The ten minute talk that led philanthropist John Thorsen to invest big in medical tech company Ellume

One is a millionaire philanthropist, the other a doctor on a mission to revolutionise the sector and together they are about to launch a company on the ASX

Dr Sean Parsons and John Thorsen.

John Thorsen

Investor and philanthropist

People often ask me how I started supporting medical research, and I begin to list names. Unfortunately, like many Australians, I know many people who have experienced a traumatising illness either personally or through their family. Seeing my friends go through it made it more real, and naturally, I wanted to help – wouldn’t you?

That’s why my wife and I established The John and Wendy Thorsen Foundation and became involved in medical research and technology development.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not an expert when it comes to healthcare or medicine, but I’m fortunate enough to have had a successful career so I can provide the resources to support professionals to do their best.

This brings me to Dr Sean Parsons and the company he founded: Ellume.

A close friend and colleague of mine from the Foxleigh Mine development, Paul Darrouzet, introduced us knowing of my deep involvement in supporting medical research. Actually Paul rang me up to tell me about Ellume while I was at my holiday home in New Zealand. Within 10 minutes I was on board.

Sean was a young doctor who had a very clear vision to develop a rapid and accurate home digital diagnostic test for influenza (A and B).

Of course, the flu is a major issue in Queensland and the world. Early detection greatly aids treatment and reduces spread. What impressed me was the core technology developed by Sean and his team. It is transferable to testing for other diseases, including tuberculosis, helping millions globally.

As an engineer, I always say you can’t manage what you can’t measure so this fitted with that philosophy.

We’re privileged in Queensland to be surrounded by some of the best and brightest healthcare professionals.

Through the Foundation’s philanthropic efforts, I saw that the requirements for success in this industry share many of those necessary that made the Foxleigh Mine a success.

Like Ellume, we started with an idea, tested it and used it to raise money, develop a specialised product and take it to market.

It’s important in this process to have the right people and the right technology.

It was obvious to me that Sean had the skills and team to run with his idea so, I came on board as the largest financial supporter and consequently biggest shareholder.

Dr Sean Parsons from Ellume and investor John Thorsen. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

In medical research, I am focused on results. For research outcomes, I believe

long-term funding is necessary to complete any meaningful research or development.

Even if the research does not achieve a breakthrough, it is important that it is shared with the wider research community. A failure can be as important as a success to ensure that researchers spend their valuable time and resources exploring other areas.

Also, financial resources are not evenly distributed to all areas of medical research unfortunately, which makes it very tough to allocate. You will run out of money before you run out of good causes.

Since joining Ellume on its journey – I was a director for a while and have a 32 per cent stake currently – I’ve seen Sean take an idea and build it into a commercial product now supported by independent companies who also believe in the tech.

It took time, there were failures, but they contributed to both Sean and his team’s knowledge base.

For Sean and I, it’s about finding ways to get patients better faster. And we’re working together to achieve just that.

Dr Sean Parsons

Ellume founder and medical director

Medical technology businesses, like essentially all endeavours, are very much about teams. However, behind us is a team of investors willing to support the business and make those products a reality.

John has certainly been a key part of the Ellume team since he joined in 2015.

I was introduced to John by our chairman Paul Darrouzet. John came into the Ellume headquarters and I gave him this big presentation with all the data.

He ended up being our biggest investor and ever since John has been an avid supporter of Ellume and our vision to create revolutionary digital diagnostics.

You could not overstate how important John’s involvement was. It was critical.

Today, Ellume is achieving more than I initially dreamt. We are now preparing to list the company on the ASX. We have partnered with GlaxoSmithKline to create a product to self test for influenza and have a major partnership with the global diagnostic giant QIAGEN to bring tuberculosis testing to the places it’s needed most. We also have a high-value manufacturing facility in East Brisbane and are growing team in the US.

However, it takes time and costs a lot of money to develop technology like this. John provided the financial support we needed and he was a believer in the vision.

Ellume started very slowly. I was working as a doctor in a clinical role in a hospital and as we got increasingly confident that we could do something great I cut back my hours gradually.

The thing about doctoring is it doesn’t scale very well. You see one patient at a time and treat their symptoms but a product can affect millions of people. If I’d have had to quit doctoring completely and gone into the startup fully I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Funding to support bringing our product to scale was crucial. Ellume couldn’t have created new science without the support in the early days of people like John.

John and Paul, together with Gordon Smith (whose family is also a major shareholders of Ellume) founded Foxleigh mine and rode it through to a successful trade sale in 2008. His engineering background and ability to understand the data was fundamental to their success. This has certainly been the case with Ellume, where John has an insatiable appetite for the data behind the products and business. As a technical founder, this has certainly created a way for John and me to connect and discuss the data behind the products.