Greg Shanahan, Roger Lampen, Gavin Mitchell, Dr William Peters

Klein Medical is a New Zealand company that is developing a low cost analytical technology platform with one application being to verify drugs at point-of-administration.

The benefit of this application is that it significantly reduces the chance of medication error in the clinical environment.

We believe our system has the potential to be the most cost effective way of reducing preventable injuries from intravenous medication error.

The technology has potential for use in automatic intravenous administration, in an infusion pump, or manual administration, in a syringe. The ability to deliver high analytical sensitivity, but with a low cost structure, is an innovation that will enable broad distribution in the health system.

The business model is to sell both the analyser and proprietary consumables e.g. syringes and giving sets. Klein Medical's path to market will be to license the technology to those companies involved with intravenous medication delivery.

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Medication Injury and the Health Crisis

Medication Injuries in US Hospitals. Preventable medication errors in US hospitals injure 400,000 people per annum, at a cost of US$3.5 Billion (IOM 2006). The cost when extended to long-term care and outpatient facilities is significantly more. A total of 1.5 million Americans are injured every year (IOM 2006) throughout the US health system. 

Intravenous Medication Injury. In the United States, 60% of serious and life-threatening medication errors in general inpatients involve intravenous medications (Eskew JA, Jacobi J, Buss WF et al, 2002) A similar percentage (56%) of medication errors involving i.v. medications was found in a study from the United Kingdom (Ross LM, Wallace J, Paton JY 2000)

The Cost of US Hospital Intravenous Medication Injury. If we assume from the above that intravenous errors account for approximately 50% of the $3.5B US Hospital preventable medication error problem, this cost amounts to US$1.75B

Adverse Events In US Hospitals Adverse Drug Events are the most common serious adverse safety event. In a typical 300-bed hospital, annually there are1300 Adverse Drug Events, 1260 Hospital Acquired Infections and 1000 Procedural Complications (Source: First Consulting Group 2004/ Cardinal Health 2008)

Reducing Healthcare Costs. Reducing adverse events in hospitals is an obvious way to make healthcare more affordable. Over the past decade US Healthcare spending has grown 2.5 points faster than GDP. If this trend continues US Healthcare spending will account for 30% of GDP by 2030 – from 16% in 2007. (Source: Frost and Sullivan 2009) This growth is unsustainable. Other countries are grappling with similar problems, particularly those with rapidly aging populations, such as Japan. Growth in chronic diseases is rising with ageing population profiles. (Source: Frost and Sullivan 2009)