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An Auckland-based asthma inhaler maker has signed a deal with a large US company to use the New Zealand technology in an American product.
Electrical engineer and asthma sufferer Garth Sutherland set up Nexus6 in 2000 and developed the Smartinhaler in his garage.
The inhaler contains a microprocessor chip that can hold a year's worth of dosage data. That information can be downloaded at home, in the doctor's surgery or at hospital and allows for better management of a lifelong self-medicated treatment.
Nexus6 has now come to the attention of New Jersey-based MicroDose Technologies. MicroDose has signed a collaborative deal with the Kiwi company to apply Smartinhaler technology to a speciality electronic dry powder inhaler it produces.
Garth Sutherland said while the MicroDose inhaler did store data and had some connectivity, Nexus6 could take that information out beyond the device and deliver it over a mobile phone network.
That had been done with Smartinhalers in New Zealand using the Vodafone network.
"Our inhalers have a small Vodafone chip in them and they have been used here to transmit information for clinical trials back to a website."
Investigators could then log in to a secure site and view the progress of their trials in real time, he said.
While other companies were looking at the technology, Nexus6 was one of the first in the world to have it up and running.
The MicroDose deal was Nexus6's first with another drug delivery technology company and was a milestone in the development of the business. Sutherland hoped other agreements with MicroDose would follow.
"For us it's real validation that there's value in what we're doing."
Nexus6 graduated out of Auckland University's Icehouse business incubator in 2003 and gained $500,000 in seed capital from angel investors.
It has since completed a second round of angel investment, manufactures in Asia and exports its products. It had been focusing on the US market with the help of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Sutherland said.
It would still keep developing its own Smartinhalers and had a busy year ahead, including hopefully gaining US Federal Drug Administration approval. This would further open up the American market.
A deal like the one with MicroDose had been in Nexus6's plan, he said. "What it's showing to our investors is that we're able to execute on that plan."
Despite its successes, the health technology company still had a way to go before it returned profits to its investors, and in fact would be looking for another round of funding this year to take it to the next level.
"We've committed to that high growth plan. Once you head down that track, you keep working in that mode."
