Fosmo Med’s motivation is simple: We want to save lives through technology.
This year around 2.2-million children will die of dehydration caused by diarrhoea. Many of these children could be saved simply by having access to an IV. But, due to the high logistical costs of shipping a saline IV bag to remote parts of the world, often these people do not receive treatment and die.
Dr. Dhiman Barua has seen this first-hand. He started working for the World Health Organization in 1965 and has trained health workers in many countries in oral rehydration therapy and other aspects of diarrhoeal diseases. Dr. Barua describes his first experience with cholera in this excerpt from an interview in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization:
“My first memory of cholera was when I was 11. The village in what is today Bangladesh was dying of cholera. I asked the doctor why and he told me that the only treatment was intravenous saline (IV) and that, without it, people die. And before my eyes, the doctor, his wife – who was related to me – and their two daughters died. Our household was not affected, but most households in the village were affected. People died like flies. That was really shocking.”
At Fosmo Med, we believe we can help save lives by providing our IV bag solution to NGOs around the world. Our solution will significantly lower shipping costs, provide safer storage, and improve transport to hard-to-reach regions throughout the world. This could eventually save hundreds of thousands of lives annually.
Here are what some leading influencers are saying about Fosmo Med:
“After bringing hundreds of physicians in dozens of trips to disaster areas — including New Orleans after Katrina, Haiti and Japan — my sore back can attest to the difficulty of physically bringing IV fluids into disaster zones. Airlines allow only 50 pounds per checked-in luggage, which can carry only a few IV bags. If I instead had the ability to bring dry IV bags that could be filled up at the location of the disaster, I could help save many, many more lives. This need is made even more acute by recent outbreaks of diseases that cause severe dehydration, such as cholera, which we have been treating in Haiti. Cholera in Haiti is quite simple to treat — you can save lives if you can rehydrate victims and give them almost any antibiotic. Their lives are mostly saved by the rehydration, and often survive even if they cannot receive any antibiotic.
Please help save lives by helping Fosmo Med bring its IV hydration product to market.”
Enoch Choi, MD, Medical Director, Jordan International Aid, a 501c3 disaster relief organization
“Fosmo Med is creating a revolutionary solution to a costly care-delivery issue. The Fosmo Med System has a unique and unprecedented potential to meaningfully alter the way patients are cared for nationally and internationally, during both routine and emergent care. The intuitive and cost-altering approach is overdue in its readiness for use by clinicians in the care of patients.”
Diane M. Cooper, PhD, Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing
“As a Director of Spend Management for Cardinal Health’s “M” segment and someone from inside the healthcare industry for more than 25 years — including Boston Scientific, Pharma and Oncology Distribution — I am extremely confident the Fosmo Med product line is staged (pending FDA approvals) to overtake and change the world of healthcare IV solution technology. All medical surgical manufacturers and distributors of healthcare IV and irrigating solutions will be overwhelmed with the stellar performance of Fosmo Med product lines.”
Phillip E. Pellerin, MD Foundry, Senior Advisor Board member – Medical Device Technologies
Our Motivation
Who We Are
Fosmo Med is pioneering Forward Osmosis (FO) technology that allows IV solutions to be made using any kind of water at the point of care.
Shipping IV bags without water provides the following advantages:
- Reduces shipping and other logical costs
- Increases product shelf life
- Reduces storage costs
- Reduces the risk of scrap due to leakage
The initial target for Fosmo Med products are disaster relief organizations such as the Red Cross, governments and military around the world.
Fosmo Med will partner with existing manufacturers and distributors to serve the current market.
Our Mission
Fosmo Med was founded to save the lives of millions of people who are not receiving treatment because they don’t have access to the most basic of medical supplies: an IV bag while provide a great return to our investors.
IV solutions have not changed since the 1970s, when bottles were replaced with plastic bags. Although a step in the right direction, current IV bags are still 90% water. They’re expensive to ship, have a short shelf life, and are prone to leakage.
Fosmo Med thinks it has a better solution. We are revolutionizing the logistics of IV bags by shipping them without water. Once onsite, our Forward Osmosis technology converts dirty water to clean and sterile water to create a complete IV solution.
Team
Ben Park is the CEO and Founder of Fosmo Med. He is a serial entrepreneur with two successful exits in the past. Park was a Founder and VP of Marketing at Scentric, which was sold to Broadcom, and VP of Marketing at Infrant Technologies, which was sold to Netgear. He has been successful at targeting the right products to the right customers for various companies in the past. He has held product and marketing management positions for companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 firms. Park holds a BS in electrical engineering from UC Davis and an MBA in marketing from Golden Gate University.
Board of Advisors
Linda McAllister, MD PhD, is currently the Chief Medical Officer for CellScape. Previously she was the Chief Medical Officer for PharmaJet, a medical device company developing needle-free jet injection that has closed a pivotal clinical trial of influenza vaccine delivery. She was also Executive VP of Diagnostics and Chief Medical Officer of Arbor Vita Corporation. Dr. McAllister has experience in research, product development, clinical development, and business development in the biomedical field, working for companies such as Roche Diagnostics, Celera Corporation and Affymetrix.
She has been a clinical faculty member at University of California, San Francisco for 10 years and has done a post-doctoral fellowship with Drs Pat Brown and David Botstein at Stanford University School of Medicine. She finished her residency at UCSF School of Medicine. She holds MD and PhD degrees from Stanford University and a Bachelors degree from California Institute of Technology.
Dr. Enoch Choi, MD, is a full-time physician practicing urgent care as a partner at Palo Alto Medical Foundation. He coordinates medical disaster relief missions through Jordan International Aid, completing four trips to Japan and nine trips to Haiti since the earthquakes in those countries. He is an advisor to MedHelp.org, Pelesend, Apixio, Sutter Health, Epic Systems, Misys and many VCs. His past EHR product management roles at Medicalogic enabled the company to go public. Enoch chairs the board of Yew Chung International School and serves on the boards of Jordan International Aid, Palo Alto Community Fund, Palo Alto Menlo Park Parents Club, Abundant Life Christian Fellowship Medical Ministry, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church Medical Missions, and the Health2.0 conference. He volunteers his time as a Standing Member of an AHRQ HSR Study Section, and as a provider at the free Community Pregnancy Center of Mountain View.
Phillip Pellerin has more than 25 years of health sciences, medical and consulting experience with expertise in managing large and diverse performance and margin improvement projects. He is especially adept at identifying performance process improvement opportunities that may have been previously overlooked. His experience includes venture capital and investment firm mentor/advisor for medical device, pharma, health care and consulting industry fields; management of client and supplier relationships to implement changes successfully with assurances of sustainability; cross-functional team leadership; and Six Sigma and lean manufacturing principles.
Previous employers include Stanford University Hospital Medical Center, UCSF, Cardinal Health, Boston Scientific, Oncology Therapuetics Network (Now McKesson), DNA Sciences, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, Med-Assetts, Kaiser Permanente, O’Connor Hospital, St. Agnes Medical Center, and Good Samaritan Medical Center.
David Williams retired as the Chairman & CEO of Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines business of Sanofi Group in 2008, after 30 years with the company. Since January 2008, he has been the Managing Director of WMS PharmaSolutions LLC, a consulting firm serving the Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry specializing in strategic planning, M&A, business development, organizational strategy, market planning and product. He has been with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in their Audit and Healthcare Consulting Group in New York State previous to Sanofi. David has also actively involved in many industry related organizations including a founding member of the Partnership for Prevention, first industry liaison member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)served on the board of the International AIDS Trust, GAVI and also chaired the Vaccine Policy Working Group of PhRMA, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s trade association. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). For many years he was a member of the Board of Trustees and then as a member of the Board of Regents at University of Scranton. He currently serves on the Boards of Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania and the Hospital Service Association of Northeastern Pennsylvania, AllOne Health, VaxInnate, Inc., US Biologics, Inc., GMG Bioscience Inc., TruMed Inc., and Formula Pharmaceuticals.
Gary Ashurst has over 20 years of Manufacturing and Operations leadership in the medical device and consumer products industries. His company provides practical and cost effective manufacturing, and quality guidance to product development corporations. He has proven expertise in strategic planning, concept development, quality and regulatory compliance, process development and production scale-up, all within highly regulated environments. Gary has proven his abilities as an active team member while transferring products from concept to commercialization for large medical device companies and start-ups alike. Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Gary served as a member of the executive team and Vice President of Operations at PharmaJet. He was previous at Baxa, which was acquired by Baxter.
Mr. Ashurst earned his Master of Technology Management with a specialization and advanced certificate in Project Based Management at the University of Denver. Gary also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology from Colorado State University.
Jeffrey McCutcheon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and at the University of Connecticut. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Yale University. At the University of Connecticut, he serves as a Center Faculty at the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Director the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering REU-Site, and Director of the UConn Piloting Facility. Since his appointment in Fall of 2008, he has established the Sustainable Water and Energy Laboratory (SWEL), an interdisciplinary research environment that supports 10 graduate students and 8 undergraduate researchers. His primary research efforts are focused on engineered osmotic processes, including forward osmosis (FO) and pressure retarded osmosis (PRO). His work has resulted in 31 publications, 2 book chapters, 4 pending patents, and a number of invited seminars around the world. He is the recipient of the 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant, the Solvay Advanced Polymers Young Faculty Award, and was recently named a DuPont Young Faculty. He is an elected Director in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Separations Division and serves on the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Board of Directors. He is co-chair for a number of upcoming international membrane related meetings, including the ACS workshop on “Advances in Materials and Processes for Polymeric Membrane Mediated Water Purification” to be held in Pacific Grove, CA in Spring 2015, the NAMS Annual Meeting to be held in Boston, MA in Summer 2015, and the Gordon Research Conference on Membranes and Membrane Processes to be held in Summer 2016.
Diane Cooper, PhD, is a registered nurse and Director of Clinical Affairs at Fosmo Med. She possesses advanced degrees in nursing with a long history of experience and expertise in wound healing. Her career spans three major arenas: clinical practice, academia and healthcare-related industry. Industrial employers have ranged from worldwide corporations to start-up companies; notable among them are Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals, Human Genome Sciences, Ethicon, HealthPoint and PolyRemedy. Dr. Cooper was pivotal in the launch of the first recombinant growth factor for use in diabetic foot ulcers.
Dr. Cooper holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded a Robert Wood Johnson post-doctoral fellowship; she is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has been published numerous times and speaks frequently on health matters to international audiences.
Nick Gaich is founder and CEO of Nick Gaich and Associates, a firm dedicated to providing executive coaching, leadership development, strategic planning, and operational performance. Mr. Gaich has more than 35 years of management experience. His range of expertise includes executive coaching, organizational development, supply chain management, customer service, service line economics, and clinical research infrastructure and operations. He also serves as a Senior Advisor to Venture-Med, an angel investment firm dedicated to funding and mentoring new healthcare start ups with a focus on medical devices, healthcare IT, and mobile health platforms.
Mansour Bassiri, PhD is the founder and CEO of Bioxiness Pharmaceuticals. Over the past 25 years, Dr. Bassiri’s academic and industry research interests have centered on various aspects of infectious diseases, including the study of Oncogenic (cancer-causing) retroviruses. His post-graduate research work extends to soft tissue infection and its role in wound healing. Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Bassiri held various research faculty positions at the University of California Davis School of Medicine and has gained academic and industry recognition for his research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Prior to founding Bioxiness Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Bassiri served as scientific co-founder of a company in the field of anti-infective drugs that went public. Additionally, he held the role of VP of R&D for a biotech venture at a stem cell company. Dr. Bassiri received his BS in biochemistry, and MS and Ph.D. in microbiology. His doctoral and post-doctoral research training in the area of infectious diseases is from the University of California, Davis.
Jeff Baldwin has worked in Medical Devices for more than 20 years. Starting as an Engineer developing automation for hospital pharmacies at Baxa Corporation, Baldwin moved on to run Baxa’s Europe, Middle East, and Africa division, and eventually assumed the role of President and Chief Operating Officer at Baxa. He oversaw the product development, operations, and regulatory compliance aspects of the business, working to grow the company to over 600 employees and global sales of over $150M. Along with his brother Greg Baldwin, Baldwin conducted a successful auction of the business, culminating in a sale to Baxter International for $380M in 2011. He continued on with Baxter until 2014, giving him a broad understanding of the IV solution business. Baldwin has a BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University.
© 2015 Fosmo Med