Victorian start-up secures $3.5 million for breakthrough Parkinson’s technology

A Victoria-based company plans to commercialise breakthrough technology for patients with Parkinson’s disease, after securing $3.5 million in equity funding and government grants.

Global Kinetics Corporation was established in 2007 to commercialise the Parkinson’s KinetiGraph (PKG) System, a breakthrough in the management of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease, or PD, is a chronic, progressive, disabling neurological condition that affects more than 15,000 Victorians, 65,000 Australians and 12 million people worldwide.

GKC’s team includes managing director Andrew Maxwell, chief scientific officer Malcolm Horne, chief technical officer Robert Griffiths, and national general manager Mary Taylor.

The PKG System was conceived, developed, funded and progressed to a commercial product within Victoria.

GKC recently secured $3.5 million in equity funding and government grants to commercialise the system in Australia, Europe, the United States and possibly Asia.

This includes a Small Technologies Industry Uptake Program (STIUP) Trial Voucher from the Victorian Government of more than $250,000.

This money will be used to develop the micro-electro-mechanical component of the PKG System. The company also received funds from Commercialisation Australia.

GKC’s core intellectual property is founded on its ability to record and report the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease that are most closely correlated with disability and response to therapy – bradykinesia and dyskinesia.

The PKG System uses a wrist-worn device to remotely record data about the patient’s symptoms. The device also reminds the patient to take their medication as prescribed by their clinician.

The system then automatically generates a report for the patient’s neurologist showing standardised, objective measures of the severity of the patient’s movement disorder.

It also shows the relationship between the consumption of their medication and the patient’s symptoms.

According to GKC, having access to the data provided by the system improves clinical outcomes and patient quality of life, and also has the potential to reduce patient management costs.

“In terms of better clinical outcomes and quality of life, what this is about is allowing the patient to have more time in the ‘normal’ space,” Maxwell says.

“Currently, a patient’s symptoms are managed mostly by the patient and the clinician, which is not an effective way to collect data.”

“What was a subjective conversation between the patient and the clinician [is now objective].”

“A patient can look at the data and say, ‘I understand what I’ve got’ and can communicate it much more clearly.”

Maxwell says the company has already established initial sites here in Australia, with plans to do a soft launch in the European market next year.

“Then, depending on how successful that is, we will look to the US closely after that,” he says.