Medical device maker in Sudbury, Ont., lands a U.S. distribution deal

A Sudbury, Ont., company that designs a rehab device for patients who have lost function in their hands now has a distribution deal in the United States.

IRegained is working with a distributor called Performance Health to get its MyHand device to hospitals in the U.S.

Eric Dumais, IRegained's director of clinical research, says the device is about the size of a printer.

"Patients put their hands in and they follow exercises that are embedded into the device to help them regain their hand function," he said.

Dumais says clinical trials have shown it's been successful for many patients, although results do vary based on severity of a person's injury or disability.

"For someone with a mild stroke, for example, we had one person come to us for six weeks and then they were like, 'Oh, I'm all good, thank you;'" he said.

Margot Shima, a clinical researcher with the company, says patients who follow the exercises with the device often go from having little to no hand function, to being able to open their hands and even go to the gym in some cases and lift weights.

Dumais says the company's new distribution deal will make it much easier to get the device out to hospitals.

"We have a hard time getting people to buy our device because it's me, Margot and [company founder] Vineet that go knock on everyone's doors," he said.

"You know, that's great for the first six or seven devices, but we want to sell thousands of these things."

Vineet Johnson founded IRegained in Thunder Bay but moved the company to Sudbury where he was able to secure more financial backing through NORCAT, a business innovation centre in the city.