools to study brain injury rather than as commercial products or performance technologies.

“What that has taught us is that innovation rarely arrives all at once. It tends to begin quietly, often in research environments long before it reaches wider awareness. Having been fortunate enough to receive three Queen’s and King’s Awards for Innovation over the years, we have learned that the next interesting development often starts long before anyone realises where it might lead. As for what comes next, we will have to wait and see.”