Pacifiers are starting point for KU’s first medical device start-up company

November 7, 2006

LAWRENCE — Research by a University of Kansas professor on the care and treatment of premature babies has launched a new company called KC BioMediX Inc., which will bring the research to market and help premature babies get a better start in life and get home sooner.

Steve Barlow, professor of speech-language-hearing and director of KU’s Communication Neuroscience Laboratories, co-developed two medical devices as a result of his research at KU.

Patents are pending for the N-Trainer and the Actifier, which employ an electronic pacifier to assess and then improve a newborn baby’s essential motor skills, such as sucking, swallowing and breathing.

Delayed development of these functions can lengthen the newborn’s stay in the hospital and affect its growth.

Currently, a baby’s ability to suck and feed naturally is usually assessed and monitored by inserting a gloved finger into the baby’s mouth. This procedure provides a rough estimate at best. Once a diagnosis is made, the current standard of treatment is to wait for the baby to develop the ability naturally.

The N-Trainer and Actifier provide a high-tech assessment of the baby while "teaching" it a normal pattern of sucking behavior, allowing it to feed naturally.

"Along with colleague Don Finan at the University of Colorado, Dr. Barlow has developed a valuable technology that shows great commercial potential," said Jim Baxendale, director of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property at KU.

Barlow’s research was supported by a $2 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health. Under the grant, nearly 400 babies at hospitals in Kansas City and Topeka received the devices as part of their neonatal care. Babies in this clinical trial continued to be assessed by the Actifier for up to two years.

If further trials and product development are successful, it’s possible the N-Trainer and Actifier could become standard equipment in neonatal intensive care units.

KU and the University of Colorado issued a license to KC BioMediX that grants it the sole right to commercialize the research, in exchange for royalty payments. The company was formed earlier this year, with Mike Litscher, Lenexa, as president and David Stalling, Lenexa, as secretary and treasurer. Both have extensive experience in the management and start-up of research-based technology companies.

KC BioMediX is located at the Lawrence Regional Technology Center during its start-up phase. Matt McClorey, president of the center, serves as business adviser to the company.

"LRTC is excited about the commercialization potential of the devices," he said. "They appear to be breakthrough technologies that can benefit premature babies, while reducing the high cost of this care. LRTC looks forward to working with KC BioMediX to help get this new device to the market."

According to Stalling, "The availability of this technology coincided with our desire to establish a new medical device company in the Kansas City area. It also provided an opportunity to be part of the emerging bioscience business growth in Kansas."

Faculty and researchers at KU’s Lawrence campus have been involved in more than 10 company start-ups during the past five years. Technologies invented by KU researchers have been licensed to more than 36 companies, generating revenue that enables the university to recover patent costs while encouraging further entrepreneurial efforts by researchers like Barlow.

"Technology transfer is one important outcome of certain areas of research at KU," said Baxendale. "Not all research leads to licensing or a start-up, of course, but when it does it benefits everyone: consumers, inventors and KU."

Contact: Kevin Boatright, KU Center for Research, (785) 864-7240.