Brijjit: Improving Wound Healing
How Brijjit is Redefining Post-Surgical Recovery with Non-Invasive Technology
As a plastic surgeon at Emory, Monte Eaves, MD, was used to dealing with wounds. He was also used to dealing with incision complications, or tension around wounds that prevented them from closing or healing and sometimes created widened scars. While completing his residency at Emory, Eaves explored endoscopic surgery, co-designing ClearGlide, the world’s first endoscopic vein harvest system to reduce incisions and scars in heart bypass surgery. He was hooked.
“I became very interested in looking at mechanical ways to offload the tension while we close wounds and even afterward, when the incisions are immature and vulnerable,” he said.
That passion for cutting-edge wound incision technology led him to create Brijjit, a small, non-invasive device that adheres to the skin around a wound, rotating to ease tension off of the area. The device eventually falls off on its own or can be removed by the patient, cutting down the amount of time patients have to spend in a doctor’s office or hospital for a wound.
Creating Brijjit
For years, medical technology has used invasive methods to close wounds. Standard procedure is to leave a foreign body inside the wound, which can help heal it, but this also presents a potential source of infection. Brijjit, which adheres to the outside of a wound, is noninvasive. By taking tension off the wound, Brijjit also reduces the potential for increased blood supply to the wound, which speeds the healing process and decreases wound breakage.
Though a simple device, Brijit was tricky to develop.
“Simple devices can sometimes be complex to manufacture,” Eaves commented.
Felmont Eaves III, MD
But the pieces snapped into place, literally, after Eaves and his team figured out the construction of Brijjit’s backbone, which had to be able to bend and flex. Eaves turned to 3D printing for his prototypes, creating different structures to experiment with. He tested around 40 different designs before settling on the one that ultimately became Brijjit: a plastic rectangular clip with a flexible backbone allowing it to fold around and clamp onto skin. The final product was effective both in mechanism and cost. Eaves also took steps to involve the manufacturers of Brijjit in the design process to ensure the product design would allow for mass manufacturing.
“Our goal was to do something that would be positive in relation to health care costs and then could have wide applicability,” Eaves said.
OTT steps in
Eaves said that OTT helped make connections with development centers in Atlanta, secure grants, and obtain legal counsel for patenting.
Eaves founded a startup company called EMRGE – now BRIJ Medical – to help develop Brijjit. In 2017, the company was awarded Start-Up of the Year at OTT’s Annual Celebration.
“The development of Brijjit highlights how clinical innovation can lead to meaningful advancements in patient care. Brijit transformed a surgeon’s vision into a practical, non-invasive device, this project showcases the value of collaboration in prototyping, design, and manufacturing,” OTT senior licensing associate Catherine Murari-Kanti said.
Eventually, Eaves said, the product will be available for over-the-counter purchase and would allow people to take care of their own minor wounds and scars without going to the hospital. He also hopes the technology can be used for military wounds and in first aid kits.
Eaves’ team is working on determining the product’s initial market and looking to expand into sectors like orthopedic surgery or urgent care.
“Brijjit not only improves wound healing and reduces healthcare costs but also serves as an inspiring example of how medical ingenuity can address critical needs and bring about life-changing improvements in post-surgery care," Murari-Kanti said.
— Chaya Tong