BLOOMFIELD HILLS – Great Lakes Angels announced that one of
its portfolio companies, Blaze Medical, is now generating revenue.
Blaze, an Ann Arbor-based company, is developing
novel blood analysis technologies, announced that it has begun offering blood
fragility analysis services for pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
Developers of drugs and blood-contacting devices often need to assess the
impacts of their products on red blood cell (RBC) membranes, for evaluating
their products’ safety and/or efficacy. This generally includes looking at
levels of hemolysis – RBC rupture – but that unfortunately fails to reflect any “hidden” or sub-hemolytic cell damage.
Blaze’s proprietary technology solves this longstanding problem by facilitating
measurements of RBC mechanical fragility (MF) – a more precise metric of blood
damage than simple hemolysis. It’s also an important parameter in calibrating
for hemolysis measurements. While Blaze is developing its first fully integrated
and automated Fragilimeter system for academic and industrial research
customers, it also now offers RBC mechanical fragility testing on a service
contract basis.
“This move was in direct response to industry demand and highlights industry
interest in exploiting the advantages of this metric,” said David Weaver, CEO
of Blaze and president of Great Lakes Angels. “Our first contract began in late
2014. Since then, we expanded our service capacity and signed our second
customer, with more contracts in negotiation.”
