FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Medical device engineering firm, Engenious Design, partners with Innara Health to design the 2nd generation of their ground-breaking technology designed to improve feeding outcomes in premature infants.

Prairie Village, KS: Engenious Design, a 39-person creative product development firm specializing in electronic medical device design, has partnered with Kansas City-based start-up Innara Health to develop Innara’s next-generation NTrainer System ^®, designed to improve access to more patients by reducing the size and cost of the system, enabling Innara to expand into new markets and provide better access to life-changing therapy and assessment tools for infants.

On why Engenious Design is well suited to head up the redesign Project Manager, Grace Reese, explains, “Engenious is not only good at creating medical devices from scratch, we are also well versed in taking an existing product and elevating the technology to its full potential. Our team designs around today’s requirements while anticipating future needs to support the ever-changing technology in health systems.”

Together, Innara Health and Engenious Design are working to reduce the NTrainer System’s ^® overall footprint and lower its cost by a dramatic margin. These changes will result in an affordable, smaller system that takes up less space in the NICU. Innara anticipates this lower price point will open the door for smaller medical facilities to begin using the device in their NICUs. They also believe that by minimizing the space required to deliver and store the system, current clients will be able to add new NTrainers to their inventory, making it easier to treat more than one patient at a time.

Chris Mathia, Innara Health CEO, explains, “It is a luxury to have a local partner like Engenious supporting the redesign of the NTrainer.  We’ve certainly been a benefactor of their extensive experience supporting engineering and design projects with some of the largest medical device manufacturers in the industry.  Their help in advancing the next-gen NTrainer will make it, even more, user-friendly and accessible, so that more infants can quickly achieve their oral feeding milestones, helping them go home sooner, and healthier.”

Research shows that without intervention, feeding delays in the NICU lead to poor clinical outcomes, potential feeding disorders, and extended length of stay. NTrainer System ^®, the only device of its kind approved by the FDA, has proven to augment these outcomes, encouraging feeding development for premature and newborn infants by reinforcing an important pre-feeding skill known as non-nutritive suck (NNS). It does so by supplying a therapeutic gentle pneumatic pulse that mimics the sucking skill that many babies perfect while in utero. The technology then assesses progress made as the infant develops skills through therapy.

Chris Justice, Principal at Engenious Design, adds, “With our ongoing involvement in electromechanical system development, our team is able to bring innovative technology advances to help Innara address a larger market more efficiently, with a system that’s better for infants and clinicians alike.”

While Engenious Design only recently began developing the 2^nd generation device, this is not the first time they have worked with Innara Health. The technology behind the NTrainer System ^® and its ability to help the most vulnerable among us has kept Justice involved with Innara Health in some capacity over the past several years.

As Justice describes, “At Engenious, we create MedTech systems that make the world a better place. The long-term patient benefits of Innara’s assessment and therapy are clear, and the impact makes it a joy to help Innara take their system to more babies.”

About Engenious Design: Kansas City metro based, Engenious Design is a creative product development firm specializing in electronic medical device design. Since its founding in 2013, by spouses, Chris and Holly Justice, the Engenious Design team has grown from 2 to 30+ team members. Team expertise includes Electrical, Embedded Software, Mechanical and Test Engineers, Industrial, Interaction, and Graphic Designers, as well as others. Engenious Design capabilities include an on-site electronics lab, quick turn model shop, and short-run production capabilities with a full medical device quality management system.

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Media Contact: Brett Dunahue
Digital Marketing Manager
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