About us
Kitea Health is a medical technology company based in Auckland, New Zealand, building the next generation of micro-implantable devices for managing chronic health conditions.
Leadership team
Simon Malpas
Director, Chief Executive Officer
Simon is a distinguished scientist and entrepreneur. Simon has previously co-founded three successful medical device/life science companies from research. He has also worked as Chief Scientist for a US based medical device manufacturer.
Simon has a PhD in Physiology and holds an additional position as Professor of Physiology and Bioengineering at the University of Auckland.
In 2018 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has obtained in excess of $23M in grant funding for his research and produced over 150 scientific articles.
His work has been internationally recognised by awards from the American Physiological Society and within NZ by the Royal Society.
Natalia Lopez
Director, Chief Operations Officer
Natalia’s career started off in the heavily regulated automotive industry as a systems engineer. This complemented her shift into the life science and medical device industry 10 years ago where she designed and implemented quality management systems.
She has worked with multiple medical device spinouts to develop their quality systems and to ensure regulatory compliant product development.
She was previously the Chief Operating Officer for Kaha Sciences, a wireless telemetry solutions company. She now focuses on market entry strategy for the Kitea System. Natalia holds a Bachelor of Science Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University and a Postgraduate Diploma in Quality Systems Design from Massey University.
Bryon Wright
PhD, Chief Technical Officer
Bryon is a bioengineer with over 20 years of experience working on academic and commercial development of microscale technologies.
Prior to moving to New Zealand he obtained his BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Arizona State University while also working in the semiconductor industry, then a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah.
Bryon then moved to New Zealand to found and direct the Auckland Microfab, a multidisciplinary microfabrication facility at the University of Auckland. An interest in translational research lead to working on applications of microfabrication and nanotechnology in commercial products, including medical devices and sensors. Bryon is passionately devoted to delivering the Kitea System to improve health outcomes for patients worldwide.