MORGANTOWN – Intermed Labs at Mon Health’s Fingy3D startup company continues to put West Virginia on the medical technology map with its 3D-printed prosthetic digits that can be ordered online.
Fingy3D is one of five finalists vying for a $350,000 prize in a competition that drew entries from 21 states and 15 countries.
And working with Preston County customer Mark Lance, the Fingy3D team overcame challenges to develop a groundbreaking prosthetic thumb.
And Fingy3D is working to get the word out that it has a Benedum Foundation grant to provide 100 free Fingys to West Virginians.
The competition
On Thursday, MedTech Innovator, the world’s largest accelerator of medical technology companies, announced that Fingy3D was one of five finalists chosen from its 61-company 2023 U.S. Accelerator Cohort announced in June.
The competition began in May with 1,200 companies, said Intermed Labs CEO Tom McClellan. Among the top contenders were some of the most innovative medical device manufacturers in the industry, each aiming to transform patient care. The finalists included IFPx of California, creator of a patient monitoring system that directly measures fluid buildup; Neurava, an Indiana-based company developing wearable technology to track epilepsy; Newrotex from the United Kingdom, which has developed a silk-based surgical nerve repair technology; and StrokeDx from California, which has introduced a portable stroke diagnosis device.
Each company will receive $25,000 and the chance to compete for the $350,000 non-dilutive grand prize at the MedTech Conference Oct. 9-11. The competition finals will be Oct. 10 and each of the five companies will pitch their technology and answer questions from a panel of four judges. After the presentations, the audience will vote in real-time to select the winner.
The five finalists were chosen from 61 companies selected to participate in MedTech Innovator’s flagship four-month MedTech Accelerator program.
Talking about the competition this week at the Intermed Labs floor on the Mon Health Morgatown campus, McClellan said, “We were laughing [with joy] that we were even selected.” And the prize money, “Considering that we’ve never actually raised money for this company, it’s transformative, in my opinion.”
McClellan’s constant theme is that Intermed’s goal is to make West Virginia better – to foster West Virginia talent and innovation, and to bring companies to West Virginia.
“I think it’s incredible that a West Virginia company is included in this competition,” he said. “I think it’s awesome that we’re in the finals. To go up against these types of institutions is, I think, remarkable.”
Justin Chambers, Intermed’s head of engineering, said, “It shows that we can compete with anyone else, here in Morgantown.”
The thumb
Lance, an Aurora resident and engineer by training, and mining company executive who’s worked around the world and is on his third retirement, lost his thumb in November 2020 when a rope wrapped around it and pulled it off while he was felling a tree with his son.
As Lance and McClellan explain, being pulled off, it wasn’t a clean cut that would have been easier to restore. McClellan, a Mon Health plastic surgeon, worked on it for six hours but couldn’t save it and had to amputate it just above the first joint, where the thumb meets the hand.
During the follow-up appointment, Lance said, McClellan told him about Fingy3D, though in this case it would be a Thumby.
With so little stub to work with, McClellan said, it was a challenge to develop a Thumby that could be attached and be useful. They don’t like to have straps attach to the wrist or arm, but Lance needed a Velcro strap.
Fingy3D always starts with a photo of the back of the hand and a side view, and from that the Fingy3D team 3D prints a prosthetic. Lance’s required a number of visits and different materials form what they usually use, and suggestions from Lance as they worked on two iterations to reach the final product on version three.
“I believe what we fashioned for him off of a picture is frankly incredible,” McClellan said. ”The function of it is better than I could have expected.”
He credits the team and Lance’s contributions. “That’s how we learn, the patients will say what works and what doesn’t work.” That helps future patients, too.
Lance said, “Those guys, I have all the respect for them. … It’s fairly comfortable.” He added a little thumb tip on for some extra grip ability. And there’s no phantom pain that amputees often suffer.
“Honestly, there’s very little that I can’t do,” he said. The Thumby is tough but soft enough and flexible. He’s able to lathe work and fashioned some candle holders out of a chestnut fence post for McClellan and Chambers.
The grant and the future
“We’re competing against world-class institutions,” McClellan said. “West Virginians have the tenacity, the smarts and the ‘innovativeness’ to overcome certain challenges, and Mark is a great example of that.”
Win the competition or not, he said, they’ll keep working on improving the design and manufacturing of the Fingy.
There’s a huge market, Chamber said: 3 million patients in the U.S. missing fingers and 60,000 new amputations per year. “They’re looking for solutions. We’re there to offer a solution that is lower cost than other options and accessible from anywhere they might be.”
Fingy products are a fraction of the cost of traditional prosthetics, he and McClellan said, and can be ordered online at Fingy3D.com. They’ve already drawn customers from across the U.S. and as far as Australia.
The Benedum grant is for $100,000 to provide 100 West Virginians with free Fingys. They are getting the word and flyers out to providers and invite all who are interested to go to Fingy3D.com to learn more and apply.
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
