In conversation with Praxis SCI Accelerate Cohort Member, Karma Medical (FEPSim)
📖 2 min read | #MedTech #UpperLimbRehab #SCI
In conversation with Praxis SCI Accelerate Cohort Member, Karma Medical (FEPSim)
About Karma Medical, one of the start-ups in the SCI Accelerate Program 2024 cohort: From a manufacturing business to MedTech innovator – How Karma Medical is changing rehabilitation technology with FEPSim
Based out of Edmonton in Canada, pair of shorts, Melissa and Darryl Short started with a general manufacturing business. The desire to diversify led them to the MedTech industry by initially developing rehab tools for stroke survivors at the Glenrose Hospital.
Things took a personal turn when the co-founders saw close family members sustaining life-altering injuries. Melissa’s brother, who lives with cerebral palsy, lost his fingers in an accident and started using Karma Medical’s early prototypes. Darryl’s brother sustained a spinal cord injury.
“We wanted to holistically try and help patients with a novel product and innovation. But it turns out we’re actually helping our family and more patients. We get to help more people. And by having family members engaged in the technology, it really helps with the success of transferring that to other patients.”
With this realization, they formed their start-up, Karma Medical Products and their flagship product, FEPSim, a hand and upper extremity rehab tool to support strength, function and independence for a dozen conditions.
Joining the Praxis SCI Accelerate Program in 2023
By 2023, FEPSim had gained traction, but to scale commercially, they were looking for guidance on business strategy and end-user feedback. That’s when they decided to join the Praxis SCI Accelerate Program with clear goals:
- Identify their target market – patients, therapists, clinics or distributors
- Commercial validation of the digital version of FEPSim
- Explore regulatory and reimbursement pathways.
What they got out of the Praxis Program
The co-leads at Karma Medical Products found access to KOLs and the insights from the Praxis external focus groups and the weekly mentorship session with the Research and PLEX (person with lived experience of SCI) advisors extremely useful:
- They learnt how to effectively engage end-users to collect meaningful feedback
- Understood how different SCI classifications can affect product usability
- Investigated how to improve long-term usability and how people with SCI would use rehab tools at home with specialized add-ons.
- Accessed resources on to understand the limits of their device’s potential reimbursement
- Conducted in-person user-testing of the digital prototype of FEPSim.
“The focus group helped us dig down a little deeper and understand how our product can serve people with SCI. It made us think differently about how we should focus on people with SCI and the different attachments or movements that they could use with the FEPSim itself.”
With momentum on their side, Karma Medical is now exploring funding opportunities, expanding their team and preparing to scale to clinics across North America. They are rooted in lived experience and driven by a mission to improve independence and recovery for people with SCI and other mobility challenges. Karma’s commitment to improving the lives of people with SCI has continued with its participation in Praxis’ SCI Adopt that funded pilots that successfully validated the functional improvements for 4 people with SCI and cost-saving for its use at the Brenda Stafford Centre & Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.
About the Praxis SCI Accelerate Program:
The Praxis Spinal Cord Institute’s Accelerate Program is a six-month Program geared towards prototype-stage projects with innovation to transform the lives of people with spinal cord injury (SCI). The Program provides targeted end-user product validation, research, mentorship support, tailored mentorship, expert guidance, and access to their commercialization network.