Start-Up Previews, July 2015

Start-Ups Across Health Care

There are approximately 140,000 fatalities a year from postpartum hemorrhage, mostly in low- to middle-income countries, and thus a pressing need to reduce mortality. A new low-pressure suction device from InPress Technologies Inc.that is inserted into the uterus following childbirth has the potential to initiate blood control within two minutes and reach full restoration of uterine tone in just over two hours.

The growing trend of using magnetic resonance imaging for enhanced visualization is being augmented by MR-safe guidewires, but an MR-safe medical device must be non-ferromagnetic, must neither heat up nor be electrically conductive, and should not create imaging artifacts that obscure or distort the target image. A portfolio of MR-safe guidewires from Germany-based MaRVis Medical GMBH fulfills these requisites by successfully integrating good mechanical and visualization properties.

Medherant Ltd. 's drug delivery patch technology can accommodate medium or low potency drugs at a suitable saturation level to permeate the skin but without compromising adhesion, which existing patch technology has failed to achieve. This means that low potency drugs such as ibuprofen – the company's first product – can now be formulated into a patch rather than only being available in topical gel or cream.

Molecular Assemblies Inc. aimsto commercialize a “green” approach to DNA synthesis called EcoDNA. The start-up expects the biologically and enzymatically based technology to produce DNA strands up to 30 times longer than those made with the classical chemical methods.

French start-up MyoPowers Medical Technologies SAS aims to treat stress urinary incontinence with Artus, a permanent active implant designed to support the natural urinary sphincter and restore urinary continence.

Potrero Medical has enhanced a standard urinary drainage catheter to provide clinicians with critical physiological data to enable earlier detection of sepsis. The multi-lumen Accuryn catheter is able to track and trend in real time six clinical parameters: urine output, temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, intra-abdominal pressure, and relative stroke volume, and thus identify the signature physiological changes that occur with sepsis.

More than 50% of drugs sold in the US are natural products, or derivatives of them, but drugmakers have long since tired of sifting, sorting, and attempting to synthesize the typically large and complex molecules that nature produces. Revolution Medicines Inc. aims to develop a platform that will break natural products into “building blocks” that medicinal chemists can then assemble and tweak in ways never before possible.

Because anesthesiologists rely on “blind” needle guidance when administering spinal anesthesia, 20% to 60% of initial needle placements fail to provide adequate pain management during childbirth or general surgery. Rivanna Medical LLC believes its pocket-sized and untethered ultrasound system, Accuro, will allow for 100% accurate needle placement.