Nutromics is revolutionising healthcare one patch at a time

Last Updated: Thursday 8 December, 2023

With roots in chemical engineering and 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, Peter Vranes is now on a mission to solve one of the world’s biggest problems.

In 2017, he and his co-founder Hitesh Mehta set out on a journey to help people live healthier lives.

Enter Nutromics – an innovative MedTech scaleup offering a diagnostic platform in the form of a wearable patch, that provides medical professionals with up-to-date patient information for critical targets.

Read on to discover Nutromics’ journey so far, and how being part of LaunchVic’s 30X30 program will help Peter take his business to the next level, with eyes on being Australia’s next Unicorn.

The impact of a flawed system

While medical advancements have improved significantly in recent years, Peter Vranes is adamant there is more we could be doing to save lives.

Currently, 70% of medical decisions rely on lab diagnostics to treat patients, but clinicians are often hampered by insufficient and delayed test results.

“This standard of healthcare is not equipped to provide trend information, which is critical in the ICU for fast-moving diseases,” said Peter.

“The impact of a flawed system is high. It involves poor patient outcomes and billions in additional healthcare costs” he adds.

So, how can we make lab tests faster and more accurate, without putting additional stress on the hospital system and clinicians?

Through conversations with various experts, Peter discovered it was possible to monitor micronutrients by using a DNA-based sensor with minimally invasive microneedles.

Tech that the world’s been waiting for

Nutromics’ breakthrough technology is essentially a ‘lab-on-a-patch’. Currently going through a series of clinical trials with Monash University, it’s set to commericalise in the next few years.

Once in market, the product will provide clinicians with personalised, patient-centric outcomes through diagnostic monitoring, offering thousands of data points for key targets such as vancomycin (Therapeutic Drug Monitoring), creatnine (Acute Kidney Injury), and troponin (Cardiovascular Disease) to medical professionals in real-time. This will help them make faster and more informed decisions.

Since it was founded in 2017, Nutromics has grown to have teams in both Melbourne and the US and has raised over US$14 million (A$20.5m) from several investors including the venture arm of multi-billion dollar Continious Glucose Monitor leader Dexcom. Additionally, it secured a $2 million federal government grant as part of the Co-operative Research Centres Projects program.

Nutromics is also backed by several industry leaders including renowned Australian medical researcher Rinaldo Bellomo, who will help influence hospitals to adopt Nutromics technology once it’s available.

Striving for success

When talking about success, Peter says “great tech and funding are key, but it’s passionate people that can really make the magic happen.”

This is the main reason Peter believes being part of LaunchVic’s 30×30 program is already having such a big impact.

“It’s great how the program puts a focus on empowering people across several business functions including HR, Finance, and Comms.”

“Getting everyone involved in decision-making really helps to ignite passion and unify us as one entity, which then allows us to achieve bigger goals – such as achieving Unicorn status”.

Peter also believes in the advantage of bringing together scaleups in a similar position.

“To share knowledge and challenges with other Scaleups, as well as learning new skills from one other is incredibly valuable and we’re very grateful to be involved”.

Nutromics is one of the nine new promising scaleups selected by LaunchVic for its 30X30 program, which is supporting 30 Victorian businesses to achieve unicorn status by 2030.

Expressions of interest for the next cohort are opening from 30th January 2023.

Find out more here.