If your gut gives you grief you're not alone.
Approximately one in 10 people suffers from gastric dysfunction at any time and may have symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and indigestion, Alimetry co-founder and CEO Greg O'Grady says.
And getting a diagnosis can be equally unpleasant, sometimes involving eating a radioactive omelette, then lying in an MRI machine, or a camera inserted into your stomach to watch the flow of food.
Enter Alimetry, which has developed a diagnostic sensor that wraps around your abdomen. You lie back in a chair reading or fooling around on your iPad while it takes readings over the next four hours.
The three-year-old startup - a spinout from research at Auckland University, where O'Grady is a Professor of surgery - has just raised $16.3 million in a Series A round led by local venture capital outfit Movac, with Sir Stephen Tindall's K1W1 also participating. The raise was also supported by existing investors IP Group (the UK-based VC firm that led a $3.3m seed round last year), Matū Karihi and Auckland University's commercialisation arm, UniServices.
O'Grady says Alimetry's sensor is already being used in three New Zealand hospitals: Wellington, North Shore and the private MacMurray Centre. A few months ago, it gained a CE mark for sales in the EU.
The new funds will go toward a push into North America, which will involve gaining approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which O'Grady hopes for by year's end, and sees as the precursor to full-scale commercialisation. The device is undergoing clinical trials in five countries.
Part of that will involve recruiting sales staff in the US, but Alimetry will also add bodies in its home base of Auckland, where employee numbers have tripled to 35 over the past year.
O'Grady says his startup will likely triple in size again over the next 24 months as it recruits its sales team in the US, adds more bodies in its home base of Auckland, and launches its product globally.
"My background is in surgery, and I've seen many patients over the years, but we just can't get an explanation for their symptoms," the founder says.
"And I've seen many patients over the years, but we just can't get an explanation for a patient's symptoms. So there's a huge need for a better way to diagnose gut problems."
And not just more accurate diagnosis, but more humane or even relaxing diagnosis.
"A lot of the tests we have are invasive or radiation, or simply don't provide clear answers.
"So we were highly motivated to develop a good diagnostic tool to get to the heart of those symptoms," O'Grady says.
The task wasn't easy.
"The gut, along with the brain, is one of the least understood parts of our anatomy," says Movac general partner Lovina McMurchy.
"Anyone who has suffered symptoms like symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and indigestion knows how debilitating they are and how tough diagnosis can be."
"Largely this is because the causes of abdominal pain are so varied and may arise because of neuro-muscular issues, gut chemistry, food allergies or anxiety and other brain-related issues," McMurchy continues.
"There are currently no tests that will definitively reveal the cause. Rather, diagnosis happens through slow trial-and-error therapies such as diet eliminations or through invasive procedures such as cameras inserted into the stomach to watch the flow of food."
Born out of a decade's research at Auckland University, Alimetry's wearable diagnostic strip is covered in sensor pads, of the type you'll be familiar with if you've had an echocardiogram for your heart. They in turn feed information to a hardware unit the size of a sunglass case, which in turn works with an app.
A diagnosis can be done anywhere there's an internet connection and a comfortable chair.
So why hasn't anyone taken this ECG-for-the-stomach approach before?
O'Grady says there was a huge technical challenge.
Alimetry's device, or what the founder calls "Senses the very fine electrical signals that come out of the stomach that drive the muscles of digestion. And it's 100 times weaker than the heart. So it has to be quite a sensitive and sophisticated device to achieve that."
By measuring the density and patterns of the electrical waves, Alimetry can help work out what's wrong with your gut.
How did the startup achieve the required 100x level of sensitivity over a cardio ECG?
O'Grady's research partner Armen Gharibans - a bio-engineer from the University of California, San Diego - is not about to spill the finer details. But he says it comes down to algorithms which, unfashionably, fall short of AI.
While his own experience as a gastric surgeon drove O'Grady to found Alimetry, he credits the startup's early success to being part of an ecosystem that has included business incubation at Auckland University's Bioenginering Institute (which has also produced a clutch of other med-tech startups over the past 24 months, including the Peter Beck backed HeartLab, Toku Eyes and Formus Labs in orthopaedics) plus funding from the Health Research Council and Callaghan Innovation.
O'Grady tells the Herald he has no plans for a trade sale. Instead, he wants to build a global company from NZ. The $16 billion market cap Fisher & Paykel Healthcare is his inspiration. "They've demonstrated what can be done."
The founder can talk at length about the NZX-listed F&P Healthcare's commercial smarts.
For McMurchy - used to a world of startups where often the founder is a geek or engineer who is brilliant at developing a product but clueless at business - this was part of Alimetry's appeal to Movac.
"It's rare to have a deep tech founder capable of making a great company out of their research work. Greg is a distinguished university professor and gastrointestinal surgeon, but also a gifted and determined entrepreneur," she says.
"He has a crystal clear vision of creating a multi-billion dollar, publicly listed, life science company right here in New Zealand."
The Movac general partner continues, "He has an unusual personal charisma and ability to tell his story which has helped recruit a world-class team behind the vision.
"He and Armen know how to drive execution at high velocity and high quality. He is curious and open-minded around developing as a business leader, and has actively cultivated mentors in the industry to learn from.
"But perhaps the most important characteristic of any entrepreneur is bravery. It's pretty brave to give up an academic career at its very pinnacle and challenge yourself to find even greater success in the uncertain and ambiguous world of a deep-tech start-up."
The latest Companies Office update shows Gharbans (23.7 per cent) and O'Grady (23.4 per cent) as the largest shareholders in Alimetry, followed by seed investor IP Group (22.6 per cent), and newcomer Movac (9.4 per cent).
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