TEL
25/11/2013 16:58
GENERAL
REL: 1658 HRS Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Limited
GENERAL: TEL: Telecom and Sir Ray Avery's Vigil join forces
Media Release
25 November, 2013
Telecom and Sir Ray Avery's Vigil join forces
Innovative NZ medical monitoring start-up company Vigil boosted by Telecom
investment
Vigil will target opportunities to improve health outcomes and reduce
health-care costs through digital technologies
Telecom and medical monitoring business Vigil Wireless Sensor Technologies
Limited (Vigil) announced today that they have joined forces to introduce new
health solutions into the New Zealand market and target other market
opportunities. Telecom is planning to invest up to $5 million for a 40% stake
in the promising New Zealand start-up.
Vigil is a privately owned biotechnology company founded in 2012 by
scientist, inventor and social entrepreneur, Sir Ray Avery, who is the
company's Chief Scientific Officer. Its commercialisation has been aided by
funding from Callaghan Innovation, the Government's new high-tech HQ for kiwi
businesses.
Sir Ray Avery said that Vigil is responding to a growing challenge, with
increases in ageing populations and obesity across the developed world
fuelling an epidemic of long-term health conditions.
"New health delivery models using digital technologies are needed to address
worsening macro health-trends and help reduce health-care costs. Technology
is the key to unlocking those new models. For example, Vigil offers an
intelligent medical alarm using a bracelet and base station that will raise
an alarm automatically if an adverse event such as a fall or change in heart
rate is detected. Smart technologies such as this will enable more effective
methods of medical monitoring. The potential benefits to New Zealand are
enormous."
The demographic trends are significant. Statistics New Zealand projects the
population aged 65 and over to grow to over 780,000 by 2021 and over
1,000,000 by 2031. By 2051, around 1.18 million people are expected to be
aged 65 and over in New Zealand, representing an increase of 165% since 1999.
The consequential pressure on health services could be profound.
Vigil uses new sensing and digital technologies to provide a range of
intelligent biometric medical monitoring and care services that can
significantly increase personal well-being and safety, provide peace-of-mind
to the elderly and their loved ones, and, ultimately, improve health
outcomes.
The Vigil products and services ecosystem is run off a Cloud based platform,
which provides smart biometric monitoring connectivity across a range of
devices. They provide active, continuous biometric monitoring in real time.
Vigil services will meet a wide range of customer needs, including parents
wanting baby monitoring, patients with long-term illnesses, infirmed who need
medical alarms, health professionals wanting to monitor their patients and
people wanting to monitor their own health and wellness.
Telecom Digital Ventures Chief Executive Rod Snodgrass believes the growth
potential for Vigil is significant.
"The demand for smarter remote health monitoring systems will only grow as
the population ages. Vigil offers medical monitoring solutions with many
potential applications and with global potential.
"It's a great fit with Telecom's digital innovation arm Digital Ventures.
Vigil has market-leading digital technologies that run across
telecommunications networks and the Cloud - areas where Telecom has obvious
strengths. Digital Ventures is all about delivering connected digital
experiences, and we see the health sector as having significant potential for
the introduction of new and commercially viable digital services with high
growth potential such as Vigil.
"Vigil is led by internationally respected individuals, including Sir Ray
Avery and Chairman Keith Oliver. It has sound growth strategies and is well
placed to respond to rapidly changing health sector dynamics. Our focus will
be on helping to build momentum and scale behind this exciting and innovative
New Zealand business."
Dr Mary P Quin, Chief Executive of Callaghan Innovation said "We are
committed to helping grow emerging high-tech companies like Vigil which have
the potential to generate significant domestic and export income. Vigil's
partnership with Telecom provides a platform to roll out nationwide biometric
healthcare monitoring solutions and reduce healthcare costs."
Vigil is actively targeting potential partnerships across the health sector,
and already has partnerships in place with St John and Plunket NZ.
"Vigil's integrated response and biometric technology will be trialed by St
John in early 2014 to assess its potential to complement our existing
technology and to benefit our more vulnerable clients," says St John
Commercial Director Peter Loveridge.
Plunket NZ CEO Jenny Prince said "We are excited to be working with Vigil to
develop biometric baby monitoring applications".
ENDS
About Vigil
We design, manufacture and distribute leading edge healthcare biometric
monitoring hardware, software and cloud based platforms which continuously
monitor, record and analyse human physiological parameters. Vigil Monitoring
systems improve healthcare outcomes in home based personal healthcare
management, hospital and managed care environments. Our industry specific
hardware and software packages can be individually tailored to meet
individual customer needs and integrated into existing operational systems,
improving cost efficiency, quality of care and healthcare outcomes. Vigil's
comprehensive suite of healthcare monitoring services include tailor made
wearable wireless biometric patient monitoring systems, universal wireless
hubs integrating existing or proprietary patient monitoring systems,
analytical software tools for storage and predictive analysis of accrued
patient data.
www.vigilmonitoring.com
About Telecom Digital Ventures
The Telecom Digital Ventures business unit was setup in April 2013. It is a
dedicated growth business unit that has an arms-length operating model, and
the necessary scope and resourcing to be open, agile and fast in pursuit of
its goals. In a world being transformed by the digital revolution, Telecom
Digital Ventures has a mission to meet new customer needs and capture high
potential growth opportunities. The key focus of the unit is on building new
businesses that deliver connected digital experiences and new revenue
streams, generating commercial returns from them. Areas of focus include:
Mobility, Broadband services, m-Commerce, Digital Advertising, Digital Media,
OTT Services, Smart Data, e-Verticals, and Applications.
www.telecomdigital.co.nz
About Callaghan Innovation
Callaghan Innovation is a Crown entity whose aim is to accelerate the
commercialisation of innovation by businesses in New Zealand. It connects
high-value manufacturing and services businesses with research organisations
across the innovation system, as well as operating its own extensive science,
engineering and technology laboratories and specialist equipment. Callaghan
Innovation also helps businesses develop their own skills and expertise to
successfully take ideas to market, and manages more than $140 million a year
in funding and grants to support business innovation and capability building.
www.callaghaninnovation.govt.nz
For media queries, please contact:
Telecom
Richard Llewellyn
Head of Corporate Communications
+64 (0) 27 523 2362
Vigil
For Sir Ray Avery Vigil Chief Scientific Officer
Contact Angela Griffen
Mobile 027 578 0889
[email protected]
End CA:00244260 For:TEL Type:GENERAL Time:2013-11-25 16:58:44
