Cutting Edge Insights at AusMedtech 2024
Image credit: AusBiotech
Over 400 industry experts, clinicians and tech leaders converged on Adelaide this month for the 2024 AusMedtech Conference, including Bionic Gamechangers Australia CEO, Dr Robyn Stokes who reflects below on the jam-packed two-day program.
Alongside lively presentations from early-stage innovators, many hard-hitting topics and issues critical to Australia’s future medtech innovation (and pathways to a new thrust of leadership in medical bionics) were discussed at this year’s Conference.
Clearly, any/all investment in emerging technologies should serve to optimise Australia’s health budget while delivering better clinical outcomes for Australians in the long term.
The panel entitled, “Capital markets: Is the ‘old normal’ actually the ‘new normal’?” chaired by the dynamic Bronwyn Le Grice (founder and leader of ANDHealth) was especially energetic and informative on the state of play with medtech investment.
For investors, the ability to get large medtech investors on board is a key factor in the validation process for innovators and SMEs that have a promising device. Fund managers don’t want to be funding a long journey by themselves and government funds and interest of larger investors is vital to reduce risk. Conference panellists reiterated the widely held view that innovators should not list too soon (while this pathway is tempting to attract earlier capital).
In this context, valuations and subsequent corrections can be concerning. The relatively untapped opportunity for the medtech community to unlock Australia’s super funds was underlined.
Going offshore early to seek investors (especially to the US) is vital for bionic-medtech innovators. In this regard, Laronix – a Brisbane-based innovator of bionic voice technologies showcased and supported by Bionics Gamechangers Australia – has been especially successful. Co-founders, Dr Farzane Ahmadi and her brother Dr Mousa Ahmadi established a presence early in the US. The SME has subsequently attracted cross-border investment in their technology, a very promising pipeline of business via leading US and Australian hospitals and a market of end users eager to restore their ability to speak with this lifechanging technology.
Image credit: Margeaux Bartholomew-Carle
Still on the topic of financial inputs and returns, the conference panel focused on reimbursement (chaired by AusBiotech’s Dell Kingsford Smith) noted that what can be achieved in reimbursement from the front-end investment made by innovators can be less than adequate for some device proponents. Here, the demonstration of better health outcomes (in comparative cost, quality or other indicators that show improvements in health budget outcomes) are all relevant in deciding whether emerging Bionic-medtech devices get the green light for reimbursement at federal level.
For bionic device inventors, reimbursement is definitely a ‘hot topic’, and Bionics Gamechangers Australia would note the importance of innovators carefully analysing their market – is it purely a clinical or patient market or able to be introduced into a wider consumer market and, is the device likely to be reimbursed (at some level) via the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
Bionics Gamechangers Australia currently advises and supports bionic-medtech innovations that are destined for multiple markets (such as the US, Japan, China, Europe, and Australia). Australia is a relatively small market. As noted by reimbursement expert Sarah Griffin (MedTechnique Consulting), many devices are not going to fit Australia’s mainstream reimbursement model for medical devices and treatments. Talking directly to the market very early in the product development phase is vital to understand revenue sources and pave the way for end user sales.
Bionics Gamechangers Australia looks forward to more discussions on these pivotal topics at next year’s AusMedtech Conference that is set to take place on 7-8 May 2025 in Sydney. Check out the AusBiotech website to stay updated and register.
Image credit: Edmund Pickering (postdoctoral researcher with QUT’s Biomechanics and Spine Research Group and Biofabrication and Tissue Morphology Group) with Dr Robyn Stokes (Bionics Gamechangers Australia, CEO) at the 2024 AusMedtech Conference, Adelaide
