SOMETHING NEW
An alternative to pills Founder Rick Rowan explains how his struggle with chronic pain led him to form bioelectronics company NuroKor which has seen a 100% increase in investment this year, with 12 clinical investors in the last six months alone Solving the problem NuroKor was born from my own 30-year struggle with chronic back pain. I first saw a GP about back pain was when I was just 10 years old. By my late teens it had become utterly debilitating, triggered by anything and seemingly nothing at all. Like many people with chronic pain, I resolved to live with it as best I could, usually leaning on different variations of anti-inflammatories and strong painkillers. In hindsight, it was risky, but when you’re in that much pain you reach untold levels of desperation in an attempt to make it stop, even for just a brief moment. The opioid and painkiller addiction crisis is never far from the headlines, and a week seldom passes without a stark reminder of how the problem is impacting people, families, health systems and communities. From my own experience, it’s easy to see why: I remember one GP who gave me a daily 3000 milligrams of paracetamol to take indefinitely. Knowing the side effects from long term pain medication, as well as just how addictive they could be, I wasn’t prepared to accept that as my future. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to trial a basic nerve stimulator, which provided me with my first foray into the world of bioelectronics. Initially, it gave me relief I had never experienced before; it was a revelation, but the next time I tried it, nothing happened. Disappointed, I lent it to others and their results were also varied. Clearly the technology that had the potential to make a difference, but if it was going to work it clearly needed to be refined and repurposed.
Repurposing bioelectrical technology for today These experiences consequently resulted in my own investigation of non invasive stimulation modalities, scouring scientific studies to understand how it worked and why sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. Through the enormous and compelling body of clinical
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evidence, I noticed that various frequencies and currents were used but there was no real consistency in the methodologies. I started to question whether frequency combinations could be the answer and with my new understanding began exploring possibilities. As my knowledge grew, I saw the potential for bioelectronics grow too - by the time I founded NuroKor in 2018, although there was no formalised product, our purpose was more than just addressing pain. Now, our company mission is to use the science of bioelectronics and the application of electroceuticals to transform quality of life for people worldwide. At NuroKor, we develop and formulate programmable bioelectronic software for clinical and therapeutic application via wearables. Despite being less than two years old, we already have several fully regulated, FDA cleared, CE marked medical devices distributed throughout the UK, Norway, USA, Australia and New Zealand with Malaysia on the horizon. As testament to the efficacy of bioelectronics as a credible medical intervention, ahead of our series-A funding round, we’ve already received
a huge influx of investors from clinical and healthcare backgrounds. Whilst it may seem like NuroKor is at odds with pharmaceutical intervention, five of our investors also own pharmacies, with seven more who are doctors, including an orthopaedic surgeon, an anaesthetist and a professor of wound care and tissue viability.
Redefining the future of pain management – and beyond Thanks to bioelectronics, I have not taken painkillers or anti-inflammatories for almost 5 years, so I was excited but unsurprised when NICE recently released draft clinical guidance for assessment and management of chronic pain in over 16s, stating: “a number of commonly used drug treatments for chronic primary pain have little or no evidence that they work and should not be prescribed.” The final guidelines are yet to be published – but the medical community has so far responded encouragingly, signalling a growing transition away from traditional pain relief towards medication-free alternatives.
HealthInvestor UK • September/October 2020
