Published on the 21/08/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Listed mining companies feeling the pinch have turned to technology to diversify in search of growth potential…
An Australian clinical decision support system developed by Adelaide based Alcidion is the jewel in the crown in a reverse takeover announced this week which will see Alcidion listed on the stock market through Naracoota Resources.
With a range of systems to provide clinical information to emergency departments, outpatient departments and for inpatient services the company to date has invested $14 million in its clinical decision support system and the Miya platform to integrate different clinical information systems and then present that information on a range of devices from tablets to TV screens.
Miya is the brainchild of Malcolm Pradhan, an adjunct professor in health informatics at the University of South Australia, and Ray Blight, former CEO and chairman of the South Australian Health Commission. The technology is being used in 11 Australian hospitals and is generating annual revenues of around $5 million.
The reverse listing and a planned $2 million capital raising are intended to deliver $7 million to fund Alcidion’s international expansion plans.
It’s not the first technology-miner alliance of recent times. In 2014 Sydney optometrist Stephen Mason sold 30 percent of his company, Wavefront Biometric Technologies, to Perth based Nemex Resources. Mason has devised a way to use corneal measurements to confirm identity.
Nemex provided a loan to Mason to allow him to continue to develop and prototype the technology and recently announced its intention to take over the company entirely by September in a reverse listing that will also see Nemex renamed as Wavefront Biometric Technologies. It’s also installed a new management structure and board – which sees Mason installed as full time chief scientific officer once the reverse takeover is completed – to drive the commercialisation of the technology.
Mason said that Wavefront was now Nemex’s only investment. “They had some tenements in Western Australia but they saw the writing on the wall – there wasn’t much future in iron ore.”
Both listed miners will be hoping that their future lays in technology, and that it can set their share price alight. At time of writing Naracoota is trading at 6.5 cents a share, and Nemex at 10.5 cents.
