The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an automated brain fluid device designed to help ease intensive care nursing shortages.
Seattle-based BrainSpace said its Intellidrop system integrates hardware and software to enable continuous brain pressure measurement and closed-loop, gravity-driven drainage of cerebrospinal fluid, the liquid that surrounds and cushions the brain and spinal cord.
The device is indicated to provide external drainage of cerebrospinal fluid and/or monitoring of cerebrospinal fluid drainage and intracranial pressure (pressure inside the skull) for ventricular or lumbar use.
Caitlin Morse, BrainSpace chief executive and co-founder, said: “We’ve heard from hundreds of ICU nurses that automating external CSF clearance is going to be a huge relief for nurses and a better experience for patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Stroke, skull base tumour surgeries, neurodegenerative conditions like Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus and more.
“That hope can now become a reality in hospitals around the US with Intellidrop FDA cleared.”
According to a Lancet study, one in three people globally will face neurological injury, illness or degeneration in their lifetime.
BrainSpace said the Intellidrop generates novel, multimodal, contextualised data that is key to training Physical AI models.
The company believes automating brain pressure management will make care more accessible and allow clinicians to introduce more personalised approaches.
BrainSpace was founded in 2021 and is a past winner of the Seattle Angel Conference and Flywheel Investment Conference, and a grand finalist in MedTech Innovator 2024.
