You are here: Home » 0 » » Archives for 0st

Keyron appoints new Chief Executive Officer

LONDON, Feb. 07, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Today Keyron, the medical technology group focused on reversing type 2 diabetes, non–alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and obesity via an innovative medical device platform, announced the appointment of Carl D Francis as Chief Executive Officer.

"The continuing rise in obesity, diabetes, and all forms of fatty liver disease is one of the biggest health challenges the world faces today. Literally billions of people are affected, and the numbers continue to rise rapidly," Francis said. "Keyron's technology is a complete game–changer. An innovative, non–surgical, endoscopically–delivered, fully reversible treatment as an alternative to drastic bariatric surgeries is as exciting as it gets. I am really proud and honoured to be part of Keyron."

The American Diabetes Association states that today 37m Americans suffer from diabetes, with 96m having pre–diabetes. The link between obesity and diabetes is well established, and according to The World Obesity Federation's forecast in their recently released 2022 Atlas, 67% of women and 51% of men in the Americas will be living with obesity (BMI 30) by 2030.

Keyron's patented technology is designed to be a fully endoscopic, outpatient procedure providing the same or greater metabolic benefits of gastric bypass surgery, including a reversal of type 2 diabetes and obesity, as well as NASH and liver fibrosis.

Following successful rodent studies in 2019 and swine studies in 2022, Keyron's first–in–human trials are planned to begin in early 2024. Keyron is targeting to achieve FDA clearance by 2028, and a US launch is planned as the first target market. The company is now making plans to raise a $15m Series A funding round.

Dr Giorgio Castagneto Gissey, Keyron's Chairman, said, "We are thrilled that Carl will be leading Keyron as we enter this critical stage of our development. Carl brings energy, focus, and senior leadership experience to ensure we realize our full potential. Keyron has always had high profile, world–leading board members and medical advisors, and we continue to bring onboard remarkable people. We are truly delighted to have been able to attract Carl."

Francis was previously CEO of successful nano–technology group P2i. During his tenure the group grew from a handful of employees to global leadership in the functional nano–coating space. He was most recently CEO of UK–based medtech group Eyoto which specializes in advanced technologies in the optical and ophthalmic industries. He started his career as a US CPA, is a member of Mensa, and has a BSc from the University of Cincinnati.

CONTACT

For further information please contact:

ABOUT KEYRON

Keyron is a UK–based, preclinical–stage medical device and technology platform company aimed at a highly–effective treatment of metabolic diseases. Keyron's patented ForePass is an innovative medical device designed to safely reverse type–2 diabetes, as well as NASH, and obesity. The company has already demonstrated a full reversal of insulin resistance in animal studies, and recently published the results in The Lancet EBioMedicine. Keyron has upcoming clinical trials in South America and aims to then carry out further clinical trials in the USA. Its founders, directors, advisors and investors include some of the most well–known and cited professors and KOLs worldwide in the metabolic diseases space. The company is backed by multiple institutional investors based in the USA and EMEA.


GLOBENEWSWIRE (Distribution ID 8743797)

Bhutan’s Civil Servants are Building a Digital Government System — Here’s How

Credit: United Nations

By Amy Shelver and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb 7 2023 – New UNCTAD software does to digital government what IKEA did to furniture, allowing Bhutan’s government employees to create their own user-friendly services for citizens online.

Tedious government procedures aren’t just a pain for users, they’re a bore for the civil servants who administer them. Sitting behind a counter and stamping forms isn’t exactly a dream job.

This is where technology can help. In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched the G2B digital government portal. It’s a ground-breaking piece of software that earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business.

Entrepreneurs simply fill out a form on their mobile phones, and receive all registration documents at no cost, in less than a minute. In 2022, 5,500 Bhutanese, almost 1% of the population, used the service to register a business – 52% of them were women. It’s also a turning point for Bhutan’s public administration and for the world of digital government in general.

The fastest business registration service on Earth wasn’t designed by consultants in India or California but by the very civil servants who had previously administered the time-consuming, paper-only process that required citizens to go from one government office queue to another.

How did this happen?

Keep it simple

It’s all down to the low-code simplicity of the UNCTAD digital government platform, which after some basic training, Bhutan’s civil servants were able to customize themselves to create online services. The coverage of these services is now vast and includes permits to run bus services, authorizations to fly drones and leases for industrial parks.

Over the next two years, the government plans to include all permits, authorizations and procedures related to the country’s economy in the platform. With time it could stretch across all government departments.

“The goal of our technology is to ease friction,” says Frank Grozel, who heads UNCTAD’s digital government platform programme. “Everyone wins from having effective, uncomplicated technology at their fingertips. But this is especially important for civil servants, because it allows them to focus on why they do their job and not necessarily how they do it.”

Better service delivery

Each service is built from the bottom up. Government teams, including civil servants working on the procedure, developers and trainers came together to simplify existing steps, creating shortcuts that help accelerate service delivery.

Employees are guided to understand the process from the user’s point of view, generating empathy and understanding of where the bottlenecks and frustrations can be.

“Whole teams have started to see how the system could be changed, and why elements of the original process could have felt so painful to the end user,” said Bita Mortazavi, UNCTAD’s project manager for the Bhutan initiative.

The impact on staff has been transformative. “We can now focus on service development and select simple services, with large impact, to change entire systems,” said Sonam Lhamo, project lead at Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Tshering Dorji, a developer, said it changed his perspective in software development. “My imagination improved a lot. I learned how to simplify without coding,” he said.

Another developer, Pema Gyalpo, was pleasantly surprised.

“We can further simplify even the simple things,” he said. “The experience of building this easier system was not about work, but how we’re going to work [in the future]. I’ll be privileged to send ideas which will serve other countries.”

Innovate first, regulate later

Most Bhutanese businesses are small. About 95% of them are cottage enterprises. This reality drove the country’s government to seek ways to help the mountain nation’s micro-enterprises succeed in the quickest, simplest way.

“Our approach is to innovate first, regulate later, so as to reduce entry barriers for new businesses, embrace innovation and allow creativity to flourish,” said Bhutan’s minister of economic affairs, Tengye Lyonpo.

This ethos has delivered results for the country whose unconventional approaches are working for it and its citizens in novel ways.

While Bhutan has been pioneering the flatpack approach to digital government, making services modular and easier to create, thanks to funding from the Netherlands, other countries are set to follow. Colombia, Estonia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia will join the club this year.

Countries already benefiting from the platform include Argentina, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali.

Amy Shelver is an expert on digitalization and the creative economy and Ian Richards is an economist at UNCTAD specializing in digital business environments.

IPS UN Bureau

 


!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);