Agreement Covers Sale of Medical, Athletic, and Industrial Products in the United States

ROSEVILLE, CA, October 9, 2012 — WElkins, LLC, which recently received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of its EMT and ICU Temperature Management Systems, today announced the signing of a sales and distribution agreement with Spartan Medical, Inc., a leading provider of best-in-class advanced medical solutions. Under the agreement, Spartan Medical will have exclusive rights to sell and distribute WElkins’ microenvironment cooling products to the U.S. Government, including the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

New device enables ultra-early, non-invasive therapeutic hypothermia in the field

ROSEVILLE, CA, August 23, 2012 — WElkins, LLC today announced that it received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EMT/ICU Temperature Management System. The EMT/ICU System provides hospitals and emergency care givers a means of reducing and controlling patient temperature in a safe, non-invasive, and effective way across the continuum of care—from the critical minutes after an injury thru to the ICU and recovery. Therapeutic cooling is among the most potent interventions for hypoxic-ischemic injury, limiting tissue damage by reducing oxygen metabolism and inflammation, while maintaining cell membrane integrity. The System includes a lightweight, portable cooling unit for pre-hospital induction of therapeutic cooling, i.e. immediately after return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), which can be crucial to patient survival and recovery.

Bill Elkins has been called “one of the true fathers of the space suit.” Within months of the Sputnik 1 launch in October 1957, he began working at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio on “restraint couches” for astronauts. In the late 1960s, as a chief engineer at Garrett AiResearch, his team outcompeted four established space suit manufacturers to win the NASA contract to build long-endurance lunar suits that were to have flown on Apollos 18, 19, and 20. Since then Elkins, who is in the U.S. Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame, has founded several companies. Today, at age 80, he lives outside Sacramento, California, and continues working, having founded bioCOOL Technologies in 2004 (now WElkins, LLC). He spoke recently with Air & Space Associate Editor Mike Klesius.

Click the link for the complete interview: Air & Space Magazine: Space Suits Past and Future