Medically-Sound, High-Tech Pillows

Dr. Scott Augustine wants to breathe fresh air into allergy treatment. More specifically, a bubble of fresh air.

Augustine, a medical device inventor, is raising $5 million to back PureZone Technologies. The Eden Prairie, Minn., start-up is developing a pillow-based air filtration system that creates a bubble of fresh air around allergy patients while they sleep.

Backed by a well-received clinical study, PureZone hopes to win over skeptical allergy doctors already wary of the glut of gee-whiz air cleaning devices on the market.

While such devices have become staples on infomercials, they lack scientific credibility, experts say.

Although PureZone's system doesn't require approval from the Food and Drug Administration, the company sponsored a clinical study last year that yielded promising results.

"We wanted to construct a study that met all of that skepticism in the most difficult environment - allergists themselves," says Chief Executive Officer Josh Waldman, a veteran medical device entrepreneur.

PureZone has competition. Halo Innovations of Minnetonka, MN, already is selling the PureNight Pure Air System that blows clean air overhead from an arm attached to a filter under the bed. Some experts also note there are ways to control allergies that are much cheaper than PureZone and PureNight, which cost several hundreds of dollars. Medicare does not cover consumer products.

PureZone is the second company to spin out of Augustine Biomedical+Design in Eden Prairie, a research and development and incubator firm founded by Augustine in 2003. The first, Hot Dog, has raised $3 million to develop an electric blanket that warms hospital patients. The device is an updated competitor of an air-based warming blanket, also invented by Augustine.