6 minute read
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
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.
GP, Nutritionist and NuroKor investor Dr. Leah Austin explains, “People living with chronic pain can often find themselves on something called the ‘analgesic ladder.’ Once on the ladder, the need for stronger medication grows exponentially which usually results in lifelong use of stronger and stronger analgesics. Seeing the impact this had on lives, I felt compelled to explore other options that I could safely and confidently recommend, which ultimately led me to NuroKor. For me and the people I treat, I want to provide a reliable alternative that doesn’t nudge patients further up the ladder.”
Pain, however, is not only chronic. Most people will have experienced pain at some point in their life but for professional sportspeople, pain and more crucially injury can be detrimental to an entire career. In 2019, International hockey player and Commonwealth athlete Lewis Prosser broke his foot, putting him out for three months. He used a NuroKor device as part of his treatment regime, incorporating the peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) and microcurrent stimulation (MCS) to provide natural pain relief and reduce inflammation and the neuromuscular stimulation (NMS) function for physical therapy and as a result, Prosser was able to successfully return to playing a month earlier than predicted.
A bioelectronic future As a company, NuroKor is at the forefront of bioelectric medicine research, uncovering and developing new technologies that can make a real difference to individuals and transform healthcare. The medical potential for bioelectronics is significant with an extensive body of clinical and scientific research studies demonstrating its efficacy in pain management,
sports recovery, injury rehabilitation, muscle recovery, and countering muscular atrophy in ageing populations.
The team is united by our shared belief in the expanding potential for bioelectronics and we continue to lead pioneering research into new areas including its use in wound care and tissue repair. Driving this work is worldrenowned wound healing, skin scarring, and tissue repair expert, Professor Ardeshir Bayat, who has recently joined the board as Chief Clinical & Scientific Advisor.
Our research in wound care so far is promising; we’ve even witnessed ‘non-healing’ ulcers actually healing. The implications of this for the NHS are compelling too, with some of our health economic data indicating that improved wound healing alone could save each NHS Clinical Commissioning Group up to £50,000 per year.
There is no doubt in my mind that as medical use of bioelectronics becomes more and more advanced, it will also become increasingly commonplace in treatment too. The clinical investment NuroKor has received has served to accelerate us in our work and research; such demonstrable belief from doctors, pharmacists and healthcare specialists in our technology, serves as powerful motivation that drives us towards our purpose.
And that’s what we’re doing at NuroKor: driving forward clinical bioelectronics to deliver high-quality personalised, reliable and efficacious treatment and management, because we truly believe in the difference it makes.
The tide is rising on the opioid and painkiller crisis and as doctors and patients look for more natural alternatives, the case for bioelectronics is impossible to ignore. n
