Devices & Diagnostics, Hospitals, Startups

Meet the healthcare company that won Mark Cuban’s heart at SXSW

Cuban offered to buy a batch of CareAline’s products and brand them with the Dallas Mavericks’ logo. He will also make introductions to Dallas hospitals to get sales for CareAline. So what made CareAline so compelling Cuban couldn’t resist?

Mark Cuban doesn’t have a problem saying no. But when Shark Tank’s “renowned billionaire tech mogul” tells you he’s in, he’s in.

Cuban couldn’t resist this year’s winner of the Impact Pediatric competition at SXSW on Monday. After hearing the inspiring story of Kezia Fitzgerald, the CEO and co-founder of CareAline Products, he pledged his help – no equity required.

He offered to buy a batch of CareAline’s products and brand them with the Dallas Mavericks’ logo. He will also make introductions to Dallas hospitals to get sales for CareAline. The move brought cheers and applause from the audience.

So what made CareAline so compelling Cuban couldn’t resist? It was one-part great product and one-part heart-wrenching story.

CareAline makes a cloth sleeve and wrap comprised from cotton and spandex that keeps children from picking at and dislodging central lines that deliver medication for conditions such as cancer. The sleeve covers the entryway and some of the tubing of the line, hiding a location that would otherwise be the source of infections, cutting the chances of a child accidentally pulling out the line, and other issues.

It’s a simple solution that solves a problem in healthcare that may not be big enough for other companies to take on.

But her story behind the company is quite moving and has become increasingly known throughout healthcare’s business innovation community – particularly in Boston where CareAline is based. Fitzgerald has written about it in-depth on her blog New Mom..New Cancer and addressed budding entrepreneurs at last year’s Hacking Pediatrics conference in Boston. Cuban isn’t even Fitzgerald’s first Shark: Damon John handed her an award at the 2014 Boston Children’s Hospital Global Innovation Summit.

It all started when Fitzgerald was diagnosed with cancer in 2011. Months later, her infant daughter Saoirse was diagnosed with cancer as well: a severe Stage 4 neuroblastoma that gathers around the nerves in children 5 and younger.

Fitzgerald, while at the same time battling lymphoma, developed the sleeve to prevent her daughter from dislodging her central line and to guard against the troubling infection risk associated with these lines. Fitzgerald, who went to art school, developed the sleeve herself, but got requests for the sleeve from other parents of cancer patients. Nurses and doctors also passed along requests from their patients.

Saoirse died from cancer later in 2011. But the Fitzgeralds pressed on to develop the sleeve.

A proof of concept trial of the sleeve at a Colorado Children’s Hospital and word of mouth has led to the company sell 4,000 units since 2012. About 20 percent of its sales come from hospitals. The company held an Indiegogo campaign last year to advance the sleeve’s development and launched a separate campaign to fund its journey to Austin to the pitching event.

Cuban was clearly drawn in by the story and the product. During the presentation Cuban asked, “So the most important question, how is your daughter today?”

When she answered she had passed away in 2011, it was an awkward moment, Cuban then said sympathetically, “I am sorry to hear that.”

As the judges quizzed Fitzgerald on the company’s product, there was a moment of levity in the Q&A when Cuban asked Fitzgerald if the company had any Dallas hospital relationships. Fitzgerald made the mistake of asking if Texas Children’s was in Dallas (it’s in Houston).

Fitzgerald’s story not only won Cuban’s support, but gave CareAline the top prize from judges representing children’s hospitals and venture capital firms at SXSW.

When Cuban gave Fitzgerald the award, he hugged her.

We don’t have video of her pitch in Austin, but you can see Fitzgerald tell the CareAline story in the video below.

[Photo from The Global IP Center]

Update: This story has been updated from an earlier version to correct the phrasing of a question Mark Cuban asked.

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