Worldwide Market for NZ Firm’s Breakthrough Medical Device

Media Release January 22, 2015
Worldwide Market for New Zealand Firm’s Breakthrough Medical Device

Results of an independent study confirming dramatic improvements in the health of young people with asthma using a new smartinhaler with an audiovisual reminder function are expected to spark worldwide demand for the New Zealand invention.

Commissioned and funded by Cure Kids and the Health Research Council, the University of Auckland randomised controlled trial of the SmartTrack inhaler showed use of the device significantly reduced night time awakening, coughing and wheezing in a high percentage of the young asthma patients.

Developed by the New Zealand digital health company Nexus6 Ltd, the SmartTrack is a sensor which fits over a standard inhaler and has 14 different ringtones, which alert the user when a dose is missed. The device is one of a series developed by the company over the past decade.

Cure Kids Chair of Child Health Research, Professor Ed Mitchell, has described the results of the trial as “absolutely staggering” and the improvement in the lives of the young asthma sufferers as “astounding”.

Believed to be the largest ever study of how adherence to a medication regime is improved by use of an inhaler device with an audio-visual reminder function, the results were published this month in The Lancet Respiratory Medical Journal.

For the trial, 220 children aged between 6 and 15 years, and who had previously presented with asthma symptoms, were issued with a SmartTrack device for use with their preventative or ‘orange’ inhaler. Half had the audiovisual elements turned on and the other half received the same device with the audiovisual elements turned off. Participants were followed up every two months for six months and general asthma control was checked.

Key findings from the study were:
o The medication adherence rate for the patient group given the audiovisual enabled SmartTrack inhalers was 84 per cent compared to 30 per cent for the control group. This equals a 180 per cent increase in medication adherence.

o The use of emergency medication or the ‘blue’ inhaler was significantly reduced. The median percentage days on which a reliever was used in the intervention group was 9.5 per cent compared to 17.4 per cent in the control group. This equals a 45 per cent reduction in rescue medication use.

o Symptoms, well-being and quality of life for the children was significantly improved.

Children in the study were also given a smartinhaler device for their rescue or ‘blue’ inhaler to measure the amount of relief medication they used. The device was able to objectively record the date and time of rescue medication use. This data can provide a good indication of when asthma is out of control.

When their symptoms became more severe participants used their rescue reliever inhaler (blue inhaler), because it provides immediate relief. Recent studies have shown that overuse of the blue inhaler is a predictor of worsening asthma and general morbidity. The study found that use of the rescue medication was significantly reduced in the group using the Nexus6 SmartTrack reminder device.

Nexus6 had no role in any aspect of the trial beyond designing and supplying the SmartTrack devices and reporting software at the outset of the study. The device has US FDA, CE, TGA and NZ approvals and Nexus6 is exploring opportunities for launching the product direct to doctors and patients.

Nexus6 was founded in 2003 by CEO Garth Sutherland, a lifelong asthma sufferer, with the aim of developing a device to automatically track his own medication use in order to improve management of his condition. After graduating from the University of Waikato with First-Class Honours in Science in Physics, Garth has spent two decades working for some of the world's top technology companies in Europe, North America and Australasia including Microsoft Corporation and the Gallagher Group He has now created electronic monitors for most models of asthma inhalers on the international market. As well as alerting asthma sufferers that they have missed a scheduled treatment, or warning them they are using excess amounts of their reliever medication, the monitors also record the time and date of inhaler actuation to provide objective data for the patient and the doctor.

Widespread evidence from multiple clinical studies has shown that adherence to chronic medication regimes is often poor. Doctors can only guess at how often an inhaler has been used or not, and how much a patient’s symptoms are a feature of the disease or due to deficient use of the prescribed medications.

The ring tone reminders in the Nexus6 monitors have had a powerful impact on changing behaviour by raising prescribed use of the inhaler from 30 per cent to 84 per cent in the Cure Kids study with consequent major clinical benefits in improved quality of life, and reductions in severe attacks for the young asthma sufferers Nexus6 smartinhalers have now been the subject of more than 40 clinical studies in over 10 countries, with data on the impact in over 15,000 patients in 30 medical publications.

Nexus6 Chairman, Dr Doug Wilson, a long time developer of respiratory medications internationally, says: "If these results were from use of a new medication, that would be the blockbuster drug of the decade. How often have asthma patients struggled with their disease, when the solution is so simple."

© Scoop Media