A company investigating ways to keep patients cool is heating things up in a statewide competition for cash prizes and the possible investment of venture capital.
Kalamazoo’s
Advanced Cooling Therapy, LLC is one of 53 semifinalist companies that will deliver their business pitches to investors during the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition.
The event, Nov. 15-17 at the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Marriott at Eagle Crest, offers the chance to win a grand prize of $500,000 and other cash prizes. To be considered for prizes, the participating companies must be in the commercial stage of business development. More than 35 venture capital investors have confirmed they will participate.
Advanced Cooling Therapy is developing innovative devices to solve the critical problems healthcare providers face in controlling patients' temperatures.
The company has developed patent-pending biomedical devices that induce mild therapeutic hypothermia. The devices also can help maintain normal body temperatures and reduce fever in patients after cardiac arrest, during surgery, and in an intensive care unit.
The company says its devices are easier to use than existing methods, have been shown to double patients survival, and cost less than half the cost of competitors.
Unlike other temperature controlling technologies that go either on the surface or through the vein, ACT's system goes through the esophagus.
The U.S. market for temperature management is made up of 5,000 hospitals treating up to 1 million cardiac arrest patients, 3 million ICU patients, and 10 million surgery patients annually, the company says. It estimates that is a $1 billion annual market, growing at more than 15 percent per year.
Founded in 2009, ACT is in a partnership with the Michigan Medical Device Accelerator in Kalamazoo to leverage the region’s talent and medical device expertise, creating up to 50 jobs in the first five years.
To qualify for the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition prize monies, businesses must make a commitment to locate and grow in Michigan. The
Michigan Economic Development Corp. is a sponsor of Accelerate Michigan.
Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Michigan Economic Development Corp.
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