Tim O'Donoghue and Alice Delee, co-founders of Kiwi pharmaceutical start-up Healthtex.
Tim O’Donoghue, co-founder of Healthtex, talks to Tom Raynel about expanding a self-care haemorrhoid ointment into the US market, and why starting with the patient is key to success.
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What is Healthtex?
We’re a New Zealand-owned US pharmaceutical company. We have a brand called Neoqura in the US, and we’re building a platform over there for self-care medicines that don’t require a prescription.
We have a really good platform strategy, which we’ve already built, and it leads off with our hero product called Asteroid, which is a US Food and Drug Administration-listed, over-the-counter medicine in the US – and we think it’s a bit of a Trojan horse.
What inspired you to start making products?
It started in England where I was doing a master’s degree, and my research was on why people do or don’t take their medicine. I’ve been a pharmacist since the 1980s, and one thing that came out a lot was that people were very unhappy about self-care.
There were lots of products they just didn’t really like, but one area in particular kept coming up – haemorrhoids. The issue was prevalent all over the world, but in the US especially – three out of four adults have the issue on and off their whole lives, so we’re talking about 155 million people.
Products that were out there didn’t work quickly enough or well enough, and had names that seemed to add to the embarrassment: Anusol, Proctosedyl, Rectinol and Preparation H. As a pharmacist myself, alongside my wife, who was a nurse, we started looking into making something better.
Asteroid is your marquee product. How did it come about?
For Asteroid, it had to work really well, and you had to have a look and feel that made people feel good about themselves. They’re trying to treat a pretty awkward problem, and the name Asteroid just desensitised everybody to it.
The beauty of our product is that it is 100% consumer-driven. Every single part of it was designed in response to the sufferers, from the formulation all the way down to the type of tube we use. When people get it subliminally, they love it because they designed it, so to speak.
The unusual part was choosing to find a New Zealand manufacturer. We felt it’d be really nice for New Zealand to have a role in this, but the products needed to be made in a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accredited laboratory. We found a contract manufacturer in Nelson who was able to make it for us, and we think it’s fantastic to have a US product coming out of the region.
I understand you’re raising capital to grow the business?
So we launched on Amazon and our own Neoqura platform in January 2026, but now we are raising up to $2 million from New Zealand investors to build a platform of 14 over-the-counter products to target the US market. The other products are things like tablets and capsules, so they’re not all ointments.
All 14 products have US FDA listings and are ready to go to market following Asteroid. The key is that while we are dealing with hemorrhoids, it’s really a digestive health category. It’s all to do with what you’re eating and your lifestyle/habits. Some of our other products will be for managing the condition, but our platform will also be able to serve as an educational tool as well.
We’ve really only just opened the capital raise, and we’re really looking for people who have had some experience in the market, particularly those who have done things like this before. People who understand e-commerce platforms will also be key, because this is what it’s really about. We’re also crowdfunding for this raise, because we want Kiwis to be a part of it.
What has been the biggest challenge in starting the business?
To be honest, it’s coming up with a formula that’s superior to everybody else’s, and that takes years. It’s working with the customers, saying ‘let me know how it goes’, and they ring you up two hours later giving their feedback. Finding a name was difficult as well.
After that, it’s all the regulatory stuff. It’s very complex, and there are lots of things that if you don’t understand it or do it right, the whole thing comes to a grinding halt. Many before us have gone that way, so that’s been the hardest part. But with all of that past us now, it’s validation seeing so many people using our products.
What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business?
You need to ask the people that you think are going to be using it what they think. Ask them what they are looking for, and not the other way around, coming up with something and then going out to find people who might like it. Everything needs to be customer-centric; it certainly was in this case for me all those years ago.
Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.