A novel cooling device: the future of therapeutic hypothermia is “Made in Italy”

This post has been originally published by Mary Franzese on medium.com

The revolution in the medical device sector has begun.

Let me introduce Neuron Guard, an Italian start-up that develops a medical device for emergency brain protection to treat patients in case of Acute Brain Damage (ABD), directly on the site of the event.

Our adventure starts in Modena in October 2012, when Enrico Giuliani files the first patent application for the cooling collar. The inspiration, that is the result of his strong scientific curiosity as well as a personal experience, leads him to design an innovative, intuitive and ease-to-use medical device specifically for Acute Brain Damage (ABD).

As a consequence of stroke, sudden cardiac death and traumatic brain injury, ABD is becoming one of the emerging challenges of modern Emergency Medicine with direct and indirect costs that may not be sustainable in the near future — according to World Health Organization, the annual global expenditure is $ 330 Billion, and $ 15.000 just for the emergency treatment.

It takes just 8 minutes for a portion of the brain to be irreversibly compromised.

Early on-site treatment is the key to protect the brain.

From the filing of the first patent application to the incorporation has been passed seven months: in May of 2013, Neuron Guard was born as innovative startup in order to participate in an accelerated program in Milan. At this stage, Enrico knows Mary Franzese, the economic and communicative soul of the company, who once finished a Master in Entrepreneurship and Corporate Strategy (MISA Program) at SDA Bocconi School of Management, decided to follow with him the dream of bringing a device capable of changing the treatment of acute brain damage.

Hypothermia, which means to lower the body temperature, is one of the most effective strategies to reduce ABD. We develop an on-site integrated solution made of a disposable refrigerating collar and a collar control unit. They are capable of achieving and maintaining a level of therapeutic hypothermia of the head district. In fact, rapidly cooling the brain significantly reduces the extension of the damage.

Our vision is to have a Neuron Guard kit in every public place, just like the AED (Automatic External Defibrillator), to empower bystanders to immediately react to an emergency.

Under this perspective the Neuron Guard device becomes a connected-intelligent device that not only takes care of the patient but also connects the scene with the Emergency Response System, transmitting vital data to improve the readiness and effectiveness of professional intervention.

We are often asked the question “Why this prototype?”. Our answer is quite simple: the market requires a medical solution such as the one we are developing to address one of the most important challenge of Emergency Medicine. Indeed, our solution is a life-saving medical device that has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of brain injuries and improve the life of millions of patients, with significant reduction of healthcare costs.

The Italian Patent was obtained in January 2015, which has been extended to several markets of interest (USA, Europe, UAE, Qatar, China, Russia, Brazil, India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Israel) in April 2015.

The revolution is based primarily on the positioning of our integrated system on ambulances, in the emergency services, in the hospitals. Our first users will be mainly persons belonging to the health sectors, such as doctors, paramedics, nurses, first responders in general: once arrived on an adverse event location, they will position the collar around the neck of the patient and will activate the control unit connected to it.

In a second step, once we reached a large share of the market, even the firefighters, the military and laypersons will be able to use our device because our most important dream is to transform the Neuron Guard kit in the Automatic Defibrillator for acute injuries, thanks to its positioning in all public places.

To date, we won several competitions. One of the most important is the Intel Global Challenge 2014 in the Category “Internet of Things Hardware”, and before that we obtained the 2nd place at Intel Business Challenge Europe, earlier that year. Intel Business Challenge before and Intel Global Challenge later offered us an important opportunity to raise the awareness regarding our start-up internationally and to create precious business contacts, across Europe and USA.

Neuron Guard has collected a total amount of 1 million euro, as a result of an initial investment by the founders, private investors and institutional grants. Thanks to the precious support of their family, Enrico and Mary were able together to finance their company for a total amount of 250K Euros, which added to the Grant “Start Up Innovative Regione Emilia Romagna 2013” and the entry of new Italian investors the last December 2015. They are private and institutional as well (A11 Venture, Lucca, which invests in innovative undergoing Seed startup capital, and facilitates the creation and development of innovative global business).

The capital raised will finance the next steps. In particular, we have recently initiated two important partnerships: the first, for the development and production of the first devices with TWI Ltd (UK), a well-known company, leader in the development on behalf of other companies of innovative products and medical devices; the second, for the pilot study on the first patients with the University of Cambridge (UK).

Finally, we are proud to announce that the results of the first experiment in the laboratory of brain hypothermia feasibility through the use of our cooling collar have been published on an international scientific journal, Neurocritical Care Journal.

This is an important step to offer this innovative solution to patients. We thank all those who have helped us reach this goal. This would not have been possible without all of them.

And remember: in this race to safe the brain every minute counts.

So, time is brain… Freeze it!

PS: if you are interested in joining our team, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are scouting hungry and foolish people like us.

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Link to the original article: A novel cooling device: the future of therapeutic hypothermia is “Made in Italy”