Successful entrepreneurs share a key trait: they excel
at managing risk. In 2017, Amanda (CEE 12) and Travis (ME 13) Davis faced the
challenge of a giant leap into entrepreneurship head on. The couple left
successful jobs at NASA and moved to Dublin, Ireland, to launch two medical
device companies. Amanda is leading Diaspense™, which specializes in patient
centric diabetic products. Travis is the chief technical officer for Starling
Surgical. The startup is developing a new wound closure device that could fit
well into the $7 billion global market for this procedure.
The couple didn’t make the decision to leave secure
jobs lightly. “We’re engineers, so we overthink many of our decisions,” jokes
Travis. In fact, the couple found their engineering background at South Dakota
Mines key to their continued success as entrepreneurs. “It’s a balancing act
between careful planning, research, and bold leaps,” says Amanda.
In the medical
device field, there are countless unknowns. “Do you understand the needs of the
market? Do you need patents? Do you need FDA approval? When should you hire
someone who knows the process to help?” says Amanda.
“It’s not for the faint of heart. The research and the
regulatory process can be a real bear, but if you take it step-by-step and
follow a plan, you can achieve success” says Travis.
The Quest for Pain
The first step in developing a new medical device is
knowing the market. As a type 1 diabetic, Amanda’s own experience as a patient
gave her personal knowledge of the “pain points” in the marketplace.
“It was early morning and my blood sugars were low—I
was shaking and struggling to set up my blood glucose meter,” remembers Amanda.
“My struggling woke my husband and he hurried to help. I had a brand-new vial
of test strips and my husband, fully awake, still had a tough time hurriedly
retrieving a single test strip for my meter. Finally, after dumping the entire
container of test strips on the counter, we were able to check my blood
glucose. Not surprisingly, I had very low blood sugar. Travis sprinted to the
kitchen to get a juice box to bring my blood sugar back into range, then asked,
‘Isn’t there an easier way to get those out?’”
This is how Amanda’s company, Diaspense, was born. The
couple’s invention, a cap on the bottle of test strips that dispenses one strip
at a time, is now available for sale, and it’s receiving rave reviews from
users. The lesson here, says Amanda, is “stop thinking that someone else will
find a solution.” She knew the need for a new product and she had the
engineering expertise and the entrepreneurial drive to create a
patient-centered solution. Her product is a textbook example of the best way to
get a foothold in the medical device field.
“Find a need that needs to be filled,” says Travis.
This phase of medical device business development generally requires careful
observation and a lot of research. “It’s an additional skill above our
engineering degrees. To be successful, you spend a lot of time observing
patients.”
Capitalizing Opportunity
Travis is the CTO of Starling Surgical. The company is
tackling the challenge of wound closure with a product called “QuickStitch.”
This is no small market. There are 250 million surgeries each year — 450 every
second. The idea behind the technology came from Travis’s partner, Starling
Surgical CEO Cyrus Doctor, a trauma and orthopedic surgeon who saw a need for
better ways to close a wound after performing thousands of surgeries.
During an operation, such as a hip replacement,
closing the laceration quickly and then limiting infection risk during healing
can dramatically improve patient survival rates. There are two primary options
on the marketplace—sutures, which are slow to administer but have a lower
infection rate, and staples, which are fast but have a higher infection rate.
QuickStitch provides superior sutures at stapler speed. The device allows
surgeons to quickly close a wound with optimal post-operative healing.
The product is making a big splash. The pre-clinical
results of the patent pending device have received rave reviews from industry
leaders. Starling Surgical has also secured about $1 million in funding from
Enterprise Ireland and EIT health. QuickStitch is in the FDA approval process
with plans to spin out of Trinity College Dublin (where Travis is based) in
late 2020. Starling Surgical is maintaining the momentum needed to carry their
product to market as it continues to seek investors to help make the leap into
manufacturing.
Growing Greener Grass
Ireland is well known for its mind-blowing level of
green. Parts of the country receive annual rainfall best measured in feet, not inches.
The lush landscape underpins Ireland’s traditional economic mainstays
agriculture and tourism. About twenty years ago, medical technology industry
leaders in Dublin and the surrounding cities made a move beyond medical device
manufacturing and into research and development. They cultivated a cooperative
ecosystem that allowed various players to work together for the benefit of
everyone. Today, Ireland’s biomedical sector is recognized as a global hub that
touts centers for major industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson,
Medtronic, Pfizer, and Boston Scientific.
“It’s grown into the main driver of the area’s
economy,” says Travis. “They started by building an environment that allowed
small companies to thrive and that attracted larger firms.” Travis and Amanda
see potential in this model for the Black Hills. “If we looked at all our
strengths in South Dakota we could do this as well, as long as we can make sure
everyone complements each other’s efforts,” adds Amanda.
“The human capital is here thanks to South Dakota
Mines and area universities,” says Travis. The couple sees promise in the
building of the new Ascent Innovation campus in Rapid City. They also give praise
to programs on the South Dakota Mines campus like the Entrepreneurs in
Residence, CEO Business Competition, and the Braun Inventors Award. “These
weren’t at Mines when I was a student eight years ago. I encourage current
students to take advantage of these opportunities,” says Travis.
Bend, Don’t Break in the Wind
Travis and Amanda welcomed their first child on March
11, a healthy boy, Rory Floyd Davis. Like any good entrepreneurs, they are
flexible in molding their plans to conform with their life goals.
The couple has moved back to the United States be
closer to family
Amanda keeps very busy wrangling new baby Rory while also answering emails from
Diaspense.com and DavisD4.com,
which helps its clients build prototypes, develop websites, and create
marketing plans.
“We were lucky to be in and out of the hospital before
things began getting too crazy with the COVID-19 outbreak. We are thankful to
be able to work from home during this time, especially with our new little
family member,” says Amanda.
Travis writes “Starling Surgical is transitioning to a
point that I had completed a large part of the exploratory research and design.
We have grown the team and I have stepped back from full time to free up more
of our budget for manufacturing and hiring. I still have periodic calls with
the team to work with them on the overall vision and continued fundraising
efforts. It is great to see the company growing and we have a long way to go,
but it is exciting to see how far we have already come.”
Travis accepted a position with Blue Origin as a test
engineer II in Huntsville, Alabama, at the Marshall Space Flight Center Test
Area. He is on the team that test fires the BE-3 and BE-4 rocket engines for
Blue Origin. He has transitioned to working from home.