Nov 28, 2017 - Alliance Group is investing almost $800,000 in a new blood processing room at its Mataura plant in Southland to help meet the growing demand from the pharmaceutical industry.

The new facility at the plant will collect and process adult bovine blood into serum for blood products, which are used in the development of vaccines, cancer treatments, and drugs to treat neurodegenerative, haematological and endocrine disorders.

Demand from the pharmaceutical industry for New Zealand blood products has increased significantly due to the country’s disease-free status and world-leading agricultural systems.

David Surveyor, chief executive of Alliance Group, said blood products can create value for the co-operative’s shareholders.

“Our strategy is maximising revenue, diversifying our products and strengthening our market channels.

“This investment is another example of how we are developing opportunities to capture more market value for our shareholders.”

| An Alliance release  ||  November 28, 2017  |||

Nov 20  2017  --  A major technological breakthrough by a Kiwi company makes it simple for New Zealanders to be tested for vitamin C blood levels.  Newly released data from a University of Otago study shows more than two thirds of Kiwis over 50 are low in vitamin C, more than one in 10 severely so.  The Otago researchers say it is time blood is routinely checked for vitamin C levels, as it is now for cholesterol and iron. Vitamin C deficiency can lead to scurvy and other illnesses.

To date, existing technology using a blood sample extracted in a laboratory is only available in some parts of the country and not often utilised.

That is why Auckland company Feedback Research Limited spent five years developing its Feedback C Meter, a more accessible, easier point of care test for vitamin C.

Ground-breaking product

CEO for Feedback Research Jackson Perry says the company believes its patented test for vitamin C is a world first. The company hopes to market the Kiwi-developed product locally next year and worldwide within two years.

Mr Perry is confident the finger prick test would allow vitamin C testing to become as commonly used as blood glucose or cholesterol finger prick tests.

“We are very close to the finish line, and the last piece of the puzzle is finding a local company that can help with vacuum packing the electrodes in foil, which is commonly used for glucose test strips. Our goal is to keep the design and manufacturing of the meter in New Zealand.” If the company can’t find a local partner for this step, it would have to be shipped offshore, Mr Perry says.

“It is very common in New Zealand to test for vitamin B12 and D, but for reasons unknown to us, vitamin C is not routinely tested.”

Scurvy risk identified

In the University of Otago study 400 Christchurch people’s blood was tested for vitamin C.

Only 7% had optimal levels and 13% had very low levels showing pre-clinical signs of scurvy.

“Vitamin C plays a significant role in health, as a wide range of bodily functions depend on optimal levels,” Mr Perry says.

“Dietary changes are effective in overcoming most basic deficiencies. Where appropriate there are a multitude of dietary supplements available, some of which are government subsidised.”

Mr Perry believes low vitamin C levels are largely due to our modern diet and lifestyle.

“Processed, over cooked foods contain very little vitamin C. Stress, chronic and acute illnesses all increase the need for vitamin C, which can only be replaced by eating enough vitamin C rich foods and or supplementation.”

| A Feedback Research Limited release  ||  november 20,  2017   |||

Dunedin will get a new $1 billion plus hospital, in what will be the largest build of its type in New Zealand’s history, Health Minister Jonathan Coleman says.

Dr Coleman made the announcement with Prime Minister Bill English at Dunedin Hospital today.

“The Government is committed to ensuring the people of Dunedin and the wider Southern community receive quality hospital care,” Dr Coleman says.

“We have been assessing the options around refurbishing the existing site and building a new hospital. The decision has been made to rebuild.

“This would maximise the opportunity of having a purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility, while also minimising disruption to patients and staff.

“Given the scale of the project it is estimated to cost between $1.2 billion - $1.4 billion, making it the largest hospital rebuild in New Zealand history.

“The original plan was to simply rebuild the services block, but the indicative business case has determined that the ward block also needs replacing and that has increased the cost significantly from the original $300 million estimate.

“The Ministry of Health is working to secure an appropriate site for the new hospital, with a strong preference for a central city location. Depending on the location the new hospital will be opened in 7 – 10 years.

“Given the size of the project the Government will consider all funding options including a Private Public Partnership model.

“We are also taking steps to support the existing Dunedin Hospital while the rebuild takes place with an extra $4.7 million being invested into the Interim Works programme, taking the fund to $27.2 million.

“The programme includes the expansion of ICU to 22 bed spaces over the next 12 months. Taking the unit to eight ICU beds, 10 High Dependency beds and 4 beds which are flexible to be either as demand requires.

“Increasing the number of co-located beds in ICU will greatly improve efficiency and enable more effective care of patients.

“The programme also includes the expansion of the Gastroenterology Unit, which will support the roll-out of the National Bowel Screening Programme to the DHB.

“This is a once in a generation opportunity to build modern and sustainable health facilities that will meet the future needs of Dunedin and the wider Southern community.”

The new Dunedin Hospital will follow on from the completion of the new $77.8 million Grey Base Hospital on the West Coast, as well as the almost $1 billion hospital redevelopment programme in Canterbury.

The Indicative Business Case for Dunedin Hospital can be accessed here.

| A Beehive release  ||  August 19,  2017   |||

New Zealand is seeing a substantial increase in demand from the older ageing population for fitness, exercise and personal trainers, according to ExerciseNZ chief executive Richard Beddie.

He says they now know not only that exercise is needed as people we age, but also why this is the case. There are many providers catering for the ageing market, something that was rare 15 years ago.

Waikato University health and behaviour doctoral candidate Wendy Sweet says today’s ageing population, especially in the developed world, have many advantages over previous generations – not least access to research into ways to stave off age-related conditions.

Beddie says Baby Boomers who have not yet retired are in an excellent position to take advantage of significant positive benefits of exercise as well as increase both their life expectancy and their enjoyment of their later years. Living longer is not enough anymore. We know people want to live better and longer, by being active now.

“We believe the key message should be regardless of age, start now. Because even people who are already in the older age demographic, starting now will have huge benefits, and the corollary of that is the earlier the better. People should think of exercise as their body’s retirement savings system - the sooner people start, and the more they do, the better they will be.

“The key thing in starting now is do so in manageable micro-steps. In many cases finding an activity that the person enjoys is key, be it dancing, tai chi, yoga, Pilates or going to the gym. While there is a lot of information and guidelines about how much activity to do, in the short term the focus should be on forming a habit of being active - and using this to build towards long-term regular exercise.”

Beddie says hundreds of Kiwi personal trainers, gyms and fitness facilities are seeing a surge in older people seeking to get fitter. New Zealand’s best trainers and gyms will be vying for honours at the Exercise NZ awards 2017 in Auckland on November 25.

“ExerciseNZ is excited that there has never been so much interest in how Kiwis are ageing. With the last of the Baby Boomers heading into retirement over the next decade, they are not only the next generation of older people but they will be the fittest ever in our country’s history,” Beddie says.

| A Make Lemonade release  ||  August 16,  2017   |||

The health sector needs more male nurses, but has struggled to attract men into what has traditionally been a female domain. While up to 50% of those enrolling to become doctors are now reportedly women, only 10% or less of nursing students are male.

However, a new dual, fast track graduate programme offered by Ara and University of Canterbury (UC) seems to be attracting more male students. So what is it about this qualification that works for men?

Ara nursing lecturer and researcher Dr Isabel Jamieson and her team are conducting a suite of research projects connected to the new programme - the combined Masters of Health Science at UC and Bachelor of Nursing at Ara. It is available to graduates of a health-related degree and is “utterly unique,” according to Jamieson, “especially in the way it bridges two organisations and qualifications”. The findings will be presented at the Ara Research Week, 14 – 18 August.

Jamieson suspects that prior academic achievement gives the men who enrol in the programme more freedom to choose their own path. “I guess that because these men already have degrees, they have proven themselves in the academic world and now they feel they can go and do what they want to do career wise”.“Some of these men have already undertaken what could be identified as quite masculine fields of work, such as on building sites and in farm work. One of these participants said that both his parents are nurses, but he didn’t consider it till much later in his worklife. While it is socially acceptable for girls to say they want to be a nurse, it is probably not so acceptable for boys.”

And yet nursing is “a tough job”, Jamieson says. “It is physically, mentally and academically demanding. Nurses need to be able to combine the art and science of nursing to do the job. They are balancing lots of information all the time”.

“I think the some of the general public underestimate what it takes to become a Registered Nurse. RN’s need the personal attributes of kindness and caring, as well as clinical knowledge of health issues, disease processes, pathophysiology, coupled with a social/political understanding of health politics to say nothing of the plethora of questions arising from what a patient has just read on the internet or information provided to them from the lastest app downloaded to their smart phones.”

The challenges of people living longer with more health needs, budget restraints in the sector and the well-publicised mental health challenges in Canterbury makes for a complex sector to work in, but Jamieson’s team found that the men in their study sample were as driven as female nurses to care for others.

While men are very much a minority group in nursing, they are viewed as very likely to be promoted to managerial positions. “However the men we interviewed, on the whole they didn’t want to be managers. They clearly want to be providing direct patient care.”

Diversity in the workforce is important. Nurses should represent the population they care for, and men bring different qualities to the job, Jamieson says. “They can be very pragmatic, which is very useful. If men are dealing with a male patient, the male psyche is useful, the language and understanding a man’s worldview.”

The research, which was recently published in Nurse Education in Practice journal (Attracting men to nursing: is graduate entry an answer?) was conducted with Ara nursing lecturer colleagues John Withington and Dianne Hudson, and UC colleagues Thomas Harding and Alison Dixon.

Jamieson notes that this research is a small qualitative piece of work with a sample of eight interviewees, replicating a study from Monash University in Australia which runs a similar graduate programme. The team will explore further what the male students think and how they feel about nursing.

Ara Research Week is on 14 – 18 August. See http://www.ara.ac.nz/news-and-events/upcoming-events/research-week

| Ara release  ||  August 14,  2017   |||

Three quarters of New Zealanders believe more funding for health and medical research should be a government priority and that the government should invest more funding in health research, according to a survey just released.

The poll of more than 500 Kiwis was conducted by Roy Morgan Research for a national health umbrella organisation, New Zealanders for Health Research (NZHR).

Improving hospitals and the healthcare system was the most important issue for the government to focus on, the survey found.

NZHR chief executive Chris Higgins says Kiwis surveyed placed the highest priority on research to find ways to prevent illness and promote good health, and to improve the health system.

“We found 44 percent of Kiwis donate to health research; the main reason for not donating is because health research is considered to be the government’s responsibility.

“A total of 84 percent said that pharmaceutical companies should invest more in health research, and 78 percent expressed willingness to participate in any clinical trial of a new medicine if they had a condition it might be able to treat.

“Nobody knows exactly how much the government spent on health research in the last year because government research funding in channelled through a number of agencies, who then use their discretion as to whether it gets spent on health research or some other research. The best estimate is that about $300 million worth of government spending would have found its way to health research.

“NZHR has decided to focus on allocations which have to be spent exclusively on health research. In the last year this figure was $90.4 million. We believe this figure should increase to $108 million next year. The government has budgeted $98 million. We estimate the annual philanthropic support for health research is about $17 million.

“New Zealand’s ringfenced government investment in health research stands at just 0.6 percent of health care costs. New Zealanders for Health Research believes that the government should be adopting a 10-year investment target of 2.4 percent.

“Three quarters of New Zealanders said in the survey that the government should invest more funding in health research and such a target therefore is likely to have wide electoral support,” Higgins says.

NZHR is chaired by Graham Malaghan, of the Wellington-based Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.

|  A MakeLemonade/NZHR release  ||  August 9,  2017   |||

Christchurch urologist Stu Gowland, who developed the country’s first mobile surgical bus, is stepping down as Mobile Health’s managing director but will be continuing as medical director.

Mark Eager, has been appointed as chief executive of Mobile Health. Mark has been with the surgical bus organisation for 10 years.

Gowland, a real Kiwi medical pioneer, was a founding member of the New Zealand Urology Associates.

He campaigned with others for improved health on various issues at Christchurch hospital in the 1990s and was the driving force to set up New Zealand’s first mobile surgical unit 15 years ago, board chair Keith Smith says.

“Stu, with colleagues, starting the planning of the surgical bus on a marked-out lawn and 15 years on the bus has performed more than 21,500 procedures all over New Zealand. So much of the credit goes to Stu’s vision, foresight and medical knowledge. Many Kiwis in rural areas are very grateful to him.

“He has been recognised in the New Year’s Honours list with a Queens Service Order (QSO) and by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons for his exceptional contribution to rural health with their Outstanding Services to the Community Award.”

he mobile operating theatre was built to enable free access to low-risk elective day surgery for rural New Zealanders. Today the surgical bus regularly visits 23 small towns and community areas around New Zealand.

Gowland established the first mobile kidney stone treatment (lithotriptsy) service in 1995 providing a nationwide, non-invasive treatment using focussed sound waves for kidney stones. To date about 12,000 patients have been treated with this world wide used technology.

The surgical unit runs on a five-week rotation system around New Zealand, carrying out operations over a day at Kaikohe, Dargaville, Warkworth, Pukekohe, Te Puia, Wairoa, Taumarunui, Waipukurau, Taihape, Hawera, Levin, Dannevirke, Kapiti, Featherston, Takaka, Motueka, Buller, Waikari, Rangiora, Oamaru, Clyde, Queenstown, Balclutha and Gore.

A makeLemonade/Mobile Health release  ||  August 10,  2017   |||

Reckitt Benckiser (New Zealand) Limited (RBNZ) has been fined $1.08 million today in the Auckland District Court for 10 charges relating to its Nurofen specific pain range products. The products include Nurofen Migraine Pain, Nurofen Tension Headache, Nurofen Period Pain and Nurofen Back Pain.

RBNZ admitted that between 2011 and 2015 its packaging of the products and representations on the nurofen.co.nz website were liable to mislead consumers about the nature, characteristics and suitability of the products.

The product packaging stated that the products “targeted” a particular type of pain, when this was not the case. Each product contained exactly the same active ingredient, 342 mg ibuprofen lysine, and each worked identically to the other products. The website contained a number of statements and a product comparison page which gave the overall impression that RBNZ had created separately formulated products to target and relieve specific types of pain when that was not the case.

Commerce Commission Chairman Dr Mark Berry said, “The packaging of these products and the website gave consumers the impression that the products were targeted to relieve a specific kind of pain. In fact, the products all contained the same ingredients and worked identically, to alleviate inflammation and pain generally, but were not specifically formulated to treat a particular area of pain. Consumers paid significantly more for these products compared to other ibuprofen products that would have had a similar effect.

“RBNZ was made aware in 2011 and 2013 through a media article and a complaint to the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration that the products were potentially misleading, yet continued to market and sell the products.”

“The Commission will continue to take cases where traders do not promote their products truthfully. Products need to be as described on the box, and these were not. We take a particularly dim view when goods for human consumption are misdescribed; especially where pharmaceutical or healthcare products are not promoted truthfully. With these types of products consumers have little opportunity to verify the claims being made and tend to rely heavily on what they are told by the trader. To be able to choose the product best suited for them, consumers must have accurate and reliable information,” said Dr Berry.

In sentencing RBNZ today, Judge Jelas described RBNZ’s behaviour as “highly misleading” and noted it was “blatantly apparent they were in breach of their lawful obligations to New Zealand consumers”.

“Without the misleading statements the reason for the products existence disappears. There was no reason to choose one over the other.”

Judge Jelas accepted that RBNZ had expressed its remorse for its conduct, but only after the Commission opened its investigation, having ignored previous warnings and publicity in the media.

Half of the conduct charged occurred before the 2014 changes to the Fair Trading Act which increased the maximum corporate penalty for breaching the Act from $200,000 to $600,000.

|  A Commerce Commission release  |  February 3, 2017  ||

Australian respiratory technology company Rhinomed has entered into a distribution and supply agreement with The Linde Group and its Australian subsidiary BOC Limited.

BOC will manage logistics and distribute Rhinomed’s breathing technologies, Mute and Turbine, in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Rhinomed will ship product directly from its Hong Kong warehouse to BOC’s logistics centre in Sydney. Under the arrangement, BOC will fulfill and supply all of Rhinomed’s existing contracts within Australia—covering the existing 700 pharmacies currently stocking the product.

BOC brings an extensive and experienced sales force to support the growing uptake of Rhinomed’s products in the region. Mute complements BOC’s current sleep equipment offering, which includes CPAP masks and supplies and in-home sleep studies.

Colin Smith, head of healthcare, BOC Limited says in a release, “BOC is proud to partner with Rhinomed as their distributor for Mute and Turbine across Australia and New Zealand. As a leader in the Australian and New Zealand sleep markets, BOC has been providing quality sleep therapy to patients in Australia for more than ten years.”

BOC Limited is part of The Linde Group, a global gas, healthcare, and engineering company, operating in over 70 countries with an annual turnover of more than €17 billion. BOC provides pharmaceutical and medical products and services across hospitals, clinics, intermediate care centers, aged care facilities, GPs, emergency centers, convenience stores, service stations, and patients’ homes. The Linde Group operates in the United States through its subsidiary Lincare. Lincare provides services and equipment, operating from approximately 1,000 locations in 48 states and Canada.

“The relationship with The Linde Group and its subsidiary BOC further cements Rhinomed’s strategy of positioning Mute as the front-line solution for millions of people as they enter the sleep solutions market. This agreement will deliver significant scale to Mute’s presence in the Australian and New Zealand sleep market,” says RhInomed CEO Michael Johnson.

Mute is a nasal stent designed to hold open and individually dilate the nasal airway, alleviating the effect of nasal obstruction, to improve nasal breathing and reduce snoring. It is currently available in leading pharmacy and sleep clinics in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia, as well as via online platforms.

| A Linde Group release | Dec 9, 2016 |