BioDesign iCough team wins 1st place at VANTEC: Vancouver and 2nd place at the Innovative Health Technologies competition sponsored by the Rick Hansen Institute and the Royal Bank of Canada.
Respiratory disorders possess the most prominent risk of death for more than 1.5 million individuals in North America with both acute and chronic neuromuscular deficiencies - spinal cord injuries, post-stroke and multiple sclerosis-related paralysis and other neuromuscular diseases.
Much of the morbidity, mortality and intense medical intervention associated with respiratory disorders are caused by these patients’ inability to cough effectively, leading to more than 8$ B USD in medical expenditure by insurance companies in the US and Canada.
iCough is engineered to give back control over coughing to patients with neuromuscular deficiencies.
iCough is a portable, patient-operated device utilizing clinically proven hyperinflative coughing to achieve what a natural effective cough would, in a safe and consistent manner.
How can that be achieved? an effective cough is dependent on 3 parameters, the amount of air inhaled, the residual air after exhalation and the time needed to exhale that air.
We designed a patient-operated portable system capable of delivering as much as 3 liters of compressed air to SCI patient lungs within a single breath, without compromising the patient or pushing secretion further into the lungs. The additional air increases the patient vital lung capacity, allowing the weak muscles and diaphragm to produce enough exhalatory force to significantly increase airway secretions clearance.
iCough an Israeli-based company arising out of Praxis’s Biodesign partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. iCough is now raising 1.2$ M to reach CA and FDA clearance by 2023.