Veriphi founder and managing director Greg Shanahan

The start-up has developed laser technology, which it hopes will prevent numerous New Zealanders dying each year after receiving the wrong intravenous medication in hospital.

Medication error is the most common cause of patient harm in the hospital system, causing an average 150 deaths and 400 permanent disabilities in New Zealand every year and costing up to $410 million annually.

Intravenous medication errors account for half of these deaths and are twice as likely to cause harm to patients as other drug administration methods.

Veriphi has spent six years building an analyser that sends a laser beam through an IV line, IV bag or syringe to measure whether the correct medication and dosage is being used for the patient. The latest round of testing produced a 100% success rate across 40 blind trials of 10 drugs.

The company is raising funds to do a full validation trial testing 15 oncology drugs at Auckland City Hospital, develop the commercial version of the analyser, and look for a global partner.

Trials are also planned at other New Zealand hospitals and in Melbourne and New York.

Founder and managing director Greg Shanahan tells NBR that the ageing population on complex medication regimens pose an increasing risk for harm and error.

“Roughly, there are about 1.5 billion doses of IV medication given to patients in Australia, New Zealand and the US each year so, from a commercial perspective, if we’re being paid to verify all those applications, that’s a lot of money.”

Mr Shanahan, who also founded the annual TIN100 list of the country’s largest and fastest-growing high-tech exporters, says the response from hospitals and district health boards so far has been “fantastic.”

“We’ve been focused on developing the technology but the clinical people we’ve been involved with here, in Australia and the US have welcomed us with open arms, which has been gratifying, as they’re only too aware of the problem. No one who goes into the medical profession wants to kill or injure a patient.”

The bones of the offer
The Snowball offer, which aims to raise between $400,000 and $2 million for about 5-20% equity, opened to the public this morning and will run for a month.

Four investors – including Nexus6/Adherium former chairman Iain McCormick – have already plugged in $82,000.

Veriphi is forecasting revenue of $500,000 in 2018, $3.8 million in 2019 and $26.5 million in 2020, based on 5200 analysers being throughout New Zealand, Australia and the US. It first expects to make a net profit after tax, of $4380, in 2020.

The company’s intellectual property is protected by seven patent families, including two approved US patents with a third US approval probable in the next 12 months.

More than $6 million from private investors has been spent on Veriphi to date, and it intends to raise a further $2 million in 2018.