Noah Healy is driving through this phase of his professional (and entrepreneurial) career with no interest in a quick fix to any problem. You might call his motto practical, yet thorough.

That mindset served Healy well when he helped create a product called kPlug for ophthalmologists.

“When a patient has an infection or ulcer in their cornea that has gotten so bad, it can cause a full thickness perforation through the cornea,” Healy said. “Pressure in the eye can push the iris forward and plug itself. It is painful, so the patient goes to a clinic. 

But scheduling into the operating room for a cornea transplant can take days or weeks, so a band aid repair is needed. Pronto.

“They do that by Krazy Glue,” Healy said. “They take a little plastic disc, put Krazy Glue on it, and poke it. For obvious reasons, that doesn’t hold, it is like duct-taping a tire.”

Enter Healy, who is gaining momentum with kPlug, an innovation he says acts much like a tire plug on a punctured tire.

“There is a piece of cornea that sits on the inside of the eye and on the outside of the eye in the shape of a cuff link, and it holds the pressure a lot better,” he said.

Bench studies have been completed and the next step for kPlug will be clinical testing. Healy and kPlug received a financial boost in November after winning the top prize of $20,000 at Innovation Challenge in the faculty/staff/graduate student division. The competition is sponsored by the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC). 

Healy earned a degree in biomedical engineering in May 2021 and a master’s degree in engineering in December 2022. A month after receiving his graduate degree, Healy was hired by ophthalmologist Dr. Christopher Sales, and he works within the Iowa Lions Eye Bank at the BioVentures Center at IOWA Research Park as a design engineer.

“I heard about (Iowa JPEC and Innovation Challenge) in undergraduate and graduate school, but I wasn’t thinking about the business side of things, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention,” Healy said. “It wasn’t until the day until the application was due for the Fall Innovation Challenge that (Sales) sent me the email saying, ‘Apply for this.’ I spent the rest of the day writing an executive summary.”

Even after the Innovation Challenge victory, Iowa JPEC continues to help Healy with all things business.

“We can’t wrap our heads around what steps to take next for the scaling part of it,” Healy said. “It is talking to a lot of different companies and partners and people that have done it before.”

As he prepares for the Spring Innovation Challenge, Healy received valuable insight by attending a pitch workshop hosted by Jay Cooper, adjunct instructor in management and entrepreneurship. Cooper was there to coach registrants on how to create executive summaries, applications, and the pitch itself. 

“The best thing I have done is talking to people who have started their own businesses, ideally in the same space I am working in,” Healy said. “I learn from the mistakes they have made and take their advice.”

There are also other people within the University of Iowa that have aided in Healy’s research. UI Ventures funded a few of the ongoing projects in the lab, Jon Darsee and Jordan Kaufmann also provided advice and guidance on the business side of things. Lastly, kPlug would be nowhere without the Iowa Lions Eye Bank, where the research lab is located and the researchers are provided tissue to work and experiment with.

A native of Frankfort, Illinois, Healy became interested in the University of Iowa because of its strong reputation for biomedical engineering. He walked onto the Hawkeye cross country and track and field teams.

Healy remains a recreational runner with an eye on commercializing kPlug. He and Sales have recently partnered with a company that will test kPlug to see if it can be scaled and mass-produced.

For information and registration for the Spring 2024 Innovation Challenge, click HERE. Hurry, the deadline to register is March 25.