Advice to inventors: if you love it, let it go

Pioneering sleep specialist Dr Murray Johns had some good advice yesterday for medical practitioners wanting to commercialise their medical devices and inventions.

Speaking at the MDN Showcase in Melbourne, Johns said it was important not to try to do it all on one's own. Instead, he recommended bringing in people with experience in commercialisation, as he has done with his company Sleep Diagnostics, which he set up to develop and commercialise a device for monitoring drowsiness in drivers.

"I realised I didn't have the skills to commercialise Optalert on my own, so I brought in a contract management team," Johns said. "It's very important that innovators let go and become part of the team."

Johns' invention could one day be standard eyewear among truckers and other long-distance drivers, who run the risk of severe injury and death from drowsy lapses -- characterised by the slow eye blinks and momentary lapse in awareness that occur when a sleepy person drifts off for a few seconds -- while driving. Johns said at least 5000 accidents on Australia's highways alone could be ascribed to drowsy lapses, typically causing death, severe injury and major damage.

"Often the most severe accidents are at full speed -- the driver is not aware, so there is no action to stop," he said. "But no test can tell if someone was drowsy at the time of an accident."

The Optalert device uses infrared beams mounted in the frame of eye glasses to monitor the velocity of eye and eyelid movements, and can monitor a driver's alertness and drowsiness continuously, warning drivers when they reach dangerous levels of drowsiness.

The beams measure the amplitude-velocity ratio -- the relative velocity of the eye or eye movement in relationship to the amplitude of the movement -- which Johns has found to be is highly predictable when a person is alert. A pocket-sized unit processes information, and the device can be attached to existing glasses or incorporated into customised eyewear.

The device, which does not require regulatory approval, is to be tested by volunteer truck drivers in the next few months with the support of trucking company LinFox. Users of the device will be warned when they approach dangerous levels of drowsiness and encouraged to stop driving to implement a response strategy comprising caffeine and a powernap followed by a short period of exercise, before continuing with driving.

"We're getting a lot of support from [the transportation] industry -- not financially, but in terms of practical issues," Johns said.

In fact, to date Johns has funded much of the development of the device himself, including obtaining patents and manufacturing prototypes.

"Raising money is one hell of a task," he said. "We had some trouble getting money -- the venture capitalists have not been interested at this early stage but we found some angel investors."

The company has also applied for an R&D Start grant from AusIndustry.

But once the device has been demonstrated successfully in a real world situation, Johns believes interest will be high, and not just from the transportation industry, but from other industries requiring high levels of alertness, and the military.

"The whole business of medical practitioners becoming entrepreneurs is a bit daunting, but I think it's important," Johns said. "It has also been great fun and very rewarding."