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Brio Device, LLC is a medical device company and spin-out of the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center based in Ann Arbor, MI. Brio develops airway management devices and intubation instruments.

PROBLEM: High Intubation Failure  

There are 20M+ intubations performed in the US every year. Depending on setting and skill of the clinician, failure rates range from 2% - 40% resulting in approximately 2,000,000 intubation failures every year. Intubation, the procedure to insert a plastic tube into the trachea, requires significant expertise and experience to do well.  With current products in the market, the tube often is inserted multiple times before it is properly placed, resulting in damage to the patient such as broken teeth, torn vocal cords, or insertion into the stomach leading to aspiration and pneumonia.  Three main factors affect intubation success rates: the user’s experience level, having directional control of the tube during insertion, and continuous visualization appreciated in bronchoscopes.  Clinicians need a single go-to device which is appropriate for use both in routine intubation and difficult airway cases offering guidance, maneuverability and visualization necessary to be successful. Failed intubation is the most common preventable cause of trauma-related deaths.  Approximately 180,000 deaths per year list complications associated with failed intubation.

SOLUTION: Brio’s Articulating & Video Stylets  

Brio is introducing a suite of products intended to improve intubation success rates for planned and emergent intubations, minimizing reliance on clinician skill for success.  The products range from disposable mechanical devices to devices with imbedded software providing anatomic image recognition guidance for the clinician. The devices have three critical elements to assist users in locating the trachea and maneuvering the endotracheal tube. 

1. Articulating tip with thumb-controlled steering

2. Continuous visualization

3. Visual guidance software 

BUSINESS MODEL

Brio’s core competencies are R&D, product development, sales and marketing of medical devices.  Projections are built on three revenue streams: two disposable stylets (one with and one without a camera) and a reusable video display.   Brio has an agreement with a manufacturing partner to facilitate design history files, regulatory compliance, manufacturing and customer service.

FUNDING  & MILESTONES

Brio has received $815,000 funding, including $690K in non-dilutive grants and $125k in convertible notes.  The Company has received Small Business Investigational Research (SBIR) Grants from the NIH.  

Easton Capital Investment Group is a venture capital firm based in New York. Easton Capital invests broadly in the life science sector, and considers investment opportunities globally. The firm is likely to make 4-6 allocations in the next 6 months. Allocations typically vary from $250,000 to $5 million, in the form of equity or convertible debt. Allocations are typically made at the venture stage of development, but may be made in seed rounds if a company already has proof of their product's efficacy.

Clayton Biotechnologies commercializes technologies that are developed and owned by the Clayton Foundation for Research and its supporting entities through research programs at leading research hospitals and institutions in the US and Switzerland.

We have several projects in various stages of development from discovery to advanced pre-clinical that are available for licensing, collaboration, and the creation of new start-up ventures.

Clayton Biotechnologies has a significant portfolio of technologies to offer for licensing and collaboration. 

Some of our featured technologies:

- Urocortins and analogues for Diabetes

- Fc engineering of aglycosylated antibodies

- Granzyme B - a potent payload for antibody drug conjugates (ADC)

- Alk4-Fc, a Cripto antagonist for Cancer

- TEAD gene and peptide therapies for ocular neovascular disease

- Stem cell therapy program for Parkinson's Disease

- Vaccines and Diagnostics for Ehrlichioses

- Biomarker for personalized breast cancer therapy

- YESS - engineering of proteases

- OCT Image Guided Smart Laser Knife Diagnosis and Therapy in Small Spaces

To date, 9 products based on Clayton Foundation discoveries have been have been successfully commercialized through the creation of start-up companies and out-licensing

FreeMind is a consultancy firm that specializes in raising funds from government agencies and other non-dilutive sources through grants and contracts.

FreeMind is the largest consulting group of its kind whose goal is to assist its clients in maximizing their potential to secure funding from non-dilutive sources. Established in 1999, FreeMind's proven long-term strategic approach has garnered its clients, academics and Industry alike, over $1.5 Billion to date. Our expertise in applying for grants and contracts extends throughout every government mechanism open to funding the life sciences including all NIH Institutes, DoD, BARDA, etc., as well as private foundations. FreeMind's knowledgeable and experienced team of Analysts and Project Managers are dedicated to guiding its clients' non-dilutive funding efforts from identification of the most suitable opportunity through to submission and subsequent award. Our team of experts will assist in making non-dilutive funding a key tool in a long-term financial strategy.

Subwave Sensing is poised to be the future of fracture care by giving the traditional orthopaedic hardware market an infusion of intelligence that will improve patient outcomes, decrease treatment costs and fundamentally change how fracture care is treated in the United States.

Western Oncolytics is developing a novel immunotherapy to treat a wide range of solid tumors.  Our therapy is an oncolytic vector with multiple therapeutic transgenes that both stimulate the immune system and remove local tumor immune inhibition.  The vector is engineered to avoid the immune system itself, thus overcoming a major drawback in competing designs.  It is the only therapy in the world with these leading attributes.  Western Oncolytics' therapy works in combination with other treatments, e.g. checkpoint inhibitors, and is capable of systemic (intravenous) delivery. 

Our team comprises the leading scientists, clinicians, and regulatory experts within our field, including entrepreneurs who successfully exited companies with earlier technologies.  In comparison animal testing measuring tumor growth and survival, our therapy performed far better than earlier, clinically-proven oncolytic therapies.

Western Oncolytics is currently raising investment to complete preclinical development and a planned clinical trial. 

Xeris is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing patient-friendly injectable drugs for various indications with an initial focus on diabetes. The current paradigm for many injectable drugs is to design formulations for delivery in water-based systems.  However, the presence of water is problematic because it actively degrades many molecules often preventing drug products from being packaged for use as a “ready-to-use” solution.  Xeris' patented and patent-pending XeriSol™ and XeriJect™ formulation technologies are transformative in their elimination of water. By replacing water with non-water, bio-compatible carriers already used in other FDA-approved drugs, Xeris solves a number of problems adding significant value to existing injectable drugs and to new drugs in development.  This technology is already being validated with the development of a non-aqueous glucagon formulation that has shown 24 months of room-temperature stability in solution and very positive safety and efficacy in a Phase 2 clinical study. While this product and other glucagon products are being developed and $20M has been raised to support this development, Xeris is seeking to spinoff its earlier stage non-glucagon assets and obtain funding (both equity and non-dilutive) to support these projects.  More specifically, these projects include the development of a non-aqueous, auto-injectable diazepam to replace the current diazepam rectal gel for treatment of epileptic seizures and a non-aqueous, intradermal auto-injectable epinephrine to replace the current, antiquated EpiPen.  

TEXO Ventures is a healthcare venture capital firm that was founded in 29 and is based in Austin Texas. The firm operates as a hybrid of angel and venture capital. The recent fund closed at $15.4 million in 212. The firm focuses on making equity investments in the Medical Technology and Healthcare IT spaces at near commercialization or early commercialization stage. The firm typically invests ranging from $3 million to $5 million into a company. The firm plans to make 2-3 investments over the next 6-9 month. TEXO Ventures is open to consider companies across the US. The firm primarily focuses on healthcare which includes Health IT Technology  enabled Health Services Chronic Disease Management Managed Care and Benefit Design. Although medical devices and functional diagnostics are considered for investment purposes Texo Ventures must see a clear regulatory pathway and obvious synergies with healthcare reform within a company. The firm's current investment portfolio includes companies in the area of medical technology. Within this field they are in areas such as diagnostic and therapeutic radiation devices electro mechanical medical devices re-usable instruments biomaterials and non-active implantable.

Immusoft’s mission is to develop a breakthrough platform for delivering targeted medicines — programming a patient’s own cells to become miniature drug factories.

Our technology instructs a patient's cells to constantly secrete gene-encoded medicines (biologics). It will enable new treatments by solving current delivery limitations and production challenges. We are initially targeting orphaned diseases. 

Immusoft’s platform can program cells to continually produce and secrete therapeutic proteins and rare antibodies that have been impossible to elicit with a vaccine. This approach makes possible treatments that are otherwise impractical due to short halflife, injection site reactions, production challenges or a small market size. It offers many of the benefits of traditional approaches and modern gene therapies with less risk and greater control.

Immusoft has received grants from the National Institutes of Health and Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs as well as support from private investors, including the former head of preclinical development at Seattle Genetics. We have an exclusive license option on our core technology from Caltech and have filed two additional patents covering our extensive modifications to the technology.

ISP technology could replace a lifetime of infusions with a patient’s own drug-producing cells.