Significance: About one thousand patients suffer cardiac arrest in United States each day, only 11% of them survive. Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) has been demonstrated to increase the survival rate and neurological outcome of the cardiac arrest patients. Due to the limitation of existing cooling methods, such as slow cooling speed and/or late induction of hypothermia, none of these methods can meet the key requirements (i.e. the timing and speed with which the hypothermia to be induced) to gain the optimal benefits of hypothermia. It results in less than 10% of eligible patients actually benefiting from hypothermia treatment. Buy Time Medical (BTM) invented a novel cooling device to infuse ice slurry, a specially processed micro-particulate ice, into the blood vessel of cardiac arrest patient for rapid organ or body cooling. Pilot large animal experiment demonstrated that 2L ice slurry infusion can potentially cool the entire body of an adult human at a rate of 18.2C/hr, which is several folds faster than any other existing cooling methods. BTM?s ice slurry cooling device provides a new capability to induce hypothermia by paramedics to meet the timing and speed requirements for optimal outcome.
Specific aims : In this I-Corps training program, our three-member team will participate in on-site Course Kick-off and Course Close-out sessions, and weekly online Courses to build business model canvas. We will conduct 100 interviews to end-users and stakeholders that may influence our device on market. After each interview, we will gradually develop value proposition of our device; understand user-case and pain point to position our device; identify key activities, resources, and partners, and channels; and define cost structure. The results will be incorporated in Commercialization Plan of our phase II proposal and direct its research focus. Ultimately, the knowledge will help us to orient our regulatory, reimburse, distribution, and market strategies and generate significant socio-economic value.
Mild therapeutic hypothermia has been demonstrated to improve the patient survival rate and neurological outcome of cardiac arrest, which a leading cause of death in the United States. Our project is to develop and test a new cooling device that will be able to induce hypothermia earlier and quicker after onset of cardiac arrest and verify its feasibility in animal study using a swine model. I-Corps training will significantly help us define commercialization plan that eventually will save lives of cardiac arrest patients and generate socio-economic value.
