Home > About BNE > Press Room > 2010 Archive > December > Lung Flute device hits TV

Lung Flute device hits TV

Business First - by Tracey Drury

Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010

[Read previous article]

A Buffalo-based medical device company will be featured on a national television show set to air Nov. 10.

The therapeutic lung flute device, manufactured by Buffalo-based Medical Accoustics LLC, will be included on The Doctors, a program that airs daily on ABC. In the Buffalo market, the program airs at 4 p.m. daily on WKBW-Channel 7.

The device uses low-frequency sound waves to help dislodge mucus in the lungs, a potentially fatal condition for individuals with respiratory illnesses like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It will be included in a segment called “How to Get it Out!” along with other methods and tools to remove a tick, a cyst, phlegm or dirt, or what to do if you’ve got something stuck in your eye or ear.

Frank Codella, president and co-founder of Medical Accoustics, says the program has an audience of 3 million, many of them older individuals who are the primary demographic for the device.

“This is really good for us,” he says. “In terms of publicity, the timing is perfect. We’re just launching nationally and we’ve got distributors covering 80 percent of the U.S. and 100 percent of Canada.”

The ABC program features four physicians with different medical specialties — an emergency room physician; an OB/GYN; a cosmetic surgeon; and a pediatrician, who explore various topics in a talk show format in an “off-the-cuff” style, according to the program website.

Codella says the show first approached Medical Accoustics after it was featured last December in Popular Science among the 100 Top Innovations for 2009. Codella wanted to hold off until the company was further along in the manufacturing cycle. In recent months, the company has partnered with Polymer Conversions Inc. in Orchard Park to manufacture and assemble the device.

Already, more than 3,000 physicians have written prescriptions for the device throughout the U.S. and Canada and the product is now beginning to be stocked in hospitals in both countries. Codella says the company is miles ahead of its strategic plan, though it is not yet revenue positive. Employment is up to nine full-time plus a handful of part-timers.

“We’ve put together a national ad campaign and done a rebranding exercise,” he says. “We’re way ahead of schedule in terms of orders we’ve been receiving and it really is still pre-launch.”

The company has plans to expand its marketing reach internationally as well, with patent protection already secured in the U.S., China, Japan, Canada and India.