Not many college freshmen start a business as soon as they get to school. However, Brooklyn Heights' Joe Landolina had other plans in mind when starting his company Cresilon Inc. at NYU in 2010. Eleven years later, the company has a product that Landolina believes could be a game changer in the medical field.
Syringes are becoming a crucial component in life-or-death situations for veterinarians.
"If you apply it directly to a bleeding wound, it instantly creates a mechanical barrier allowing the body to create a strong clot underneath it so that means a bleed that would have taken five or 10 minutes with pressure otherwise can be stopped in under 10 seconds by just applying this gel.”
From the time he could walk, Landolina says he was working in a chemistry lab thanks to his grandfather who had a long career in the pharmaceutical industry. In 2012 after Hurricane Sandy, a former employee came to him with an idea.
"Working at an animal rescue and they lost an animal due to damage during the hurricane because they didn't have a product that could stop bleeding," says Landolina.
The plant derived product vetigel took almost a decade to develop in the Cresilon space located at industry city which is the only one of its kind in New York City. Right now, it is only allowed for use on animals, but the company says it could prove helpful to humans.
"Pets bleed the same as humans do so the types of bleeds we're solving in surgery and trauma in animal health are exactly applicable to humans. Whether we are talking about massive hemorrhage from accidents all the way down to surgical bleeds or even nicks and scrapes. That can be solved with this technology."
The company is submitting for human approval to the FDA before the end of this year.