Sudbury med-tech company counts down to product launch: Flosonics Medical, developers of the FloPatch, are ready to commercialize as MedTech Innovators.

AuthorRomaniuk, Colleen

A startup medical device company from Sudbury is about six months away from commercializing its product after winning a prestigious award in Boston this fall.

Flosonics Medical, founded in February 2015, is focused on making a wearable ultrasound monitor to help clinicians with precision fluid management.

Joe Eibl explained that 10 years ago, it was common practice to treat critically ill patients with low blood pressure by indiscriminately pumping them hill of fluids, which would increase blood flow.

This technique was important for critically ill patients experiencing shock, sepsis, and any other kind of major trauma.

In the late 2000s, a body of research emerged in the medical community highlighting the dangers of this practice for some patients. Fluid resuscitation needed to be monitored closely, especially in people with weaker hearts.

Dr. Jon-Emile Kenny, who was an ICU doctor (and Eibl's college roommate), one day divulged how difficult and time-consuming it was to monitor a patient's fluid intake via traditional ultrasound. It was often a slow, inefficient two-man job.

Kenny and Eibl, along with Andrew Eibl and Sachit Harish, put their heads together after this conversation.

Their solution was to develop a really simple, push-button, peel-andstick device that any paramedic, nurse, or physician could use to monitor patient response to fluid intake in real time.

When Eibl and Kenny first developed the idea for the FloPatch, they had no idea where to start.

"I came out of academics, and Jon was coming out of the clinic," Eibl explained. "We didn't know anything about starting a medical device business."

They brought their idea to the NORCAT innovation mill and got connected to some mentors that helped point them in the right direction with their business plan.

The Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization taught Flosonics what they needed to know to become a financeable company, and their acceptance into the Lazaridis Institute's Scale-Up program set them up for global success.

Today, with the help of angel investments, multiple grants and awards, and the support of a wider network, Flosonics has secured development contracts with the Canadian and U.S. military, achieving international recognition.

This past summer, Flosonics announced that they had been selected as one of 50 medical device startups to attend the MedTech Innovator 2019 Showcase and...

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