Pegasus Therapeutics seeks to develop and test device prototype for Kawasaki Disease diagnosis

Monday, March 16, 2015

By the time Aubry Shackelford's five-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Kawasaki Disease, the virus had already extensively damaged her heart.

The disease, which affects an estimated 4,000 US children under the age of five annually, causes inflammation in the walls of medium-sized arteries throughout the body.

For Shackelford's daughter, Allison Shachelford, and for potentially thousands of others who don't receive the right diagnosis in time, the disease left two giant aneurisms in her right and left coronary arteries, an issue that can cause clots, heart attack or angina.

The problem prompted Shackelford, an engineer, and Dave Rezac, a medical device engineer who happens to be Allison's uncle, to create a dissolvable artery stent, suited for children's growing bodies but stable enough to allow the aneurism to heal.

"It's spring boarding off of some current state-of-the-art technologies," Rezac said.

The company, called Pegasus Therapeutics, is seeking $50,000 from IndieGoGo for the technology, a tactic they said will help them build and test the prototype. So far, the company has fundraised $18,416, with over a month left in the fundraising timeline.

Doing the ground work will help Pegasus build a more marketable device to larger companies, but will also allow the network of people Shackelford has met to contribute to the cause.

Though the technology is build on the backs of bigger medical device manufacturers, including Abbot and Covidien, Rezac said the intricacies of this particular device is patentable. Two provisional patents are pending.

Success would mean kids like Shackelford's own could have a less invasive procedure than bypass surgery, which involves bypassing the aneurism and rerouting the artery.

Without this option, Shackelford and his family are monitoring now seven-year-old Allison, and training all family members in CPR should Allison have a heart attack.

"Ultimately, we want to get it to market safely and as fast as possible," Rezac said. "It could benefit a lot of kids but be translated to a lot of other technology to the benefit of adults."

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/