Park tenants partner to develop medical products for the military
Hemodyne, a theranostic device company that maintains an office at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, was recently awarded a $70,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Army to develop a medical device that can be used as an alternative to the tourniquet for noncompressible hemorrhages.
Hemodyne has partnered with Bio•Track, LLC and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Reanimation Engineering Shock Center LINK TO (www.vcures.org) to produce a wide range of lightweight, durable medical devices appropriate for military personnel to use in austere, remote conditions. Among these products is a one-handed tourniquet that was developed utilizing feedback from the highly trained Special Forces Medics at the Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center in Fort Bragg, N.C. According to Devinder Bawa, president of Hemodyne, this research also identified the need for a device that can be used when a tourniquet cannot be applied to a wound.
“It is estimated that 10 percent of the soldiers killed on the battlefield bleed to death from extremity wounds,” said Devinder Bawa, president and CEO of Hemodyne. “Many of these lives could be saved by the prompt and effective use of a tourniquet. However, a subset of extremity injuries occur at a level that is not amenable to tourniquet application. Vascular injuries in the region of the groin continue to be largely untreatable on the battlefield.”
Dr. Kevin Ward, associate director of VCURES, states, “Troops incurring this subset of wounds are extraordinarily challenging to stabilize and treat, especially since they must simultaneously be removed from the battle area and may have to wait significant periods of time to reach definitive care. Good insight into the difficulty of this situation can be found in a scene from the movie ‘Black Hawk Down.’ Temporary stabilization strategies, which this grant will address, mean the device must be lightweight, rugged, and have a miniscule failure rate. Again, there is no golden hour in combat casualty care.”
During phase one of the grant, Hemodyne will develop a product that can be used to control hemorrhages in these difficult areas and demonstrate its feasibility in a (non-animal) model system. The company will then test efficacy of device and begin production for the military as well as civilian trauma settings. The partnership takes advantage of the VCURES Operation Purple Heart Program, which is a unique research endeavor focused on combat casualty care.
“With our country’s increased use of military operations far removed from traditional battlefield medical care, these devices will help save lives,” said Mark Licata, president of Bio•Track, LLC located at the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park.
Contact:
Courtney L. Skunda
Virginia BioTechnology Research Park
Phone: (804) 827-2137
E-mail: cskunda@vabiotech.com
Web site: http://www.vabiotech.com
Devinder Bawa
President and CEO
Hemodyne, Inc.
Phone: (240) 350-1110
E-mail: devinder@Hemodyne.com
Mark Licata
Bio-Track, LLC
Phone: (804) 828-9329
Web site: http://www.bio-track.com/
Kevin Ward, MD
Virginia Commonwealth University
Reanimation Engineering Shock Center
Phone: (804) 225-4861
E-mail: krward@vcu.edu
Web site: http://www.vcures.org/
