Greg Mirams was working as a contract fencer when the farmers employing him encountered issues with the anti-parasite drugs they were using on their animals.
The drugs were failing and they wanted to get a $30 test done to find the cause of the issue.
Mr Mirams challenged them and said: “It can’t be that hard to do. They’re only charging you $30 to do it”.
They challenged him back, saying “If you’re so bloody clever, you go and do it”.
So he did.
Suddenly, Techion was born, and the development of FECPAKG2 began — a digital microscope called Micro-I and integrated software providing point-of-care parasite counts.
That was in 2011. Now in 2024 the company is working with industry giants such as Microsoft and expanding from the agriculture industry towards aquaculture and human healthcare.
“What started in agriculture and still is in agriculture, we’re now extending the business into the human health area. We have grown a lot.”
The Micro-I digital microscope is the product that defines the company and roots itself in New Zealand’s pioneering spirit.
The diagnostic tool works as a digital microscope which takes images of the samples being tested and sends them to the cloud embedded in the company’s RATA platform, where they are diagnosed by artificial intelligence or a trained technician.
“You push a sample in and you get a result pinged straight on your phone.”
The microscopes are used constantly across the world from animal to human testing and often you had to collect the sample and send it off to a laboratory to have a technician look down a microscope and do the analysis.
But that was becoming a thing of the past and the middle-man had been cut out of the process, making it more efficient, he said.
“We had farmers that needed to know if their sheep had worms in them.
“Instead of sending samples off to a vet or a lab, they could actually do the test on the farm and get the information straight away.”
The device was used for production animals including cattle, horses, pigs and birds.
It is sold in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and in other parts of the world.
When he started the business it was “fair to say” he did not think it would get to this point.
“Certainly, outside of agriculture, that was a bit of a revelation to us, that we seem to have built a system that’s come out of the agricultural industry, and it has a place in other sectors.”
Last year the company stuck a deal with Awanui Labs to roll out remote testing devices for humans.
They were now working to bring their platform to regional New Zealand, to support healthcare across a range of different tests, he said.
It would be a game-changer for access to regional and remote healthcare as well as take the pressure of the laboratory workforce, he said.
“That was not something that I foresaw, certainly in the early days.
“I could see it in the last sort of five or six years.
“I could see those opportunities emerging but having them sort of come together now is pretty exciting for us.”
He now employed about 50 people, with some working in Mosgiel and others working in Australia and Europe.
Recently he travelled to the United States, and upon his return he revealed plans to expand into that market in the next six to eight months, he said.
ben.andrews@odt.co.nz
