Maroochydore business Preventum tackles deadly US opioid crisis

The deadly US opioid crisis is driving these Sunshine Coast entrepreneurs’ innovative bid to make a difference in healthcare education through technology and gamification. Here is how.

Preventum co-founders Lyndon Holzheimer and Steve Huff. Picture: Supplied

Preventum co-founders Steve Huff and Lyndon Holzheimer are tackling the opioid crisis gripping the USA from the Sunshine Coast.

The pair met at the University of Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre and joined forces to combine their passion for technology, machine learning and gamification to solve real-world health issues.

“The initial spark was a question as to whether it was possible to gamify public health,” Mr Huff said.

“We took that and ran with it and developed a technology platform that we felt would transform the public health experience for millions of people.”

The United States-based Center for Disease Control (CDC) seemed to agree, and after a trip to Atlanta, and the world-renowned John Hopkins and Harvard Medical Centres, the concept immediately took off.

Preventum is a portfolio of organisations working to inject revolutionary change into healthcare education and “change the trajectory of humanity for the better”.

“The idea to really home in on tackling the opioid crisis in America came from our meeting with the CDC,” Mr Huff said.

“Around 80,000 Americans die from drug overdose each year, the majority of which are prescription opioids and overdoses which are largely accidental.

“We are currently working with researchers who have proven that gamification does work and we are leveraging off this to develop a new treatment protocol with a team in Tennessee.”

Preventum co-founders Lyndon Holzheimer and Steve Huff man a Full Energy No Drugs stall at the Jones Beach leg of the Vans Warped Tour in New York.

Preventum also has touchpoints in New Zealand, Bermuda and South Africa, with a pilot program under way with the Queensland Government, targeting youth.

“We obviously plan to roll our technology out everywhere,” Mr Huff said.

“For us it was easier to get a track record in the international market first, and then bring it back to Australia.

“But we’ve done it all from the Coast and obviously with Covid-19 we do not travel right now, so our location here has always worked in our favour.

“We’ve managed to secure local investors and our overseas expansion has been helped along by the fact that Americans are fascinated by where we live – so it’s helped us to make connections internationally just because we live here.

“There is an excellent entrepreneur community on the Sunshine Coast that is only growing.”

Originally published as Maroochydore business Preventum tackles deadly US opioid crisis