The Gatherer V10

D r George O’Neil is a pioneer in the seeking help with addictions. Inspired by the challenges he faced working in remote parts of Australia, Africa and cities such as Glasgow and Perth in the 1980s, Dr O’Neil began developing new products for use in obstetrics, pain management, malnutrition, catheterisation, drug delivery and addictions. This resulted in the establishment of pharmaceutical company Go Medical Industries Pty Ltd in 1986. The first products developed by Go Medical were the O’Neil® Vacuum cup and the O’Neil® Urinary Catheter, a product that revolutionised the way intermittent urinary catheterisation was carried out. Go Medical now specialises in the manufacture of infusion devices (Springfusor®, flow control tubing), Patient Controlled Anaesthesia device (Nasal PCA’s), Intravenous Tubing (V-Set), Obstetrics (Amnicot) and urinary catheters. Dr O’Neil has pioneered the use of naltrexone for opiate addiction and runs an addiction treatment clinic in Perth, now part of Fresh Start Recovery Programme. The centre concentrates on detox, relapse prevention treatment and developing a drug-free lifestyle. For the past 25 years Wrays has provided intellectual property services to Dr O’Neil and Go Medical. We sat down with Dr O’Neil to discuss his work. The goal of Go Medical is to develop innovative products to improve common medical procedures. When you identify a solution to a problem, what are the next steps? The first step is discussing the concept with people who understand the related science. Go Medical concentrates on improving common procedures because after investing a lot of effort and money in identifying the need and area of improvement, less market research is required. Once you’ve got your concept together, then you have to make a prototype. After it has been tested on the bench, you then make a series of prototypes for clinical evaluation and then get ready to set up a clinical trial or study. The next step is the regulatory work and then it is a matter of development of innovative products for the improvement of common medical procedures and treatments for those

the right product, in the right place, at the right price with the right marketing and training whilst meeting the growing regulatory requirements. Most of the work at Go Medical concentrates on going back to basic science to deal with a common procedure. For example, with malnutrition in children, traditionally if you wanted to administer a drip, you needed a hospital, doctors and nurses and expensive bags of fluid. Go Medical developed nasogastric tubing which only requires a nurse and a bit of water from the river. A simple, scientific solution to a common problem. How do you collaborate with universities and research organisations for the development of your products? Universities, within reason, are keen on teaching students how to think, and are very keen on publications and training. I personally have medical students at Fresh Start regularly and often engineers as well. I used to lecture regularly to the university engineering department on how to invent. I hardly ever put my name on the front of a publication, because I know I’m the inventor. I’m the person coming up with ideas. It’s much better that somebody else evaluates my idea, because there’s less bias. So that suits my purpose and it suits the university’s purpose. I’ll be trying to produce products and the university will be trying to help their students and get publications. To date you have treated thousands of patients with your naltrexone implant. Can you explain how the implant works? The Fresh Start clinic where I practice has treated 9,000 with implants and there are still an enormous number of people we haven’t yet reached. The implant delivers naltrexone, which blocks the effect of opioids, eliminating the need for patients to remember to take a daily pill or receive an injection every 4 months. Other commercial companies have introduced long lasting buprenorphine. We made our first buprenorphine implant seven years ago. We didn’t commercialise them, and that’s an interesting example where we didn’t go for a cash flow, because from our point of view, we didn’t want our patients to then become addicted to another addictive substance. However, from a company cash flow point

PIONEERING TECH FOR COMMON MEDICAL PROBLEMS A conversation with Dr George O’Nei l , Medical Director at Go Medical Industries

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