KiwiNet Award Category: PwC Breakthrough Project

Another recognition, with another opportunity to showcase the amazing work Kitea Health is doing.

Kitea Health has been nominated for the prestigious 2024 KiwiNet Research Commercialization Awards. Award Category: PwC Breakthrough Project.

The team from Kitea Health has developed a product that can proactively monitor changes in intracranial pressure for patients with hydrocephalus. While shunts are currently used to manage hydrocephalus, they have a staggering 50% failure rate. It's often unclear to patients, who are often children and their families, whether an everyday symptom such as a headache or tiredness is a shunt failure or not.

This award also highlights the company's history and journey. Starting with 15 years of research from the implantable device group within Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, driven by a clinical need, Kitea Health is now a company that is making a difference. This is also an opportunity for the company to pay tribute to the supporters, employees, patients, and their family.

Best Design Awards Finalist: Kitea Health Wand

Kitea Health has been recognized as a finalist in the prestigious 2024 Best Design Awards for Non-Consumable Products. The company's innovative Kitea Health Wand has impressed the judges with its design and potential impact.

Designed by Daniel McCormick, Senior Research Fellow at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and Head of Engineering at Kitea Health, the Wand is a groundbreaking innovation empowering patients with chronic conditions like hydrocephalus to remotely manage their health. This award nomination highlights the exceptional dedication and expertise of the Kitea Health team.

See Tomorrow First Podcast: Simon Malpas, Kitea Health

Dr. Simon Malpas, CEO of Kitea Health, recently shared a truly inspiring journey on the See Tomorrow First podcast. His passion for transforming lives through technology is evident as he described the company's groundbreaking, fully implantable device, which is now in clinical trials. Unlike other companies in the field, such as Neuralink, which still rely on external-to-body components tethered systems, Kitea's innovative approach is truly pioneering.

Dr. Malpas shared the heart-wrenching stories like Janes, born with a chronic condition that required a shunt to drain excess fluid from her brain. This is a common procedure, but the reality is that these shunts often fail, leaving patients and families living in constant fear of the unknown. With a 50% failure rate within two years, the stress and anxiety experienced by these families is immeasurable.

Jane's story became a catalyst for the Kitea team, inspiring them to create a technology that could potentially change countless lives. The Kitea system is currently in patient studies, and early results are demonstrating a significant reduction in stress for patients and their families. By providing real-time data on intracranial pressure, the system can detect impending shunt failures, allowing for proactive medical intervention. This ability to anticipate and address crises is a game-changer, offering hope and peace of mind to those living with these conditions.

Kitea’s journey mirrors that of Cochlear, a pioneer in implantable medical devices. Both companies began with a relatively similar patient population addressing a specific, unmet need. Cochlear focused on profound deafness, while Kitea is tackling the challenges of intracranial pressure. While Cochlear’s technology stimulates the auditory nerve, Kitea’s innovative system senses and monitors pressure.

Cochlear has demonstrated the immense potential of this sector, boasting a market capitalization of over $20+ billion AUD. Kitea's technology, with its broader application across various pressure-related conditions, could position the company for even greater market penetration.

What sets Kitea apart is their unwavering focus on patient needs. Rather than simply developing a product and searching for a market, they identified a critical gap in patient care and engineered a solution to fill it. This patient-centric approach is at the heart of everything Kitea does.

Kitea Health is more than just a healthcare company; they are pioneers building a future where implantable technology can offer hope and healing. Dr. Malpas' appearance on the See Tomorrow First podcast gives a glimpse into Kitea’s world has given us a window into their world, and it's a vision that is both exciting and deeply meaningful. View the full podcast here, or listen on Spotify.