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Health & Biotech
Australia’s winter has brought with it nasty respiratory infections across the country. Among illnesses circulating nationwide are Covid-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza strains, pertussis – also known as whooping cough – and mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacteria which causes flu-like symptoms.
ANDHealth CEO Bronwyn Le Grice, who is also an independent non-executive director of ASX-listed Lumos Diagnostics, says the Covid-19 pandemic triggered far-reaching changes to the Australian health system and the way in which we manage respiratory illnesses.
ANDHealth is a national digital health commercialisation company providing incubator and accelerator programs across Australia.
The company’s flagship program, ANDHealth+, invests non-dilutively on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care into Australia’s most compelling evidence-based digital health companies.
“The general population became familiar with point-of-care (POC) testing in the home and the second thing we became familiar with is the use of telehealth to prevent transmissible diseases from spreading by sick people all congregating in health clinics,” she says.
Le Grice says there is a broad trend of trying to shift healthcare from the clinic to wherever patients may be, improving accessibility of care along with improving cost-effectiveness.
“If people can undertake a test themselves, identify they have influenza, Covid or RSV and then book a telehealth instead of in-person appointment that will in turn reduce transmission,” she says.
However, Le Grice notes that where Australia lags some other nations is that we don’t use POC testing as a basic triage or standard of care in a lot of our acute settings.
“You don’t want, for example, infectious children in waiting rooms, you want them diagnosed and at home if it is safe to prevent transmission especially to people who may have immunocompromised conditions,” she says.
Furthermore, she says GPs can be hard to access so if people can do an at-home diagnostic test and then book a quick telehealth appointment that is very different to waiting longer times for an in-person appointment.
In 2022, former ASX-listed ResAPP – a University of Queensland startup, which developed smartphone technology that can accurately diagnose respiratory diseases through cough analysis, was acquired by Pfizer for $179m.
On the ASX several other digital healthcare companies are focused on helping Australia and other countries manage acute and chronic respiratory illnesses.
The leader in POC diagnostic technologies has developed the FebriDx rapid test to help doctors quickly and accurately differentiate a viral from bacterial acute respiratory infection.
LDX non-executive chairman Sam Lanyon told Stockhead FebriDx delivers results within 10 minutes from fingerstick blood and can be used to help manage infectious patients in primary care, urgent care, emergency dept, paediatric and other outpatient settings.
“If it’s bacterial then obviously the illness will need antibiotics and if it’s viral then it may be more infectious and transmissible,” Lanyon says.
With antimicrobial resistance (AMR) considered by the World Health Organisation one of the top global public health and development threats, avoiding unnecessary use of antibiotics has become paramount, which is where LDX’s FebriDx is finding value.
“The reason why we developed the product we did is the first question a clinician is going to have to answer is whether the illness is caused by a bacteria or virus because the treatment options are clearer once that has been established,” Lanyon says.
“From discussions with the Royal College of GPs we determined there is also quite a bit of anxiety from doctors because in some cases they don’t want to prescribe antibiotics but they may have a parent feeling anxious about the illness of a child – so FebriDx quickly takes out the guess work.”
In April, LDX announced that the peer-reviewed journal Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology published positive results from a FebriDx study conducted at Spain’s Sant Joan de Déu Hospital.
The study, involving 216 paediatric patients, found that FebriDx could optimise antibiotic use and reduce unnecessary chest X-rays in children with acute febrile respiratory infections.
FebriDx now has regulatory approval for use in various countries including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal and Belgium.
“We are focused on the US because they have reimbursement,” Lanyon says.
“If there is a positive incentive for adoption such as the clinician or facility getting paid then they will use the product.”
He says outside of the US, LDX would like to see governments offer further support for technologies like FebriDx, which can have a positive impact on patient care and ongoing pressures within the health system more generally.
ADR is focused on improving medication compliance for two chronic respiratory conditions – asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
CEO Dr Paul Mastoridis says the company helps patients adhere to their prescribed inhalers as well as monitor them for proper inhaler technique, top two issues contributing to asthma attacks.
Mastoridis says in the case of asthma and COPD patients will have the disease for the rest of their lives, and many are tied to being medicated through inhalers – a preventative health management tool – for the rest of their lives.
However, he says a lot of patients are often non-compliant with their medication with data showing compliance rates of ~40-50%.
“The treatment is not a pill that you just pop, there can be other barriers like taste, or they simply start to feel good and breathe well because they are taking their medicine via an inhaler, and don’t feel the need to continue,” he says.
“In the case of asthma, this can lead to an asthma attack or an exacerbation, which is a highly serious health event that can vastly impact their ability to breathe.
“They are often hospitalised and administered steroids to recover – and devastatingly, asthma death rates are stubbornly high, too.”
ADR’s Hailie Smartinhaler solution is working to solve the problem of medication non-compliance.
The medical technology device has sensors attached to an inhaler and connects to an app via Bluetooth, providing valuable insights for clinicians to guide patients on how regularly and effectively their patients are using their medication and ensuring they follow their prescribed treatment.
“The real point of difference for Adherium’s technology is the fact that this device is medication agnostic, meaning, it can work alongside all kinds of inhalers unlike other market players, which are exclusively partnered with pharmaceutical companies,” Mastoridis says.
ADR has reimbursement codes in place in the US, which is its foremost priority zone for commercialisation.
“Our goal is simple – to offer Adherium’s technology to healthcare providers to help reduce the asthma/COPD economic burden on the healthcare system and to provide a better quality of life for patients,” Mastoridis says.
RSH has developed wheezo, which it says is the the world’s first FDA-approved Class II medical device designed to analyse breath sounds for wheezing in asthma patients and COPD.
The trademarked device integrates with the Respiri App, allowing users to track symptoms and triggers for their wheeze.
RSH is also targeting the US market and in its July presentation says that patient numbers are accelerating strongly, up 353% in the recent quarter.
The company recently announced it had raised $4.1m to accelerate execution of its US commercialisation strategy including patient recruitment and onboarding, its differentiating Clinic in Cloud (CiC) services along with finalising its risk share revenue model with insurers.
The company says these are all critical to achieving its goal of break-even in cashflow by late CY24. Over the past eight months, RSH says it has raised a total of $8.135m through support by new and existing investors.
The company has achieved FDA approval in the US and CE mark in Europe.
At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Lumos Diagnostics is a Stockhead advertiser, the company did not sponsor this article.
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