Elevator Pitch: Standard of Care

01 Sep 2023

Elevator Pitch: Standard of Care

Re: Mike Teodorescu (DBA 2018); Daniel Brown (DBA 2019)

Topics: Health-Health Care and Treatment Entrepreneurship-General

Illustration by Drue Wagner

Mike H. M. Teodorescu (DBA 2018) CEO, SurgiBox

Dan Brown (DBA 2019) CFO

Concept: Founded in the wake of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, SurgiBox’s lead product is a portable operating room that fits into a backpack and runs on a rechargeable battery.

The Why: Each year some 16.9 million patients in low- and middle-income countries die due to lack of safe access to surgery; in addition, approximately 85,000 medical staff die after exposure to patient-borne pathogens. SurgiBox aims to make surgery safer for both patients and health care providers around the world.

Heard: “A traditional operating room costs about $45 per minute,” Teodorescu says. “Our goal is to get the total cost for SurgiBox to just $90 by the end of 2023.

If we can achieve that, it will establish a new standard of care in parts of the world where hospital systems can’t support their populations.”

If we can achieve that, it will establish a new standard of care in parts of the world where hospital systems can’t support their populations.”

Status Update: A winner of the Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge 2016 and a crowd favorite award at the HBS NVC in 2022, Surgibox has received investment from Ambit Health Ventures, a medical venture capital fund, and is supported by HBS Angels of Boston. Following on earlier donations to Ukraine, in March Teodorescu and a contingent of volunteers and doctors delivered 50 SurgiBox units to Ukraine at the urgent request of its military.

+ONLINE: In March 2023, Teodorescu traveled to Ukraine to deliver 50 additional SurgiBox units at the military’s request. A portable operating room that fits into a backpack and runs on a rechargeable battery, SurgiBox is a timely innovation for a country that has seen its health care system come under deliberate and devastating attack.

The urgent March request followed on three earlier shipments, says Teodorescu. With no international shipping service available to Ukraine, the company had been relying on intermittent UN shipments; to deliver the units in a timelier fashion, Teodorescu partnered with the NGO MedGlobal, traveling with two US doctors through Poland and into Ukraine. “It was a direct request, which couldn’t be more clear,” says Teodorescu, who describes the trip as “a no-brainer” and “an opportunity to step up to the occasion.” Snapshots from the 10-day trip follow: