Since rolling out its first cryogenic tank monitoring system in October 2023, Boreas Monitoring Solutions has installed its products in more than 40 cryogenic labs across the United States.
The majority are human fertility laboratories but some work with IVF in the dairy and equine industries. There is plenty of room for growth, according to company co-founder and CEO Will Baird.
“We just got our first large enterprise network contract, a company that owns 16 clinics, primarily on the West Coast,” he said. “It’s a really big step for us and should help us close (contracts) with other networks we’re in talks with. We’re also launching our product for larger tanks.”
With more than 500 fertility clinics in the U.S. and about 5,000 such clinics globally, Baird said that Boreas is close to serving 10% of the national fertility market.
“It’s a really big market, with 10% year-over-year growth; I don’t see it changing,” he said.
Boreas’ product, the CryoScout system, measures the weight of the liquid nitrogen in a cryogenic tank. Traditional technology in the industry simply measures temperature in the tank.
The CryoScout system was designed by Will Baird, his father William Baird III and Chad Johnson, who formerly owned and operated Wilmington Reproductive Laboratories, partnering with a reproductive endocrinologist at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. In 2016, they began thinking about the need for a better tank monitoring system; in 2019 they received their patent.
Johnson and William Baird believed that alerting labs of changes in the weight rather than changes in temperature would make for earlier detection of problems. Their invention, they say, was spurred by two high-profile tank failures in 2018 – one in San Francisco and one in Cleveland, Ohio – that resulted in millions of dollars in lawsuits and “catastrophic” loss of patient embryos and sperm.
CryoScout consists of a weighing platform, which transfers data every 15 minutes to a tank module. The module communicates, via cellular connection, with the lab’s portal, which allows users to see cloud-stored comprehensive data on liquid nitrogen levels, ambient temperature of the tanks and other vital parameters. When those parameters change, lab personnel get SMS, email and phone alerts.
Even before Boreas’ commercial release, it received a 2023 $50,000 SEED grant from NC IDEA, a foundation that seeks to spur entrepreneurship in the state. The grant had a significant impact on the fledgling company, according to Will Baird.
“It provided me with a network where I found a couple of contractual workers who helped bring our product to market,” he said. “It helped drive sales and gave us validation after raising (startup) money. The grant was more about the network than the money.”
Preserving embryos and sperm for artificial insemination – not only for humans but also for dairy cows, horses, purebred dogs and endangered species – is only one focus for laboratories that use cryogenic technology. The life science industry develops cell cultures for cell and gene therapies. And there is promising potential in the world of oncology.
Buoyed by growing sales of its original system and the new, larger capacity product, Boreas is taking aim at a variety of markets.
“We want to push further into the U.S. fertility market, as well as (clinics in) Canada and overseas,” Will Baird said. “The animal science market is attractive for us; we’ve talked to groups but have no secured deals yet. Research universities also have labs that could use our product.”
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