Last week Tim and I attended the MTANZ New Zealand Healthcare Congress in Auckland. The two-day event brings together representatives from clinical, research providers, health technologies, sellers, and businesses to debate all things health around the theme Innovate, Adapt, Evolve. It was a reminder about what a dynamic and fast moving area this is in New Zealand, and the highly innovative companies and research organizations participating.
A panel of kids from Point England School in Auckland opened the proceedings with a great AV presentation exhibiting their tech saviness as a reminder to the audience about how technology is pivotal in the new generation of healthcare consumers. The blog-writing, tech centric youngsters described their age in terms technology milestones like "when I was born YouTube was 2 years old", making us all feel pretty old!
We were invited to speak in the Innovate slot by the newly formed Consortium of Medical Device Technologies (CMDT) alongside Professor Simon Fraser, Head of the School of Design at Victoria University. The trio of presentations focussed on strategies to accelerate innovation in the medical device industry.
I discussed the use of computer simulation in medical developments, Simon additive manufacturing, and Tim rounded up with the business model context drawing on the on the book The Lean Start-Up by Eric Ries. See the presentations below.
Here's a selection of themes and topics:
Holdsworth from San Francisco provided a view from the US and with a string of technologies including Scandu, Integrated Plasmonics, MC10 and Sano aim at the 'quantified self' where the body metrics are tracked or life-logging. He identified putting technology into the consumer's hand as one of the biggest disruptions in the healthcare industry.
The medicalisation of devices theme was met with much talk about the industry continuing to shift to more point-of-care as technology miniaturizes and products and services are increasingly more connected (examples discussed above). Allowing patient diagnoses at the doctor's surgery, an ambulance, the home, or in the hospital, the model is speeding up healthcare but relies on laboratory grade diagnostics in a portable device. The long term example of POC testing being pregnancy and ovulation testing. Plenty of talk about multi-diagnostic devices such as the Alere Heart Check that are sensing biomarkers from finger prick blood samples. Wellness FX run home based biomarker testing from blood samples within their service.
As diagnostic devices become more sophisticated in the developed world, the movement into emerging markets is resulting in a trend towards less sophisticated but more robust system to suit (ref David Williams of School of Chemical Sciences, University of Auckland).
Peter Lewis of Hydrix discussed demand for products requirements:
As 3D-printing reaches new heights of exposure the healthcare industry is finding its own uses in the additive manufacture space. By 2017 the industry will be worth $3.5B growing at 17% per year and, as the name suggests, is scaling up from traditional prototyping roots to manufacture. The most forward looking view of this was from Dr Tim Woodfield who discussed bio-fabrication and tissue engineering.
Professor Simon Fraser presented a range of applications from cranial implants to a new take on fracture splints. Nick Smyth of the bioengineering company Ossis presented their work in custom skeletal implants and speed to surgery. Ossis engineers convert CT scan data into virtual biomodels that are then manufactured through titanium selective laser melting (SLM). The digital models can be used by surgeons in virtual planning processes and if you're wondering where compliance sits with custom implants the answer lies in Ossis' ISO 13485 medical device development accreditation.
Dr Tim Woodfield, a Senior Research Fellow at University of Otago, presented how his research team is using additive manufacture techniques to develop 3D biological scaffold structures which, when combined with human adult stem cells, create printed tissues. This introduces the concept of just-in-time manufacture of biological components in surgery. Biological production engineers in surgical theatres coming soon!
Same story for the regulators - taking another hammering. Calls of overly complicated and onerous processes is stifling taking products to market. Thorsten Engel of Deloitte NZ suggested compliance is unavoidable so just get on with it but I got the feeling that the disgruntlement was efficiency related and not sentiment.
All the talk of quantified self and empowering users to better understand their own health further emphasises the need for regulatory intervention of diagnostic/monitoring devices.
Peter Hunter (AKL Bioengineering Institute) and Diana Siew (Callaghan Innovation) chaired a Consortium of Medical Device Technologies workshop to introduce the newly formed entity. The CMDT have been formed to link NZ healthcare research to business, regulatory bodies, commercialisation networks and healthcare providers. We look forward to seeing the CMDT grow.
NZTE gave an interesting summary of their efforts. Of particular note was the 'High Impact Programme' (HIP) in Australia, in addition to the US Health Immersion Programme (which continues this year). The HIP Programme in Australia is focussed on creating strategic reference sites.
The enigmatic Brian Russell, founder of the incredibly innovative Zephyr Technology gave a great overview of their development in the US market through military and sporting applications through to their current Health Focus. Locus worked with Zephyr in the Transform Project when they were developing the bioharness.
Russell recounted how many years ago they had responded to a 'Broad Agency Announcement' BAA, put through by Robert Cunningham (NZTE). This was related to a specific technology requirement, which strongly related to the physiological monitoring work that Zephyr were doing. They developed quickly and were invested in by Motorola, moved to the US, and then more recently received investment from 3M.
He gave a big picture view of Zephyr’s road map from a hi-tech sensor/transmitter (without a home) to a customer and ultimately its diversification into a range of applications with advanced analytics to interpret data.
Russell stressed the importance of having innovation across your entire supply chain and understanding your channels to market, having a sales agent (with only 2-3 lines worked well) with distribution at a later stage, otherwise your product just does not get air time. Talking directly to the sales team was also seen as really important as they will have a different perspective to the VP of Marketing.
Dr. Lloyd McCain, the Director of Medical services from MercyAscot's Medical Services, gave a great overview of operating in the UK healthcare market.
There was a major restructure in 2012 which has led to a more clinically oriented, decentralised approach. It is increasingly common for clinicians to make decisions. Publications and research were seen as vital to getting market entry for new products and services.
He mentioned the commercial importance of the NHS Frameworks an example being the national service frameworks for older people.
Belinda Allen (the dedicated UK Market NZTE Exec) gave some interesting insights and ideas including the idea to work through Scotland and Wales first if entering the UK market as they are more receptive and closely aligned to New Zealanders.
Any talk that begins with the leading statement 'you are going to be drinking from my fire hydrant ' may generally have me heading for the door. But the high energy founder of Results.com, Simon Maundsell's talk was pretty solid with some great take-aways for any business. The Tony Robins style of delivery added a certain element of speed, wit, and humour to the talk.
We would like to thanks Angela Pantano and Diana Siew for asking us to take part in this event. It was a fascinating two days and a great chance to catch with some of the leaders in the NZ healthcare industry.
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