Team takes CathNode from class project to medtech startup
Students found from surveying nurses that tracking urine output was onerous, time-consuming and sometimes impossible to do every hour on the dot
The assignment in Northeastern University’s spring 2024 Design Thinking for Startups class was to propose a solution to a health care problem.
Students Benjamin Koobatian and Mo Kazak thought, “Who better to ask than a nurse?”
“I went directly to my roommate, and I asked him ‘What’s the most tedious thing that you do and could get rid of,’” recalled Kazak, who graduated from Northeastern in May 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in business. “He said, ‘It would be recording the urine output.’”
Koobatian got the same answer from his nursing friends.
Almost two years later, Koobatian and Kazak are developing CathNode, a patent-pending device that monitors in real time how much hospital patients with catheters urinate. The device then automatically records the data in a hospital’s electronic medical records system. CathNode is compatible with any catheter, reusable and can keep a charge for months, Kazak said.
CathNode “alerts nurses sooner when urine output drops so they can treat a problem before it actually becomes dangerous,” said Koobatian, who graduates in May 2028 with a degree in business administration and a concentration in finance and entrepreneurship.
Koobatian and Kazak said they are currently raising money for the final stages of product development.
But they’ve already had quite a journey from the classroom.
The students were originally part of a group of five, and they started their process by surveying nearly 100 members of the Northeastern nursing community as well as colleagues of Koobatian’s father, an emergency doctor, to learn about how to streamline the urine monitoring process.
They learned about the dangers of acute kidney injury, which affects around 13 million individuals annually worldwide and occurs in 3.2% to 20% of hospitalized patients and up to 67% of critically ill patients. The condition is already a growing problem, and likely to become an even larger issue as the U.S. population ages and the health care system consolidates, Kazak added.
Decreased urine output is a key indicator of acute kidney injury and, if caught early, the condition can be treated to significantly reduce likelihood of death or significant health damage.
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But Koobatian and Kazak found from surveying nurses that tracking urine output was onerous, time-consuming and sometimes impossible to do every hour on the dot.
“It’s not to say that these nurses are not paying attention, it’s just the pure rigor of the job,” Kazak explained. “Our whole motto is ‘Make the nurses’ lives easier.’”
Their solution has received positive feedback from industry leaders who the team pitched at the conclusion of their course.
“It was very promising that the team was genuinely interested to get to the bottom of the problem and went all in to figure out the business structure of hospital purchasing to make it viable,” said Eugene Buff, a doctor and entrepreneur. “It is the key ingredient for potential success in my book.”
Stephen Golden, associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship and innovation and professor for the Design Thinking for Startups class, praised the team as well, calling CathNode “a tremendous product.”
“The market opportunity is significant,” Golden said, noting that CathNode would be able to be used in hospitals, residential nursing homes and the home.
He also predicted a “hockey-stick” growth model for the device – “a gradual local rollout followed by rapid expansion as hospitals validate the solution.
But as of now, Koobatian and Kazak are working through the medtech development process.
“There’s a lot more that goes into it than I realized for (Food and Drug Administration) approval, clinical trials and pilot testing,” Koobatian acknowledged.
Kazak noted that the two have spoken with some medtech founders who have been working on a “startup” for a decade or more.
But both said they are in it for the long run.
“The way I like to think of it is, if we have the right goal — which is to make the nurses’ lives easier — and we stick to it, then we’re bound to find a solution down the line,” Kazak said.
Koobatian agreed.
“The idea that we’re building something, creating something, that can save millions of lives in the future is something that’s just really cool,” Koobatian said. “That’s like actually what keeps us still working on it every day.”
