- There are a large number of babies
that lose their life every year from preventable causes.
- One of the leading causes is neonatal respiratory illness.
This is basically when a premature baby
can't get enough oxygen.
- CPAP can improve survival by 66%.
If that's the case, why isn't CPAP everywhere?
- But they're not everywhere, especially in poor countries
because the problem is the price tag.
A CPAP device can cost up to $15,000.
That's expensive, but affordable in countries like the U.S.
In developing countries, that cost is prohibitive
and well out of reach for hospitals.
So Dr. Burke and his team at Vayu created a CPAP machine
that works just as well,
doesn't need electricity and only costs a $100.
- The team at Vayu is remarkable.
We like to say we can solve anything
with a couple of popsicle sticks.
- Obviously we're not in a traditional lab space.
Where are we?
- Right, this is a cross between Frankenstein's lab
and the bat cave, I guess.
- Working in a lab that looks straight out of a comic book,
the team at Vayu is innovating their way
to more accessible healthcare for everyone.
This is me the day I was born, I was 12 weeks premature
and needed emergency air in my lungs.
I was on a ventilator then a CPAP machine
for the first couple of days of my life.
I was fortunate enough to be born in the U.S
and have access to top care,
including an expensive CPAP machine.
My parents and their insurance were charged
$100s every day I needed oxygen.
That cost of care and expensive equipment
is largely unaffordable in developing countries.
So Dr. Burke's work started with a simple question.
Does this device need to be so expensive?
Enter Vayu Global Health,
these scientists and engineers are dreaming up
affordable life saving inventions.
- Working on (indistinct chatters)
- That's a lot of training sessions-
- The foundation of their work is a concept called
reverse innovation.
It's creating solutions that are simpler
and cheaper than the status quo, but just as effective.
- The space is one of the more unusual laboratories
you could ever see.
A wonderful friend
thought what we do is really great.
So he's given us a portion of the second floor of his home.
- After Dr. Burke and his team develop
an ultra low cost disruptive innovation
they bring it to developing countries around the world.
- When a baby's born premature,
their lungs may not be fully developed.
Often it overwhelms them and they don't survive.
- In the developing world,
20 to 38% of deaths in the first 48 hours of life
are attributed to respiratory failure.
- CPAP should be in every single place that a baby is born.
So we brought the devices to Muhimbili National Hospital,
in Tanzania.
It's a classic story throughout low resource settings
all over the world.
Each hospital has a graveyard of well-intentioned equipment.
Other countries will send things,
but if no one knows how to repair them
they quickly become unusable.
So we make something that's simple to use for the provider.
- Dr. Burke and his team worked with the Muhimbili staff
to deploy the simpler, easy to use Vayu CPAP.
The invention works so well,
the hospital team adopted it ahead of schedule.
- When I think about being in Tanzania,
I think about an 800 gram baby.
That's a tiny little baby.
The only reason that baby was alive
was because of the expert care that was given by the staff
including the Vayu Bubble CPAP device.
And that baby did well
and ultimately was able to be discharged.
There's nothing that can describe the joy that I felt.
- The CPAP machine is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Vayu laboratory is stacked high
with all kinds of medical inventions,
aimed at providing people with more affordable care,
like the Vayu uterine balloon.
- In South Sudan, one in six women lose their life
from pregnancy related causes.
- The number one cause of maternal death
in developing countries is postpartum hemorrhage.
Fortunately, there are a couple of ways
to treat the condition including a uterine balloon
which inflates and lines the walls of the uterus
to stop bleeding.
- It's very successful.
It's used throughout the world,
but the devices are generally $400 a piece.
Can we make it with local materials?
What do they have locally?
Ultimately came up with using a foley catheter,
which is very standard everywhere in the world.
And then fixing to the end of that foley catheter
a condom.
- It sounds dead simple
but it's backed up by a ton of scientific work.
- 28 clinical trials in the field.
It's a fully approved device.
In India instead of 400 US dollars,
it costs $3.50 cents.
And it's now in most countries in the world.
- Vayu's low cost devices have saved a lot of lives abroad.
But reverse innovation goes one step further.
It's about creating a device that works just as well
or better than the high cost version.
So much so that it can be adopted in developed countries.
- Just because we are a developed society
doesn't mean we have to continue to solve problems
with an ever escalating price tag.
- But it's not that easy especially in the U.S.
- Reverse innovation,
it goes significantly against the system.
I mean, healthcare in our country is a business.
It's not designed as a public good.
You suddenly come in and say,
"I have a device that is a hundred times less expensive."
Roadblocks will be put in place.
It would have to start with
really changing what healthcare is
and would have to be pushed into a public good framework.
- Vayu has been able to make some headway in the U.S.
Both the Uterine Balloon and specifically the CPAP device
are used in remote hospitals.
For Dr. Burke and his team,
the roadblocks are just inspiration to keep innovating.
- Each of those lives that are saved,
I imagine what that means for the family.
If lives are being saved
and lives are being improved, then we've been successful.
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