NAfter two and a half years of Corona, masks are no longer compulsory in places such as supermarkets or schools. At the same time, the quarantine period is to be reduced to five days in the future. Some citizens find this a relief.
Others, on the other hand, are forced to continue to live in isolation – regardless of Corona. “Medical isolation is an everyday problem,” said Janis Münch, founder and CEO of the medtech start-up Sphaira Medical, at a press event in Berlin. He lists who he means: seriously ill adults, immunocompromised children who have had a bone marrow transplant, dialysis patients – the list is even longer.
So far, there hasn’t been a practicable solution to not letting people feel lonely in isolation, or even worse: letting them die alone. This is also confirmed by the Charité director Prof. Angelika Eggert in an interview with “Gründerszene”. She looks after the children’s cancer ward of the Berlin hospital. “So far we have simply accepted that children have to live in isolation for so long.” Some of the young patients would stay in a room for months.
Family visits must be reduced to a minimum and siblings under 14 are not allowed to visit at all due to the risk of infection. “That can be really bad for children,” says Eggert.
The Berlin start-up Shaira Medical has taken on this problem. It has developed a mobile protective capsule, also called Moby, for people in medical isolation.
Sphaira Medical builds corona protection capsule
The vehicle looks like a glass dome on four wheels. Both patients and visitors should be able to sit in it. Installed air filters and pressure differences are designed to ensure that no viruses and bacteria get in or out.
Sick people should be able to receive visitors despite their isolation – you can even touch them. This works with rubber gloves, with which the user can reach out of the Moby or into the glass ball.
The vehicle can be controlled by joystick. Either by the person sitting in the pod or remotely so caregivers or attendants are in control. “For children, it’s like a toy that you climb into,” says Eggert, describing the start-up’s wheelchair. “All that’s missing is a police siren,” jokes the professor. However, Moby is not yet on the market.
The start-up’s device will be used in the coming months at the Charité children’s cancer ward. In a joint study, the clinic and the start-up want to investigate the extent to which Moby affects the quality of life of patients and whether the device actually protects against infections. According to CEO Münch, the Berlin start-up Sphaira Medical will deliver further devices to the German clinic group Medical Park, a premium provider for clinic stays.
Münch and his co-founder Moritz Eichhorn had the idea for the Moby around two years ago, when the corona pandemic began in Europe. “We were shocked by the pictures in which people had to die alone and families could no longer say goodbye to their loved ones,” says Münch. In the summer of 2020, the duo got started and drew the first sketches of the mobile.
Start-up uses Formula 1 material for construction
Since then, around 650,000 euros have flowed into development and construction, according to Münch. The acquisition of the transparent dome was particularly expensive. This is special plexiglass.
In Germany, the Shaira Medical development team has not found a suitable supplier who can cast the disc in its round shape. That’s why the start-up commissioned the Italian company Liras, whose products can also be found in sports cars and Formula 1 vehicles.
“In the future, sunlight could also be filtered through the Plexiglas of the Moby and thereby treat certain skin diseases,” says Prof. Dr. medical Silke Rickert-Sperling during the press event. She is a professor of cardiovascular genetics at the Charité Berlin, so she researches genetic heart diseases. She is one of the business angels who contributed to the development costs.
The team behind Sphaira Medical (from left): Janis Münch, Golo von Basum (CPO), Jens Brose, Didier Van Hooren and Fabian Weis (CTO)
What: Sphaira Medical
Some prominent private investors can be found in the list of shareholders of the Berlin healthtech start-up. For example Florian Meissner, who sold his photo portal Eyeem to a Swiss company for around 35 million euros last year. Messner’s new start-up Aware aims to cure chronic diseases.
Caroll Neubauer also invested. The 67-year-old most recently managed the US business of B.Braun, a German manufacturer of medical technology and pharmaceutical products. Jarek Gabor, long-time managing director of various Bertelsmann divisions, also gave the start-up money.
Sphaira-Medical-The founder caught up on his Abitur
Münch also worked for the Gütersloh media group in New York for several years. Among other things, he managed the new customer business there. The curriculum vitae of the 40-year-old founder is impressive: At 16, Münch programmed for a company alongside school.
Because he preferred to work, he dropped out of high school, but later got his high school diploma. He then studied business administration and went to the USA for Bertelsmann.
His co-founder Eichhorn studied political science at the London School of Economics and worked alternately as a journalist for business newspapers and as press spokesman for the FDP. A year after founding his start-up Sphaira Medical, Eichhorn left the start-up again.
Sphaira Medical is still in its infancy. Münch has already collected money, but he will need more to be ready for series production in a year and a half, he says. When the time comes, residents in nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities should also be able to use the Moby. Münch cannot predict how much a Moby wheelchair with a protective capsule will cost. It’s still too early for that.