Lineus Medical earns coveted spot in Connecticut healthcare tech accelerator

by Talk Business & Politics staff ([email protected]) 825 views 

Healthcare startup Lineus Medical of Fayetteville is one of just 10 companies chosen for the inaugural class of the Digital Health CT accelerator.

The program is based in Hartford, Conn., and is operated by Startupbootcamp, a London-based organization for incubators and startups. Digital Health CT will begin Nov. 12, 2019, and will run for three months, concluding in February 2020 with a Demo Day.

Lineus Medical was one of 397 applicants vying for the initial cohort of 10 companies.

“It is a great honor to be selected into the first cohort of Digital Health CT,” CEO Vance Clement said in a statement. “During the interviewing process, the excitement of the entire Hartford Healthcare team and the City of Hartford was palpable. We can’t wait to get started on proving the clinical effectiveness of our SafeBreak Vascular product.”

Lineus Medical has developed a unique, patented, break-away IV technology that is being designed to work with a variety of medical tubing. Dislodgement of feeding tubes, IV lines, urinary catheters and any other type of medical line could be prevented by the device breaking into two pieces, and therefore protecting the patient’s medical line. The company’s first product, SafeBreak Vascular, fits into any standard IV tubing and will help prevent IV lines from failing.

The device has yet to receive clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is not yet for sale.

“Lineus Medical’s SafeBreak Vascular product is a very straightforward and practical solution for the problem of IV dislodgement,” Hartford Hospital’s IV Team Leader, Lee Steere, said in a statement. “The selection committee at Digital Health CT was impressed with Lineus Medical’s presentations and looks forward to helping Lineus move forward with their business. The team at Hartford Healthcare intends to formally evaluate the SafeBreak product and determine how our nurses and patients can benefit from using the SafeBreak. One of Digital Health CT’s purposes is to help us introduce new innovations into our system.”

Digital Health CT was established to attract medical and healthcare technologies to Hartford and is sponsored by Hartford HealthCare, Hartford-based Trinity College and the Mansfield-based University of Connecticut School of Business.

The cohort companies will receive support through mentorship and access to local resources as well as industry and investor connections to grow their businesses. The accelerator will also provide the companies with a place to test their products in a real world setting by providing access to the well-established medical community of Hartford.  The startups will also benefit from Startupbootcamps’ global network of resources that include 20+ industry focused programs across the world.

“The two-day selection process was extremely well organized, and we were really thrilled with the level of commitment and enthusiasm from Hartford Healthcare,” Lineus Medical founder Spencer Jones said. “Getting to meet the other startups was great as well. There were some very talented entrepreneurs with truly cutting-edge technologies. We feel blessed to have been selected out of such a high-quality group of businesses.”