LifeServe Innovations -- a student-run, ground-stage medical device company -- is bridging the gap between academia and medicine. And its founders hope to save some lives along the way.
Richard Arlow and Zachary Bloom formed LifeServe Innovations after completing undergraduate research at Lehigh University. While the company is incorporated in Pennsylvania, the two are in the process of moving LifeServe permanently to Ohio, where they are getting plenty of attention.
Arlow, a second-year medical student at Case Western Reserve University, says it was his work as an EMT where he began to realize needs in the medical field. "We started talking to emergency physicians and EMTs about what problems they had and we decided to hone in on the airway field," he says.
LifeServe's two products, Cobra Tracheostomy and Viper Cricothyrotomy, are both geared (using a snake's fang design) to open airways in the neck during last-resort emergencies for the delivery of oxygen.
"It was really shocking to see the tools that people are currently using," Arlow says. "A lot of these devices are horrible and can be extremely complicated � it can be even worse in battlefield situations."
So far LifeServe has raised $100,000 in funding, including $25,000 for taking first place at the Akron-based LaunchTown Entrepreneurship Awards last month. The company also won Goldstein Caldwell and Associates Pitch Day Competition in Cleveland in April. Arlow says the company is applying for additional grants from the government and the military.
LifeServe is still in the pre-clinical testing phase, but Arlow says the company will soon begin testing cadavers and a product on the market within one year � adding as many as five positions.
Source: Richard Arlow, LifeServe
Writer: Colin McEwen