Hartford Business Journal

10 Hartford Business Journal • September 14, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com Startup leverages mobile tech for home care By Matthew Broderick Special to the Hartford Business Journal A s the new CEO of Loon Medical Inc., a medical device startup founded in Tolland, George Panciera can relate to his target consumers. He knows first- hand — like many Baby Boomers — the challenges of play- ing caregiver to an aging parent determined to stay in his or her home, often unattended. "My siblings and I cared for our 95-year-old father who wanted to remain in his home of 60 years," Panciera said. But outside of hiring expensive around-the-clock home care, which his father did not want, Panciera noted, it was difficult to monitor his dad's safety. He hopes his company's new product suite — expected to launch this month — will help others with similar family situations. Loon Medical's blue-tooth enabled medical devices will include a sensor for chairs and beds that not only collect and store data about an elderly client's movements and behaviors, but can also send alerts to caregivers. Call it home care 2.0. "Our product is differentiated by its connectivity to mobile technology," Panciera said. "Most competitors offer a single product, like a chair, that may send out a sound if a person moves from it, but a caregiver needs to be physically present [to hear the alert]." Loon Medical's suite — which also includes a toilet sensor and sensor to track incontinence planned for release in 2016 — allows a caregiver to monitor someone remotely. While technology-enabled home health care cur- rently accounts for only about 3 percent of national healthcare spending — an estimated $68 billion — it is projected to grow at nearly 9 percent annually, accord- ing to a report by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The reason for that growth is the combination of a popu- lation that is both aging and saturated with mobile technol- ogy, said Heidi Douglas, who co-founded Loon Medical 18 months ago with her husband, Joel. In fact, according to U.S. Census figures, between now and 2050, the number of Americans over age 65 is expected to nearly double to 83.7 million. And with life-expectancies increasing, people are playing the role of caregiver for longer periods of times. "There are many adult children who are caring now for both parents and grandparents, in addition to their kids," Douglas said. "It's a real sandwich generation." As healthcare costs get less concentrated in clinics and hospitals and medical devices and diagnostic equipment evolves, the home-based healthcare market is expected to grow significantly. While the market opportunity is huge, Douglas said, the company needed to start small. With $485,000 in funding from Connecticut Innovation's (CI) Bioscience Innovation Fund, Loon Medical has developed nearly 1,500 units of its main product suite for its initial launch. "The CI funding was criti- cal to us and helped us develop our prototypes, develop soft- ware and our cloud-based plat- forms," Douglas said. Douglas said Loon Medi- cal, which recently moved to Norwich, is collaborating with a few homecare organizations in Connecticut to continue to gather additional information and feedback about her products. "We have no doubts about [our product suite's] reliability," she said, noting Loon Medical is an FDA-licensed manufacturer. "But we want to learn from our clients and our analytics." It is those detailed cloud-stored analytics, contends Panciera, that provides the real benefit of Loon Medi- cal's technology. "It helps to show caregiver's patterns of behavior and at an affordable cost," he said. The chair and bed sensors will retail for $150 and are durable enough to last about a year. While Panciera is bullish on the company's launch — he expects the initial suite to bring in around $1.5 million in 2016 and double the following year — he knows cash flow is needed to grow the company and expand its product line. The company will be launching a crowdfunding cam- paign to raise awareness and funds this fall, but Loon is also targeting angel investors for larger-scale investments. "We're hoping to raise $1.5 to $2 million," Panciera said. That additional funding will be used to continue devel- opment of its products, which Joel Douglas, a co-founder, hopes to expand beyond mobile-connected sensors that track movements. "We'd like to [eventually] develop prod- ucts that can help people [remotely] monitor physiological things like glucose levels and temperature," he said. Panciera said he'd like to grow the company and prod- uct line so it can be acquired by a larger company. That, he says, will potentially help make Loon Medical's home health technology available to a much broader — and aging — population that he knows firsthand will need it. n Q&A Medical device maker bets on aging population Q&A talks with Ilana Odess, CEO of Manchester-based Woven Orthopedic Technologies. Q: What is Woven Ortho- pedic and what is it hoping to achieve (or what has it achieved) in the healthcare industry? A: Woven Orthope- dic Technologies is an orthopedic company that designs and devel- ops bio-textile devices to improve fixation in bone. We address the most commonly used device in our indus- try, the orthopedic screw, and intend to reduce the human and economic costs of complications and reoperations caused by inadequate screw fixation. With today's aging population, we are on the verge of a momentous shift in the number of elderly people across the world. Increased activ- ity and longer life expectancies are resulting in more bone-related conditions (e.g. arthritis and osteo- porosis) and more bone-related injuries (e.g. fragility fractures and revisions) in the elderly popu- lation than ever before. Our goal at Woven Orthopedics is to offer specialty orthopedic treatments designed solely for the aging popu- lation. We call it OrthoGeriatrics. Q: Your company has been working closely with the Con- necticut Small Business Devel- opment Center (SBDC) for both investments and recruitment. How is the market for both? Is there sufficient human capital to meet your employment needs in Greater Hartford? A: We've had an outstanding experience with SBDC thus far. We've been working very closely with our SBDC business adviser who has helped us understand the resources available within the state and introduced us to people we have hired and investors who have invested in our business. From a recruitment standpoint, we've had success finding busi- ness talent in the Hartford area but struggle to find engineers and people with technical experience in the medical device space. Q: What are some of the short-term goals for Woven Orthopedic? A: We are currently conducting biomechanical testing and animal studies with the goal of proving the clinical significance of our technol- ogy. We think there is a lot of oppor- tunity in the healthcare industry for products that offer superior results at less cost. With a rapidly aging population and ballooning healthcare costs around the world, focus has shifted towards both bet- ter care and reduced costs instead of just better care. Q: How is Con- necticut poised in the medical device industry? Is it a good place to do business? A: We're confident in the state of Con- necticut because of its talent and central location to two major healthcare hubs in Boston and New York. The type of manu- facturers and highly reputable education and hospital facilities within state borders provide a fan- tastic ecosystem to help design, develop and test healthcare prod- ucts. There is also a solid venture capital industry here, so access to funding is strong, especially through Connecticut Innovations, one of the most active venture funds in the country in regards to supporting startups. One thing I'd like to see evolve is the distribution of businesses. The majority of health care here is within biotechnology or insur- ance. It would be great to see more medical device businesses relocate to Connecticut. Having similar companies within one area promotes collaboration and mutual innovation. The state already has programs to attract new businesses like the Small Business Express program run by the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD). We were fortunate enough to obtain $400,000 in capi- tal from the Express Program. If the state continues to develop new programs to support startups, I think we will start to see Connect- icut become a very powerful hub for a broader range of healthcare companies in the future. Q: You spoke at Yale last year and shared five lessons for entrepreneurs. How would you tailor that message for healthcare entrepreneurs? A: The ability to execute is what separates those who fail from those who succeed. There is no doubt in my mind that a com- pany can succeed if it: fills a real unmet need; develops a detailed plan of action; builds a great team; adapts as new information is learned; and pursues its goals relentlessly. n ILANA ODESS Woven Orthopedic Technologies George Panciera, CEO, Loon Medical Inc. Heidi Douglas, co-founder, Loon Medical Inc. Loon Medical's products include bed and chair sensors that collect and store mobile data about an elderly person's movements. P H O T O | C O N T R I B U T E D FOCUS HEALTHCARE

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