Health tech winners at Hi-Tech Awards

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

Two health tech spin-offs from Auckland University have been recognised at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards.

Kitea Health won the Most Innovative Deep Tech Award for its groundbreaking brain pressure monitoring technology, while Toku Eyes won the Most Innovative Hi-Tech Software Solution for its AI-powered product BioAge.

Kitea Health's implantable device allows neurosurgeons and patients to directly monitor brain pressure, providing critical data to help them make treatment decisions.

Simon Malpas, Kitea Health's chief executive, says it was fantastic to see the team's hard work recognised.

"We have developed the first tool that enables brain pressure monitoring at home for patients with hydrocephalus," Malpas explains.

The device is implanted during shunt placement surgery, adding just five minutes to the procedure. Patients can then measure their brain pressure at home using a wand and smartphone app and share this data with their healthcare team.

Kitea Health is conducting its first human trial, focusing on safety and patient experience, and the company is also working on improvements to the app and clinical portal.

Malpas says one of the trial patients is in Kaitaia, far from the nearest neurosurgical hospital in Auckland. The technology helps doctors assess the urgency of symptoms and decide whether emergency transport is necessary.

"It is a clear example of how remote patient monitoring can reduce social and distance inequities from major hospitals and neurosurgery centres," Malpas tells eHealthNews.

He adds that there is huge potential to interrogate the large amounts of data being collected by the devices, and that Kitea is "evolving into a digital health company enabled by hardware".

During his acceptance speech at the awards, he said Kitea is a result of funding from the Endeavour Fund and the Health Research Council-both of which are being cut in the latest Budget.

“I would not be standing here without them,” he told the audience.

Kiwi company, Toku Eyes, won the Most Innovative Hi-Tech Software Solution for its AI-powered product BioAge, which determines a person’s biological age via a retinal image.

Chief commercial officer Francesca Logan says the team was honoured to be nominated in three categories.

“Taking out the software award was a huge moment, especially given the calibre of Kiwi innovation on the night," she tells eHealthNews.

She says that while all R&D and compliance remains NZ-based, commercially the company is focused overseas, in the US and with a new launch underway in the Germany, with the EU's largest optometry chain.

"That will be the first commercial launch of not just the wellness BioAge product, but also our medical cardiovascular risk screening assessment," says Logan.

Image - Simon Malpas, CEO, Kitea Health

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