BABY

STRONG

This Photo by Unknown Auhor is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Investment Opportunity
◦ Significant unmet medical need
◦ 37% of NICU patients ~140k per year
◦ Completed successful 27 patient pilot trial
◦ Derisked regulatory strategy
◦ FDA Breakthrough Device Designation
◦ Upcoming Pre-submission Meeting Scheduled
◦ Annual revenue projection at year 4 = $27M (US only)
◦ Investment required = $2.2 M to launch product
◦ Profitable at start of year 3
 Problem: Inadequate Oral Feeding
37%* of NICU babies have feeding
problems delaying DC
◦ Extended NICU stays
◦ Cost over $3 Billion/year (US)
◦ $6-10k per day
◦ G & NG tube complications
◦ Failure to Thrive

*NIH multi-center study NIH study 6017 babies across 18

sites: Edwards et al., 2019.
 Cost of NICU Stay
◦ Cost per day of accommodations
◦ $6k-10k
◦ Average Weekly Cost
◦ $42,000 per week minimum
◦ IOF = ~40-day LOS
◦ $240,000

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND

(Agrawal et al., 2016), https://www.usinflationcalculator.com,

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/103/Supplement_E1/329.full.pdf
Other Implications
◦ Reduced parent-child bonding
◦ Child abuse and abandonment
◦ Developmental Delays
◦ Cognition
◦ Motor
◦ Neurodevelopment

(Agrawal et al., 2016; Jadcherla et al., 2017; Rogowski, 1999)

 Market Opportunity
US Target Market = 140k
WW 15M premature births/year

Trends
• Premature births rising
• ~1% increase from 2017-2018
• Premature survival rate improving
• ~2% per year
• requires more NICU beds

$6000
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/preterm-birth
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr-007-508.pdf?utm_source=morning_brew
(Capilouto et al., 2019; Emery, 2017; Stoll et al., 2015)
nfant.com
Commercial Sales Channel Development
o Regional sales focus:
o Larger NICUs, ie: over 40 beds
o Serving Medicaid and indigent care populations
o Initial sales force/management hire=2-3
o Demonstrate sales traction
o Identify distributors/partners/exit
 Citations
o Edwards, L., Cotten, C. M., Smith, P. B., Goldberg, R., Saha, S., Das, A., Laptook, A. R., Stoll, B. J., Bell, E. F., Carlo, W.
A., D’Angio, C. T., DeMauro, S. B., Sanchez, P. J., Shankaran, S., Van Meurs, K. P., Vohr, B. R., Walsh, M. C., &
Malcolm, W. F. (2019). Inadequate oral feeding as a barrier to discharge in moderately preterm infants. Journal of
Perinatology, 39(9), 1219–1228. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-019-0422-x
o Jadcherla, S. R., Khot, T., Moore, R., Malkar, M., Gulati, I. K., & Slaughter, J. L. (2017). Feeding Methods at Discharge
Predict Long-Term Feeding and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Preterm Infants Referred for Gastrostomy Evaluation.
Journal of Pediatrics, 181, 125-130.e1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.10.065
o  Capilouto, G. J., Cunningham, T. J., Giannone, P. J., & Grider, D. (2019). A comparison of the nutritive sucking
performance of full term and preterm neonates at hospital discharge: A prospective study. Early Human Development,
134, 26–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2019.05.007
o Emery, G. (2017). Survival rates for extremely preterm babies improving in U.S. Reuters.
o Stoll, B. J., Hansen, N. I., Bell, E. F., Walsh, M. C., Carlo, W. A., Shankaran, S., Laptook, A. R., Sánchez, P. J., Van
Meurs, K. P., Wyckoff, M., Das, A., Hale, E. C., Bethany Ball, M., Newman, N. S., Schibler, K., Poindexter, B. B.,
Kennedy, K. A., Michael Cotten, C., Watterberg, K. L., … Higgins, R. D. (2015). Trends in care practices, morbidity, and
mortality of extremely preterm Neonates, 1993-2012. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, 314(10),
1039–1051. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.10244

 
 Citations
o Agrawal, R., Hall, M., Cohen, E., Goodman, D. M., Kuo, D. Z., Neff, J. M., O’Neill, M., Thomson, J., & Berry, J. G. (2016).
Trends in health care spending for children in medicaid with high resource use. Pediatrics, 138(4).
https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-0682
o Badran, B. W., Jenkins, D. D., Cook, D., Thompson, S., Dancy, M., DeVries, W. H., Mappin, G., Summers, P., Bikson, M.,
& George, M. S. (2020). Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation-Paired Rehabilitation for Oromotor Feeding
Problems in Newborns: An Open-Label Pilot Study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00077
o Jenkins, D. (2020). BabyStrong taVNS-Paired Bottle Feeding to Improve Oral Feeding.
o Rogowski, J. (1999). SECTION 2: MEASUREMENT Measuring the Cost of Neonatal and Perinatal Care.
www.aappublications.org/news