JEFFERSONVILLE — It all started as a great idea.
University of Louisville MBA students Maggie Galloway, Adam Casson and Mary Nan Mallory came up with it in 2014.
Their concept was a special laryngoscope, a device that clears patients’ airways for a breathing tube during surgeries and other situations when a ventilator is needed. Theirs would use suction to better clear the area around a patient’s vocal chords. It was inspired by an incident when an unidentified physician struggled to treat a patient with life-threatening injuries as they juggled multiple pieces of equipment, according to a news release.
Three years later, the UofL students, now graduated and based in Jeffersonville, have launched their device, called the Inscope Direct, making it available to purchase for health care providers across the United States.
“That is a great milestone for us,” said Galloway, who is the CEO of Inscope Medical Solutions, the name of the medical device company created around the laryngoscope.
Now, she said, their device is actually impacting patient care.
Over the last few years, she and the rest of her team have been designing the device and clearing regulatory hurdles. They’ve also been raising money. Inscope has received hundreds of thousands in prize dollars for their idea, including $250,000 from Elevate Ventures, the company that manages the state of Indiana’s business investments.
Inscope is now focusing on launching its video laryngoscope, which uses WI-FI to stream video from the laryngoscope to a tablet. The device is expected to become available in 2018.
Inscope is focusing on its two original devices, but Galloway said that once the video laryngoscope is launched, the company will start working on other product ideas its employees have.