This Month's Profile Group: Central Venous Access: Start-Ups Change The Standard Of Care, features profiles of Bio 2 Medical, Houston Medical Robotics, and Mirador Biomedical. Plus these Start-Ups Across Health Care: BioVerys, Clinmet, Eclipse Breast Health Technologies, and Sea Lane Biotechnologies.

During insertion of central venous catheters, physicians may unintentionally advance into an artery rather than the desired vein, an error that can cause serious complications, even death. Mirador Biomedical Inc. aims to improve the safety of central venous access with its Compass platform, battery-powered, pressure-measurement devices that can rapidly detect the difference in pressures between arteries and veins.

The decades-old central venous access device market may seem mature, but medtech start-ups are seeing the lucrative unmet clinical needs presented by high rates of pulmonary embolism and other complications. Profiles of BiO2 Medical, Houston Medical Robotics, and Mirador Biomedical.

Central venous access continues to be linked to an abnormally high risk of serious and life-threatening complications. Unintended damage to major organs results from the “blind” placement of a hollow needle through the patient’s skin and into the target vein. Vascular Access Technologies Inc. hopes to reduce complications with SAFECVAD, a novel steerable catheter that uses the femoral vein as its point of entry. It is observed under fluoroscopy as it follows a simple guided path to the jugular or subclavian vein, where it makes a visible “inside-out” exit at the exact desired location for central line catheter placement.