Minnesota startup wins $100k for device that monitors babies in intensive care
AcQumen Medical based in Minnesota created a device to measure blood flow in babies who are in neonatal intensive care.
Photo courtesy of Dori Jones
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Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Minnesota is known as a hub for medical technology, and a new startup in that field recently won an annual statewide business competition. Twin Cities based acumen medical walked away from this year's Minnesota cup with $100,000 in prizes. Its winning idea is a device to measure blood flow in babies who are neonatal intensive care. Clinical trials for the device will begin later this week.
AcQumen Medical co-founder and CEO Dori Jones joins me now to talk about it. Thanks for being here this afternoon, Dori.
DORI JONES: Thank you so much for having me, Nina.
NINA MOINI: And congratulations on all of these steps in bringing this idea that you've had to life. I'm sure it's been really, really hard work. I know most people are probably familiar with measuring blood pressure or even blood oxygen. But tell us why a doctor needs to measure a patient's blood flow and how this tool became an idea for you.
DORI JONES: Yeah, absolutely. So as you said, blood pressure, and heart rate are ubiquitous across all of clinical care. So every time you go to the doctor's office you get your blood pressure. I like to think of blood pressure as how strong is your blood pumping throughout the body and heart rate is how fast, but blood flow is actually how much blood is actually making it to the tissue, to the organs to deliver oxygen and nutrients.
So it's really just as important, if not more important than the other parameters. It's just really difficult to get which is why we don't hear about it that often.
NINA MOINI: So what tools do doctors have to use right now and were they not working well for infant patients?
DORI JONES: So typically the standard in blood flow measurements would be using ultrasound technologies, which typically is intermittent. A sonographer or physician may do an assessment of blood flow, but it's a one time measurement. But to get a true cardiac output reading, which is literally how many liters per minute of blood is being pumped around the body, you need an invasive catheter inserted into your neck or groin that's actually inserted into the heart to directly measure that flow.
And that really is not practical or safe in small pediatric patients. So that's where the idea of a noninvasive tool becomes really important.
NINA MOINI: So you had a background in medical devices. You had these co-founders and zeroed in on this issue, but I understand you also had some personal experience with this when you had your son. Do you want to share a little bit about how maybe this device would have factored in to something like that?
DORI JONES: Yeah. So my son was in the NICU or the neonatal ICU when he was born. He had a breathing issue and needed to be on a breathing machine for support. Gratefully, he recovered quickly and started eating and was able to go home sooner than other NICU babies and stories that I've heard.
But he did end up back in the ICU when he was four months old with a breathing issue again. And at that time, I had gone to a community hospital where they really were just assessing his pulse ox measurement, which is the finger cuff that you get to measure oxygen. And his oxygen levels were very low, but they didn't have other tools to really understand the cause of that low oxygen level or how it might be impacting other organs.
And so the doctors tried a few things. We ended up being sent by ambulance to an academic medical center 45 minutes away, where he ultimately ended up on breathing support again. But I imagine had that community hospital even had access to noninvasive blood flow monitoring, they would have had a better understanding of his condition and known quicker how to get him on that support.
NINA MOINI: So you know so much that the need is there, which probably drives some of the ambition that you've had behind AcQumen Medical, which I understand is based here, you're based in Connecticut right now. And I'm wondering about this $100,000 from the Minnesota Cup, congratulations.
When you're starting out like this and you're starting a new company and developing it, how big of a deal is it to go to these different types of competitions, not only for monetary support, but also just to maybe word of mouth or grow the brand?
DORI JONES: Yeah, absolutely. That exposure is really critical for us right now to be able to get access to certain resources. I will say every time I talk to somebody in this field, whether it's in the clinical field or the medical device industry, they have some connection that they want to make for me or some tip for our business.
As you said, it is challenging, but access to the programming at Minnesota Cup and some of the other programs that we've done has been really impactful for us. And also, just getting that feedback from the judges, from the audience, to see that people really care about what we're doing has been incredible.
NINA MOINI: So what is happening now with the start of the trials? Is that exciting for you? I'm sure that's a big step in the process.
DORI JONES: Absolutely. It's very exciting. Up until now we have tested our technology with bench testing. So in an engineering lab and with volunteers, including my own two sons who have been willing to put ours on, again, it's noninvasive, but to get it into a clinical setting with the doctors that are caring for these patients, and to see it in action, of course, we're very excited.
NINA MOINI: And then what is the timeline for something like this? I mean, I imagine it would be a long time before it would be maybe in use in a medical facility.
DORI JONES: Yes. So typically with medical devices, there is a long timeline. You have to go through an approval process with the FDA. We are fortunate in two respects. One, it being a noninvasive device puts us in a different category with the FDA so that we can streamline that approval process.
But second, our technology is actually an integration of two different technologies. So we use ultrasound and we also use an impedance monitoring technique that uses electrodes on the skin, like an EKG. And that portion of the technology, the impedance portion has already had approval through the FDA. So that helps us as well.
We're able to build upon an existing technology, and making these improvements with ultrasound really makes it a viable solution, especially for pediatric patients. So we're anticipating that we'll have this available in the market in 2027, which in the medical device field, is pretty fast.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And then just describe for me again just the noninvasive aspect why this is more conducive to an infant patient.
DORI JONES: So I mentioned those invasive procedures. There are a few other methods of monitoring blood flow. But the size of the patients obviously is a factor. So if they needed to use an arterial line as an example where they insert a catheter into the patient's arm, these patients are so tiny, it just is not practical and introduces risk of infection.
And the other technologies that may be noninvasive even ultrasound, there's not a lot of validation work done in pediatrics. Most technologies are designed for adults. And we often say children and babies are not just small adults, they have unique characteristics. The way that their anatomy and physiology is and the way it changes is very unique to that patient age group.
And so we're starting in pediatrics in the area of most need and really designing for that use case. But in the future maybe the potential to expand beyond.
NINA MOINI: Awesome. Dori, thanks so much for stopping by Minnesota Now and telling us about your work. Really appreciate your time.
DORI JONES: Really appreciate it. Thanks, Nina.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Dori Jones is co-founder and CEO of the company AcQumen Medical.
AcQumen Medical co-founder and CEO Dori Jones joins me now to talk about it. Thanks for being here this afternoon, Dori.
DORI JONES: Thank you so much for having me, Nina.
NINA MOINI: And congratulations on all of these steps in bringing this idea that you've had to life. I'm sure it's been really, really hard work. I know most people are probably familiar with measuring blood pressure or even blood oxygen. But tell us why a doctor needs to measure a patient's blood flow and how this tool became an idea for you.
DORI JONES: Yeah, absolutely. So as you said, blood pressure, and heart rate are ubiquitous across all of clinical care. So every time you go to the doctor's office you get your blood pressure. I like to think of blood pressure as how strong is your blood pumping throughout the body and heart rate is how fast, but blood flow is actually how much blood is actually making it to the tissue, to the organs to deliver oxygen and nutrients.
So it's really just as important, if not more important than the other parameters. It's just really difficult to get which is why we don't hear about it that often.
NINA MOINI: So what tools do doctors have to use right now and were they not working well for infant patients?
DORI JONES: So typically the standard in blood flow measurements would be using ultrasound technologies, which typically is intermittent. A sonographer or physician may do an assessment of blood flow, but it's a one time measurement. But to get a true cardiac output reading, which is literally how many liters per minute of blood is being pumped around the body, you need an invasive catheter inserted into your neck or groin that's actually inserted into the heart to directly measure that flow.
And that really is not practical or safe in small pediatric patients. So that's where the idea of a noninvasive tool becomes really important.
NINA MOINI: So you had a background in medical devices. You had these co-founders and zeroed in on this issue, but I understand you also had some personal experience with this when you had your son. Do you want to share a little bit about how maybe this device would have factored in to something like that?
DORI JONES: Yeah. So my son was in the NICU or the neonatal ICU when he was born. He had a breathing issue and needed to be on a breathing machine for support. Gratefully, he recovered quickly and started eating and was able to go home sooner than other NICU babies and stories that I've heard.
But he did end up back in the ICU when he was four months old with a breathing issue again. And at that time, I had gone to a community hospital where they really were just assessing his pulse ox measurement, which is the finger cuff that you get to measure oxygen. And his oxygen levels were very low, but they didn't have other tools to really understand the cause of that low oxygen level or how it might be impacting other organs.
And so the doctors tried a few things. We ended up being sent by ambulance to an academic medical center 45 minutes away, where he ultimately ended up on breathing support again. But I imagine had that community hospital even had access to noninvasive blood flow monitoring, they would have had a better understanding of his condition and known quicker how to get him on that support.
NINA MOINI: So you know so much that the need is there, which probably drives some of the ambition that you've had behind AcQumen Medical, which I understand is based here, you're based in Connecticut right now. And I'm wondering about this $100,000 from the Minnesota Cup, congratulations.
When you're starting out like this and you're starting a new company and developing it, how big of a deal is it to go to these different types of competitions, not only for monetary support, but also just to maybe word of mouth or grow the brand?
DORI JONES: Yeah, absolutely. That exposure is really critical for us right now to be able to get access to certain resources. I will say every time I talk to somebody in this field, whether it's in the clinical field or the medical device industry, they have some connection that they want to make for me or some tip for our business.
As you said, it is challenging, but access to the programming at Minnesota Cup and some of the other programs that we've done has been really impactful for us. And also, just getting that feedback from the judges, from the audience, to see that people really care about what we're doing has been incredible.
NINA MOINI: So what is happening now with the start of the trials? Is that exciting for you? I'm sure that's a big step in the process.
DORI JONES: Absolutely. It's very exciting. Up until now we have tested our technology with bench testing. So in an engineering lab and with volunteers, including my own two sons who have been willing to put ours on, again, it's noninvasive, but to get it into a clinical setting with the doctors that are caring for these patients, and to see it in action, of course, we're very excited.
NINA MOINI: And then what is the timeline for something like this? I mean, I imagine it would be a long time before it would be maybe in use in a medical facility.
DORI JONES: Yes. So typically with medical devices, there is a long timeline. You have to go through an approval process with the FDA. We are fortunate in two respects. One, it being a noninvasive device puts us in a different category with the FDA so that we can streamline that approval process.
But second, our technology is actually an integration of two different technologies. So we use ultrasound and we also use an impedance monitoring technique that uses electrodes on the skin, like an EKG. And that portion of the technology, the impedance portion has already had approval through the FDA. So that helps us as well.
We're able to build upon an existing technology, and making these improvements with ultrasound really makes it a viable solution, especially for pediatric patients. So we're anticipating that we'll have this available in the market in 2027, which in the medical device field, is pretty fast.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And then just describe for me again just the noninvasive aspect why this is more conducive to an infant patient.
DORI JONES: So I mentioned those invasive procedures. There are a few other methods of monitoring blood flow. But the size of the patients obviously is a factor. So if they needed to use an arterial line as an example where they insert a catheter into the patient's arm, these patients are so tiny, it just is not practical and introduces risk of infection.
And the other technologies that may be noninvasive even ultrasound, there's not a lot of validation work done in pediatrics. Most technologies are designed for adults. And we often say children and babies are not just small adults, they have unique characteristics. The way that their anatomy and physiology is and the way it changes is very unique to that patient age group.
And so we're starting in pediatrics in the area of most need and really designing for that use case. But in the future maybe the potential to expand beyond.
NINA MOINI: Awesome. Dori, thanks so much for stopping by Minnesota Now and telling us about your work. Really appreciate your time.
DORI JONES: Really appreciate it. Thanks, Nina.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Dori Jones is co-founder and CEO of the company AcQumen Medical.
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