Brandon Capital on board as Parkinson’s smartwatch firm Global Kinetics seeks $30 million
May 29, 2017
Emerging Australian medtech success story Global Kinetics is raising $20-30 million to keep commercialising its smartwatch-style Parkinson’s treatment device.
The company is also working on an expansion into telehealth in partnership with French hospitals and developing an app to give Parkinson’s patients more control over their own treatment.
The latest capital raise follows a $14.8 million round in June 2015 and already has interest from Brandon Capital, which participated in its previous raise, and is planning to take a significant position through its Medical Research Commercialisation Funds.
“Global Kinetics continues to make impressive progress on the commercialisation of its novel device, the PKG, as recognised by its recent ranking as one of the top 10 health companies in the US by Fast Company ... we remain excited about the company’s future,” Brandon Capital managing director Chris Nave said.
Global Kinetics’ Parkinson’s KinetiGraph devices continuously record the movement symptoms of a Parkinson’s sufferers including bradykinesia, dyskinesia and tremors, the relationship between these symptoms, the timing medication is taken, and the amount of exercise and sleep the person is getting.
The devices are currently being used in more than 200 movement-disorder clinics across 13 countries such as the US, UK, Sweden and Australia.
Clinical practices
The company is headquartered in Melbourne, but last year appointed US medtech veteran Tim Still as its chief executive, who expects to close the latest capital raise within the next few months.
Mr Still said there were applications for its technology with other diseases, but Parkinson’s remained the focus for now.
“There’s an opportunity to go into Huntington’s, but it’s not a big market. We have also started to do some work in ADHD. But we still feel there’s quite a bit of opportunity just with Parkinson’s,” he said.
The company was founded in Melbourne in 2007 by a team at the Florey Institute led by Professor Malcolm Horne.
It started out as two algorithms which measured bradykinesia and dyskinesia and produced a score for both types of movements every two minutes, based on sensors placed on the limbs of Parkinson’s sufferers. These algorithms were then developed into a system that could be used in clinical practices by Global Kinetics.
Now, Global Kinetics has delivered over 16,000 reports to clinicians, based on the movement symptoms dedicated by its PKG devices.
In addition to providing the PKG through clinics, Global Kinetics head of business development Michelle Goldsmith said the company wanted to give patients more control by developing an app called myPKG, which will in part be funded by the new capital raise.
“It’s about empowering a person with Parkinson’s to be the expert on their own disease. The key thing is medication compliance and taking it on time, consumption of water and amount of exercise,” she said.
Yolanda Redrup
The Australian Financial Review
29 May, 2017
