BMTH Team Visit Projects in Queensland and New South Wales

30 November 2022

The BMTH team visited awardee Kunovus Technologies in Sydney to talk about solutions for back pain and find out more about the Kunovus System patient trial, which aims to offer patients a personalised treatment approach to address chronic lower back pain.

Recently, MTPConnect’s BioMedTech Horizons (BMTH) team visited Queensland and New South Wales to catch-up with five BMTH awardees for in person on site visits and project progress updates. The BMTH team visited IntelliDesign and WearOptimo in Queensland, and Merunova Pty Ltd, Kunovus Technologies Pty Ltd and VenstraMedical Pty Ltd in New South Wales. 

Senior Director, BMTH Program, Dr Gerard Gibbs said in-person visits with awardees had been stalled due to COVID restrictions, but were now part of business as usual, providing additional details about the projects that were not often included in term reports.

“Visiting the companies in-person provides more of an understanding of the complexities of each project, the progress made and the local manufacturing plans for the products as well. Companies detail the difference the BMTH funding had made to their innovation projects, through enabling staff expansion, driving progress and leveraging follow on investment,” Dr Gibbs said.

In Brisbane, the site visit to IntelliDesign saw the team check out the prototype being developed of a Low Field portable MRI instrument for patient bedside imaging. In Woolloongabba the team received a progress update about WearOptimo’s hydration and cardiac microwearables to use in clinics, that aim for real-time, minimally-invasive personalised diagnostics.

VenstraMedical were next on the itinerary, to see how the development of a percutaneous ventricular assist device (pVAD) was progressing. The pVAD is a small blood pump placed at a catheter tip, implanted by a cardiologist into the patient’s heart, to provide temporary cardiac support.

At Sydney-based medtech company Merunova, the team met with Managing Director, Kyle Sheldrick, to see how the human study of Decay Variance, a new imaging technique for diagnosing spinal disc degeneration, will reduce rates of unnecessary back surgery.

While in Sydney, the team also visited medtech start-up Kunovus Technologies to talk about solutions for back pain and find out more about the Kunovus System patient trial, which aims to offer patients a personalised treatment approach to address chronic lower back pain, a global health problem.

“It’s been rewarding to meet up with awardee project teams again face-to-face, see how the prototypes and projects are progressing, and be brought up to speed with the latest developments and what’s ahead for each project.

“We were also able to add value by providing connections to others in the medical products sector to collaborate, advise or mentor our awardees, discuss possible follow-on funding and work through any challenges or barriers the projects may need to overcome. Exciting times for all our awardees and the BMTH team,” Dr Gibbs said.