Guilford Med-Tech Company Lands $1.6M Gates Grant For Research

GUILFORD, CT — The Guilford-based medical tech company Hyperfine Research is using a $1.6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to see if its portable MRI machine can help prevent brain damage in infants at birth. The company said the study could help "low-resource" countries that don't have MRI technology.

As Patch reported earlier this month, Hyperfine's portable MRI technology won an American College of Emergency Physicians national innovation challenge. The 2020 incubatED Medical Device Innovation Challenge recognized the company's Swoop™ Portable MR Imaging System as an "innovation that will shape the future of emergency medicine."

Hyperfine said in a news release that the brain damage condition, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, is caused by birth asphyxia or limited blood flow to the brain, often occurring before or during birth. It's estimated to effect about 1.5 births per 1,000 live births.

And, given the World Health Organization says it's the fifth leading cause of death worldwide in children under the age of 5, and it's higher in developing countries, the "most important current treatment" involves "cooling the infant’s brain," which must be done as soon as possible, Hyperfine's portable MRI "could enable rapid identification of HIE, providing time-critical decision-making support to deploy therapeutic hypothermia as soon as possible."

The grant will pay for 20 Swoop™ devices be sent out to conduct the study.

“We are a mission in the form of a company — to make MR imaging accessible and affordable to everyone — and this research program is a perfect example of realizing that vision,” Hyperfine’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Khan Siddiqui said. “We are so appreciative of the support from the foundation to help us improve the lives of mothers and children in underdeveloped countries by providing immediate and affordable access to the technology they need to improve patient outcomes.”