While it waits for its technology to work its way through the approval process, a local startup is looking to help out the people its product could help most during this time of coronavirus pandemic.
Plano-based respiratory medical device developer Belluscura was looking for a way to protect its employees during the crisis, since as a health care-related company it has been deemed essential. The startup ended up purchasing nearly $3,000 in medical masks. However, with more masks than it needed, Belluscura decided to donate $2,500 worth of those masks to organizations in the Metroplex working with some of the groups most at-risk to the virus.
“We decided while we're doing this, we’re a startup, we have limited funds, but let’s try to get something out there to protect the people,” Bob Rauker, Belluscura CEO told NTX Inno. “That was kind of the goal: Just [help] people. Then, they started passing the guidelines to start wearing masks, so we just thought, ‘Oh, that’s good timing.”
Belluscura was founded in 2015. Originally based in the UK, through acquisitions of technology licensing agreement and patent deals, the company moved its operations to Plano. The company is working with research partner Separation Design Group to develop a modular portable oxygen enrichment ventilation system. It filed the patent for the device in March.
Since the product's intended customers are people suffering from COPD and other respiratory diseases, Belluscura want to target its focus there with its face mask donation. Among the recipients of the masks are the Plano Police Department, the Dallas Pulmonary Fibrosis Society and a church in North Dallas, among others. Rauker said that in addition with helping those in their industry, as well as people on the front line, those organizations were in a better position to distribute the masks to the people they knew who needed them the most.
Rauker added that Belluscura decided to print its name on some of the masks, not so much as self-promotion, but as a way to show creative advertising in the hopes of inspiring other companies in the area to help out.
"This is how you’re going to get the business world going. We have to figure out ways to protect these people."
“This is how you’re going to get the business world going. We have to figure out ways to protect these people,” Rauker said. “It’s just a wonderful thing when you bring something that’s going to make a difference in people’s lives and make a better quality of life.”
Because the device Belluscura is working on helps distill air into 96% oxygen and help patients who are having trouble breathing – some of the most severe symptoms of COVID-19 – it has received designation as an Emergency Use Authorized Product by the FDA, meaning its approval can be expedited. Rauker said the company is hoping for approval to bring it to market in the next month. However, he said the pandemic and the machinations of the FDA could slow the process.
Belluscura has received $9.6 million in total funding since its founding.
“This disease is going to be with us a long time,” Rauker said. “It’s not much, but at least our little startup could get together and squeeze some funds.”
