Wash U Startup Wins Student Technology Grant, Eyes FDA Approval

Sparo Labs, a St. Louis-based medical device startup, will receive a $150,000 grant for winning a student technology competition sponsored by the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT). The startup, which was founded by recent Washington University graduates Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen while they were still undergraduates, is developing a pocket-sized device that could be used by asthma patients to measure lung function.

Sparo Labs beat out graduate and post-doctoral students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California-Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University in the CIMIT competition, the seventh competition the startup has won. Brimer said they would use the grant money to keep developing a prototype and begin the process of applying for Food and Drug Administration approval.

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