Aussie digital health company iPug launches in US

Australian digital health company iPug has launched in the US market using funding from a group of New Zealand angel investors.

The investment group, led by property developer and investor Zane Beckett, provided seed capital and Series A funding to support the company’s early-stage development.

Using the proceeds, iPug has relocated to San Francisco and used the recent BIO International Convention in the city to launch in the US.

The company’s co-founder and CEO Steve Huff commented that the digital health sector is burgeoning.

“Digital health funding is up, with over $900 million in investment in Q1 of this year. This represents a 50% year-on-year growth from the same time last year,” he said.

iPug uses a gamified, reward-based communications platform to deliver individualised public health campaigns and recruit participants in clinical trials and other studies.

One such campaign involved a collaboration with the University of Queensland’s Centre for Children’s Burns and Trauma Research to create the first app that uses gamification strategies to help prevent injury.

This collaboration resulted in the creation of the recently launched Cool Runnings smartphone app, which is designed to educate parents about how to prevent and provide first-aid treatment for hot drink and other burn injuries for children.

Parents are rewarded with points and badges when they demonstrate what they have learned about burn injury prevention.

Burns researcher Jacquii Burgess said scalds from hot drinks account for 20% of all burns in children, with those under two at the highest risk.

“Babies and toddlers grow and develop so rapidly that it’s sometimes hard to recognise they can now reach that coffee mug on a benchtop. Our research has found that burns treatment has improved significantly over the past 20 years or so, but there has been no decrease in the number of children presenting with hot beverage scalds,” she said.

If the app proves to be successful, gamification techniques could be applied to other injury prevention campaigns.

Image courtesy of DARSHAN SIMHA under CC