http://bmy88.com NGX gains from banking recapitalisationStockhead Don't miss out on the headlines from Stockhead. Followed categories will be added to My News. Painchek is awaiting US approval for its digital pain-assessment tool The US aged-care market is ten times bigger than Australia’s The company is also eyeing the much bigger infant market PainChek (ASX:PCK) CEO Philip Daffas has a simple vision for the company’s digital pain-assessment tool: “to be the next Australian technology that goes global”. To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies: he would say that, wouldn’t he? But as a former senior executive at Cochlear (ASX:COH) , Daffas knows a thing or two about what it takes to build a global device business. “You can’t buy true global business development experience. You certainly can’t learn it from a manual,” he says. There’s an encouraging precedent, in that Nanosonics (ASX:NAN) CEO Michael Kavanagh took over Daffas’s role as Cochlear’s head of marketing. Nanosonics went on to commercialise its medical probe sterilisation units which are now sold globally. Painchek doesn’t quite have the global reach of Nanosonics, but to date the company has won a meaningful presence in the local and UK markets for its eponymous mobile digital tool for aged-care facilities. Daffas started Painchek after being approached by a board member at Perth University, Mike Quinn who pointed out a novel pain-assessment technology being developed within the uni’s walls. Daffas become CEO in October 2016, when the company was known as Epat. “We were initially a research company, so we have gone from research to international commercialisation in eight years,” he says. Ditching the pen and paper Replacing pen-and-paper methods in favour of more objective AI, Painchek measures and records pain in aged-care and home care residents – typically suffering from dementia – and unable to verbalise their discomfort. It’s the world’s first regulatory-cleared medical device to assess pain for this cohort. Via a mobile camera, the Painchek app devises a 42-point profile covering nine microfacial features, body movement and behaviour. Since its first commercial sale in 2017, Painchek has won a circa 30% of the Australian aged care market – around 60,000 out of 200,000 beds – and an 8% share of the UK sector (around 40,000 out of 500,000 beds). Painchek has also started a live hospital trial at Scotland’s Royal Edinburgh Hospital. To date, Painchek has undertaken more than eight million assessments and has accrued the world’s biggest pain-management database. “Painchek is not just about providing a pain score, but also a pain profile,” Daffas says. “Two people with moderate to severe pain shouldn’t be treated the same, because their profile can be quite different. Some will require more care and some may need different medication.” Awaiting an FDA response Daffas is putting his Cochlear learnings to good use as the company tackles three further expansion paths: the US aged-care industry, the pre-verbal kids’ sector and the home-use market. The US aged-care market with its two million aged care beds – ten times the size of the Australian market. The company has lodged a US Food & Drug Authority (FDA) clearance submission, under the De Novo (new device) route. Having met with the agency to hone its approach, the company expects a positive response within the stipulated 150-day period. The US aged-care market is similarly structured to Australia’s, in that it is highly fragmented but with a handful of larger operators. In the US, one of them accounts for 50,000 beds. Painchek’s biggest Australia client to date, Bolton Clarke, accounts for 7,500 beds across multiple facilities. “We will build our own core sales team,” Daffas says. “From our ANZ and UK experience we know we need ground staff to build the business model.” Painchek also has an integration agreement with Point Click Care, a one-stop-shop care management platform that accounts for one million aged-care beds in the US and Canada. If FDA-cleared, the device should enable approval of the home care and infant devices under the easier ‘predicate’ route. Infant market is no child’s play The infant market is an even more glittering prize, given 1% of that market equates to the entire aged-care opportunity. Around 150 million kids are born annually and they won’t talk until they are around 12-18 months old (thereafter, they won’t shut up). “The Painchek infant app is built and at an early stage, with 50-100 families putting it through its paces to assess, treat, diarise and document the treatment,” Daffas says. This month the WA government agreed to fund development of an additional Painchek app for children living with disabilities. The support is by way of a $392,820 grant from the WA government’s Future Health Research and Innovation Fund. Moving to cash flow break-even As of the end of September Painchek had 100,322 contracted licences across 1600 aged-care facilities, with 61,705 implemented. By the end of November this number had grown sharply to 68,136, which the company attributes to changes including more defined rollout schedules with milestone payments. Last year Painchek reported revenue of $2.66 million, up 37% but the loss deepened to $8.3 million from $7.54 million previously (mostly due to one-off FDA clinical trial costs). The company says the current licences equate to $5 million of annual recurring revenue – enough to get it to operational breakeven within the ANZ and UK markets excluding research and development and corporate expenses. Meanwhile, the company has just raised $5.1 million in an underwritten Canaccord rights issue, at 2.5 cents per share (with attached options). Innovating in a tech-light sector Daffas says a successful device needs to be unique and prove it is solving a medical problem, such as reducing hospitalisations or medication costs. He says Painchek gained traction because it addressed the aged-care sector needs and now it intends to do the same in the larger home care and hospital markets (with initial sales in both sectors). He believes Painchek has gained traction because unlike in hospitals, the aged-care sector has been slow to adopt novel technology. “Tech starts in hospitals and moves to home and aged care, but Painchek has done the opposite.” Painchek’s momentum hasn’t translated to a valuation uplift, with its shares declining 32% year to date and 85% over the last five years. FDA approval in just a few months’ time could well be the catalyst that salves the shareholders’ pain. Originally published as Biocurious: Painchek’s aged care and infant market expansion plans could be much-needed salve More related stories Stockhead Mali gold miners see support Is the worst over for Mali gold miners? Bets today on ASX gold names suggest some investors may think so. Read more Stockhead ASX slips as Fed looms The ASX closed just into the red on Wednesday, ahead of another important Fed decision. Read more

While history has softened the harsh view of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, there is one part of his legacy that looks worse as the years pass. Carter, who died Sunday in Plains, Georgia at the age of 100 , called to boycott the 1980 Olympics because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the pressure he exerted on the U.S. Olympic Committee to comply, was wrong and naïve. It accomplished nothing other than to further entrench the antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union, and inserted politics where it didn’t belong. Worse, it punished hundreds of athletes, robbing them of the moment and opportunity for which they had trained and sacrificed. Not just American athletes, either. Other countries joined the United States in boycotting the Summer Games in Moscow, including Canada and Japan, and the Soviet Union and much of the Eastern bloc retaliated four years later in Los Angeles. Carter, raised the possibility of a boycott in January 1980, a month after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, hoping the embarrassment of the world staying home from the Summer Games would convince the communist powerhouse to leave Afghanistan. After the Soviets ignored a February deadline, Carter officially announced the boycott March 21, 1980. But it is the USOC, not the White House, that sends teams to the Olympics. In an April speech to USOC leaders, Vice President Walter Mondale painted the boycott as a moral imperative, saying "no less than the future security of the civilized world" was at stake in Afghanistan. He likened the Soviet invasion to Hitler’s Nazi Germany, and said the United States could not make the same mistake it had in 1936, when Jesse Owens led an American team to the Berlin Games. "As Joseph Goebbels boasted on the eve of the Olympics, the Reich expected the Games 'to turn the trick and create a friendly world attitude toward Nazi political, economic, and racial aims.' It worked," Mondale told the USOC. "... Neither Jesse’s achievements in Berlin nor any words spoken at the Games prevented the Reich from exploiting the Olympics toward their own brutal ends." A few hours after Mondale’s speech, the USOC agreed to Carter’s demand and said it would not send a team to Moscow. While athletes were hailed as patriots and praised for their sacrifice, that was little consolation for the harsh reality of Olympic sports. With the Games held once every four years, most athletes get only one shot when they’re in their prime. Four years earlier and they’re probably too young. Four years later and they’re probably too old. The boycott meant hundreds of athletes missed out on the opportunity to be recognized by the entire world as the best in the sports to which they’d devoted their entire lives. Given this was still in the days before professionals could compete in the Olympics, those athletes who would have won medals lost out on post-Games economic opportunities, including lucrative speaking engagements for which they’d still be in demand long after their days as an athlete had ended. Take Bill Rodgers, arguably one of the greatest distance runners ever. Rodgers was 40th in the marathon at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. But beginning with the New York Marathon later that year, he won 15 of his next 19 races at the 26.2-mile distance, including Boston in 1978, 1979 and 1980. He set an American record at Boston in 1979, and Track & Field News ranked him No. 1 in the marathon for a third time that year. Had the United States gone to Moscow, he would have been a favorite to join Frank Shorter (1972), John Hayes (1908) and Thomas Hicks (1904) as the only U.S. men to win the Olympic marathon, a feat that would have made him a commercial superstar. But the United States didn’t go to Moscow. And by the time the Los Angeles Games arrived, Rodgers’ career was in decline. He finished eighth at the 1984 Olympic trials and didn’t even make the U.S. team for L.A. "We're simply a tool, an implement," Rodgers told the Washington Post at the time. "No one cares at all, until we can be used for their purposes. Then they can use it." At least Rodgers could still call himself an Olympian, having competed in Montreal. But there were other athletes for whom Moscow was their only chance. They remain in a weird sort of athletic purgatory, Olympians without an Olympics. "I feel like a doctor who knows the specialty, but I don't have that M.D.," wrestler Lee Kemp, who would have been the heavy favorite for gold at 74 kilograms in Moscow after winning the world title in 1978 and 1979, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2010. Kemp retired after finishing second at the 1984 Olympic trials. Had the boycott accomplished what Carter hoped, maybe athletes could have taken some comfort in knowing their sacrifice had brought about change. But many of the United States’ closest allies – Britain and France among them – refused to join the boycott. The politics Carter hoped to keep out of the Olympics are now endemic to the Games. And not until February 1989, almost a decade later, would the Soviet Union leave Afghanistan. "There was not one positive," Kemp told the Times-Picayune. "Not one." Forty-four years later, it’s even more apparent Carter made the wrong decision. Follow Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmourJohnson went 9 of 14 from the field for the Eagles (1-4). Zavian McLean scored 12 points, going 4 of 9 from the floor, including 1 for 5 from 3-point range, and 3 for 4 from the line. Jevin Muniz went 3 of 10 from the field (2 for 5 from 3-point range) to finish with 10 points, while adding eight rebounds. Marvin McGhee led the Roadrunners (3-2) in scoring, finishing with 15 points. Fidelis Okereke added 10 points. The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar .

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February 14, 1933 - November 22, 2024 Norma Jean Telling Beach, 91, of Bloomington, IL, passed away on Friday, November 22, 2024. She has resided in Bloomington, IL, for the past several years. Interment will be at Evergreen Cemetery, Geneva, OH. Carmody-Flynn Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the charity of the donor's choice. To express condolences online, please visit www.carmodyflynn.com . Norma was born on February 14, 1933, in Geneva, OH, daughter of Orville and Alice Roxberry Phelps. She graduated from Platt R. Spencer High School in 1951. She married H. James Telling on October 11, 1952. They moved to Bellefontaine, OH from Geneva, OH in 1969 with their two children. James preceded her in death in 1972, and Norma remained in Bellefontaine for 50 years. She remarried on August 20, 1983, to Dr. Douglas Beach. They retired together and traveled for the next 20 years until his passing. While living in Ohio, Norma was active in the Bellefontaine United Methodist Church, where she was also active in its Priscilla Circle, Agrarian Club and Weekday Religious Education. She was employed by Bellefontaine National Bank. She is survived by her son, Jeffrey (Crystal) Telling of Bloomington, IL; a daughter, Brenda Telling of Kenton, OH; three granddaughters, Katie (Zach) White, Sarah (Taylor) German and Grace Telling; one great-granddaughter, Sadie Grace White; and two great-grandsons, Owen Jeffrey White and August James German. Also surviving is brother-in-law, Arnold Fuller of Ohio; several nieces and nephews; and five step-sons: James (Sharon) Beach of Florida, Jeff (Patty) Beach of North Carolina, John (JoAnn) Beach of Florida, Joe (Ann) Beach of Georgia, and Jerry (Suzanne) Beach of Bellefontaine, OH; as well as many step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents; both husbands; a sister and brother-in-law, June and Donald Horner; brother-in-law, Donald Telling; nieces, Cathy Coss and Amy Horner; and nephew, Ted Horner; a sister and brother-in law, Carol and Ken Coss; and sister-in-law, Dixie Fuller. In later years she enjoyed playing cards and socializing with family and friends, assembling puzzles, and being active in the Hollybrook Community where she resided. She always loved watching THE Ohio State University football program, never missing a game. Obituaries Newsletter Sign up to get the most recent local obituaries delivered to your inbox.