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| Dr. Dayo Olakulehin carrying a version of the D-Box a portable, battery-powered ventilator specifically to assist unconscious patients breathe (Image source: Dayo@thisdayo) |
In
2012, as a young medical doctor, Dr. Dayo Olakulehin had a brainwave. His
moment of ingenuity came during his housemanship while he was on duty one night
at the Olikoye Ransome Kuti Children emergency ward, Lagos University
Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi Araba, Lagos. Olakulehin’s idea was to design
and build a portable, battery-powered ventilator specifically to assist
unconscious patients breathe.
His
belief that such a medical device that could potentially save millions of lives
of patients worldwide was based on the personal experience he had. As a
medic, he noticed that many patients in respiratory failure requiring
ventilator support are unable to access it for reasons of cost and
availability. The current alternative is for health workers to
indefinitely ventilate these patients using a CPR bag and there are instances
in which patients are ventilated for days, with health workers taking turns to
keep those patients alive by manually compressing the CPR bag.
Personal
experience
Olakulehin,
who told Good Health Weekly, that he had conviction that a portable,
battery operated device that automates the process of providing
ventilator support for respiratory failure patients anywhere and not just in
the Intensive Care Unit, ICU would be a life saver. I had manually
ventilated a 5-year-old boy for four hours and at about 2am, I fell asleep,
only to be awakened by the boy’s father.
“If
the child had continued without ventilation for longer than four minutes, it
could have resulted in irreversible brain damage. “This experience was
common among hospital staff at LUTH and other medical facilities. It was after
one of such incidents the idea for an alternative ventilation method came to my
mind. And the D-Box was born.”
But
at that point, Olakulehin, who obtained his medical degree from the College of
Medicine, University of Lagos, was handicapped. Although he had come up with
such marvellous idea, being a general practice physician, he had no training in
biomedical engineering and needed to raise funds to execute the capital
intensive venture. “I knew having the idea was not sufficient, I needed to
find a way to make it a reality. I knew nothing about business, patenting or
developing innovations.
“I went
online looking for help, and I found a course on Healthcare innovation and
entrepreneurship. This course taught me how to develop a patent. I approached a
number of medical device companies and found out it was a lot easier to sell a
product than to sell an idea. Nevertheless, the young doctor knew did
not relent.
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PRESENTATION
- Dr. Dayo Olakulehin demonstrating his innovative invention, the D-Box, a
portable battery operated ventilator, during a public presentation in Lagos in January
2016.
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Speaking
in Lagos last week during the public presentation of the prototype of the
D-Box, he said: “I literally sat on the idea for three years trying to take the
next vital step until I met Mr. Kunle Soriyan and Thelma Ekiyor of
Afrigrants. “This led to the founding of LigandCorp and shifted my
paradigm from focusing on one product to creating a company that drives medical
innovation, particularly among young Nigerians.
As
the CEO of LigandCorp, the search for a prototype developer began and while in
Canada, collaboration was formed with Inertia, an engineering and design
company that committed to partnering with LigandCorp and worked hard to get the
prototype ready.“ Introducing the D-Box, Olakulehin described it as an
innovative affordable battery operated ventilator designed to automate CPR bags
and deliver controlled breaths to patients with respiratory problems.
While
conventional ventilators averagely cost US$30,000 and low-cost alternatives
(still in development) are to be sold for US$3,000, the D-Box comes at an
introductory price of US$300.
Requires
no expertise
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Today,
@Ligandcorp unveiled the D-Box to an audience of medical experts & the
press in Lagos Nigeria (Image source: Dayo @thisdayo)
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“Circulation
and ventilation are keys to life, and that is what we are addressing with the
D-box. It is the ubiquitous device. We are raising the standard. What we used
to have is that a doctor manually compressed the CPR bag. What we have done is
to move that job to the D-box. It will allow our trained doctors to pay
attention to other critical needs of the patients.
Stating
that the device has been patented, he said a patent was obtained at
inception. “When I did the product development, I got another patent. When
we made the prototype, we also had to file another patent. We have the best of
intellectual property lawyers and we realize that intellectual property theft
is a major issue, especially for a product that has tendency to go global. We
are taking the product proactively and taking it into the global market.
The
D-Box
Essentially,
the D-Box is different because it is less sophisticated and less complex than
existing ventilators. Olakunlehin said it is portable, cheaper and easier
to handle. “While the big teaching hospitals have 5-6 units of ventilators
that are electricity dependent and sensitive, the D-box can work on battery
power for 8-12 hours. It’s an amazing breakthrough.
“However
it does not replace existing ventilators which exist for critical intensive
care, it is being introduced to improve the quality of care that is available
for the patient. “It is limited currently because it cannot be used for a
child, unlike existing ventilators that have different modes, this is only Intermittent
Positive Pressure Ventilation, IPPV, but we hope to improve it in the future.”
Originally published in Vanguard and Inertia.com
Originally published in Vanguard and Inertia.com
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