Kitea Health founder Simon Malpas explains the transformative potential of its world-first implantable brain sensor

Inside the Vision That Could Redefine Brain Health Monitoring

Implanting computer chips into the brain has until very recently been strictly the stuff of science fiction, but one Kiwi start-up is turning it into a reality.

In a world-first earlier this year, Auckland based biotech startup Kitea Health successfully implanted a chip under a patient’s skull to monitor fluid pressure build up due to a condition called hydrocephalus.

It’s a disorder which can affect anyone of any age but is most common in children. Millions of people worldwide live with it, and it can be life-threatening if untreated.

The existing treatment involves invasive surgery to implant a device called a ‘shunt’, which drains the extra fluid around the brain and stops a fatal buildup of pressure.

Having the shunt is critical for those with the condition, but unfortunately, the device has a very high failure rate, one of the highest of any commonplace medical device.

Terrifyingly, that failure can be easy to miss, often presenting first as a headache. Speaking to Caffeine, Malpas laid out a typical scenario of a parent taking their daughter to the hospital with a suspected shunt failure.

“She’ll be admitted first of all. She’ll have a CT scan. If you have three head CT scans, you have triple the chance of brain cancer. She may even have brain surgery to measure pressure using a wire,” he explained.

“Kitea Health is all about reducing both the anxiety around that whole situation of not knowing whether it’s a false alarm, whether it is truly a headache, whether it is a shunt failure. It is about reducing brain surgeries effectively.”

Kitea’s implant dramatically reduces the need for invasive surgery. It provides patients with pressure measurements at home by transmitting data to their smartphones or other devices.

The company is currently conducting clinical trials with 20 patients and plans to expand to 150 patients next year.

By 2027, the company expects to secure FDA and CE mark approvals, allowing the device to enter global markets, including Europe, the US, and Asia. Malpas says his eyes are firmly on the USA, where there are 61 million sufferers.

But while he expects to make waves in the US, he believes New Zealand’s health tech ecosystem will soon draw attention in the other direction as investors eye up acquisitions of undervalued companies.

“Because you’ve got IP around it, you’re often not faced with a real competitive situation. You can really carve out a strong position in a market and therefore get a good acquisition valuation,” he explains.

“Everyone says that medtech is massively undervalued in New Zealand especially, and I think, therefore, we will see international buyers come in and snap up medtech companies in the coming years.”

The NZ healthtech sector had global revenue of $2.62B in 2023, up 2.4% from 2022. Malpas says that represents a fraction of what we’re capable of.

According to the latest New Zealand Healthtech Report from Auckland University, between 2021 and 2023, total investment was $220m from a reported 82 deals.

Biotech Therapeutic companies were in the lead, securing $56m from 17 deals, followed by Digital Health companies ($50m, 15 deals), and Medical Device companies ($49m, 21 deals). A total of $67m was raised in 2023.

While Kitea’s device solves a specific problem for a specific illness, the underlying technology can theoretically be applied to multiple areas of the body.

Malpas says Kitea was very intentional in focusing on one application at first in order to clear regulatory hurdles and ‘get some runs on the board’ but the long term vision is to treat multiple illnesses.

“There are other clinical conditions such as heart failure and monitoring actual arterial pressure where implanted devices also measure pressure,” Malpas says.

“So our device will work anywhere in the body. We’ve chosen the brain first. It’s not necessarily any harder or easier but it has a really nice clear regulatory path and we have very good relations with the hospital here in Auckland about that.”

“But certainly, the other applications in heart failure, hypertension and other areas of the body are definitely on the radar. So we see a trajectory where an acquirer or someone interested in strategic investment will almost certainly be interested in a range of the platform as well.”