Asthma Patients To Benefit from St. Louis Startup

Posted by on Aug 13, 2013 in Featured Stories, Innovation Tuesday | 0 comments

You’ve heard the story before.  Students earn a degree from one of St. Louis’ top universities, then leave town to start their careers elsewhere.  But 2013 Washington University graduates Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen are bucking the trend, and then some.  They’ve decided to stay in St. Louis not only to begin their careers, but to build their own company, Sparo Labs.

Their product should resonate with anyone dealing with asthma.  Sparo Labs empowers patients to proactively manage their asthma using an award winning, patent pending, pocket sized spirometer, the apparatus that is used by asthma patients to measure the amount of air inhaled and exhaled by the lungs.  Traditional spirometers are expensive and usually found only in a doctor’s office.   Brimer and Cohen created a pocket-size prototype that costs less than $10 to build.  Their creation comes with a microphone installed in the device, and can be plugged into a smart phone, so a patient’s asthma-related data can be transmitted to a hospital or doctor’s office.    Brimer and Cohen talked about their company, their product, and the state of startups in St. Louis on the Charlie Brennan Show on Tuesday, August 13, on KMOX Radio in St. Louis.  Tuesday’s interview was the 21st in a series of KMOX segments on the St. Louis Innovative Startup movement.  The segments are facilitated by St. Louis non-profit company InnoVox STL.  Here is audio of the interview.

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