Preemie Pacer LLC landed a Phase II SBIR grant for $1.73 million to further develop a device that can be used in a clinical setting to help premature infants coordinate the tasks of feeding and breathing – without choking.
Tom Oleksy, Preemie Pacer founder
“They lack feeding synchrony. That is, they don’t suck out, swallow, breathe – in that sequence,” founder Tom Oleksy told the 4thEst8. “What we’ve been working on is a device that would actually meter the flow of fluid upon demand, that is, as the caregiver is observing visual cues, they could dose small amounts of fluids, when it’s obvious the patient is ready to swallow. The goal is to reduce that infant fatigue and physiological stress, but also make sure they are fed up to eight times a day.”
Oleksy says the device will cut down feeding times and improve patient health and get them out of the NICU faster.
The grant also covers testing out the device at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis where the company is partnered with NICU head Amit Mathur, M.D. And a latter part of the project is to develop feeding algorithms for infants of various post-menstrual age – to automate nutrition intake.
The company was founded in 2013 and landed a Phase I in 2017 for $149,917 and has labs at BioGenerator in the Cortex District of St. Louis.
