Navi Awarded Recent Victoria Medical Research Acceleration Fund Grant

The team at Navi is pleased to announce that, in partnership with the Royal Women’s Hospital, we have been successful in receiving grant funding through the recent round from the Victorian Medical Research Accelerating Fund (VMRAF).

Video: Introduction to the Neonav® ECG Tip Location device concept

The research project being funded, will be conducted at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, and use Ultrasound technology to help further validate the accuracy of the Neonav® algorithm, as well as the use of ECG technology to accurately detect central venous catheter migration in critically-ill newborns.

Associate Professor Christiane Theda, Navi’s Chief Medical Officer, co-founder, and lead investigator for the research project, is excited about commencing this next round of research;

“The clinical and product teams at Navi have worked hard over the past few years to develop a first clinical prototype of our Neonav® device which has performed brilliantly in our studies so far. This next phase of work will allow us to collect important data that will give us new insights into how we can better refine and improve our technology so it can help us in our goal of providing safer care for critically-ill newborns.”

Pictured left to right: Shing Yue Sheung, Mubin Yousuf, A/Prof. Christiane Theda, Wei Sue, Alex Newton

Launched by the Victorian Government in 2017, the VMRAF provides grant support to accelerate health and medical research and fast-track innovative projects from research to real-world impact. This is the second VMRAF grant that Navi has been successful with, after also receiving support in 2020 for a Round 4 project.

Navi CEO and co-founder Alex Newton says these sort of grant programs are an important part of developing local medtech industries in Melbourne;

“We’re so grateful for the support from the Victorian government. Grants such as the VMRAF are critical sources of funding for early-stage medical device companies looking to develop products for a global market.”

In 2022, Navi has received support from various grant programs including the VMRAF, MMCP and TAIP funds form the Victorian Government, as well as the Federal Governments Accelerating Commercialisation Grant.

To date, Navi has secured over $2 million in State and Federal government funding, which has played a key role in furthering the development of Neonav® device.

These programs provide important validation on both the commercial and clinical strategy, and enables Navi to establish research, development and manufacturing capabilities locally in Victoria.

Pictured: Early-stage Neonav clinical prototype used in part of a study at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria

The Navi team would like to extend a special thank you to the Victorian Government Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR) and the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, for their ongoing support in helping Navi develop medical innovations that will help children everywhere live brighter, healthier futures.

Navi commences PICC lines study at the Royal Women’s Hospital

Navi has taken another big step in the development of the Neonav ECG Tip Location Device, expanding the existing research study at the Royal Women’s Hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to investigate Neonav’s application in the placement of PICCs in newborns.

Pictured left to right: Navi CTO Mubin Yousuf and Navi CMO (Medical) Dr. Christiane Theda at the commencement of the PICC study at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Navi’s Chief Medical Officer, Christiane Theda, is leading the expanded study and is excited about what can be learnt through this research.

“The expansion of our study at the Women’s means we will be able to work towards our goal to significantly improve the procedures newborn babies have to undergo to provide them potentially lifesaving vascular access to give fluids, medications and intravascular nutrition,” said Christiane.

“This new phase of our study is an important further step towards safer care for critically ill children.”

Globally, it is estimated that there are over 2 million PICC insertion procedures performed in newborn and pediatric patients, with up to 50% experiencing instances of misplacement or migration due to lack of real-time confirmation technologies available.

According to Mubin Yousuf, Navi’s CTO and the person managing the development of the software that powers the Neonav, this study will help broaden Neonav’s ability to identify catheter tip locations during PICC procedures, and ultimately reduce instances of misplacement.

“We have been able to significantly improve Neonav’s software using the learnings and the data collected from our previous studies,” said Mubin.

The Neonav clinical prototype being used during a PICC line insertion procedure as part of the Neonav observational study in the Royal Women’s Hospital - Melbourne, Australia

“The focus now is to apply these learnings to collect new data and expand the software’s capability to allow for accurate placement and migration detection of PICCs.”

The expanded research study into PICC procedures has been funded in part by the Victorian Governments Medical Research Accelerating Fund (VMRAF), and is conducted in partnership with, and incredible support from, the Women’s.