BioScience Managers Expands Asia Pac Presence – Invests $3M in NZ Patient Monitoring Company

(Melbourne) Leading Asia Pacific healthcare fund manager, BioScience Managers Pty Ltd, today announced a $3m investment in innovative New Zealand asthma technology company Nexus6.

Nexus6’s SmartInhaler product remotely monitors adherence to asthma treatment regimes, ensuring patients comply with treatment protocols in general use and in clinical trials, giving clinicians transparency over inhaler use and dosage in real time.

“Nexus6 technology holds the key to not only ensuring better patient outcomes, but also in minimising wastage and costs of treatment, by ensuring that asthma sufferers take only what they need and when they need it,” said BioScience Managers Managing Director, Jeremy Curnock Cook.

“In the current climate, technologies that enable remote monitoring of patients and support the delivery of better health outcomes, for less cost and with less wastage, are extremely important. Nexus6 also provides a unique supporting technology for asthma clinical trials.”

Nexus6 marks BioScience Managers’ second investment from its Asia Pacific Healthcare Fund II. The AU$55m fund is still open to investors, with a final close expected in September 2013. The investment was also supported by up to $2m raised from existing investors, including leading NZ venture firm K1W1.

The firm is increasingly active in the medical technologies space, providing investment management services to Plus listed UnionMedtech (UMT). UMT marks the first of a planned series of tailored investment vehicles to bring together investor appetite for specific aspects of healthcare with technologies sourced from around the globe.

BioScience Managers Chief Investment Officer Matt McNamara commented, “The healthcare sector is increasingly important at a global macroeconomic level, with both the cost and the effectiveness of healthcare solutions coming under increasing scrutiny.”

“We believe there is a significant opportunity in the investment in and consolidation of medical technologies from around the world to enable those companies better access to international markets and economies of scale across synergistic businesses.”