Company Spotlight

Over 500,000 Americans experience limb loss or are born with a limb difference each year according to the Amputee Coalition and approximately 100,000 people are fit for a prosthetic each year. Getting the right fit for a patient may be the most critical factor determining a patient’s long-term success in maximizing their quality of life, independence, physical, mental and even social health. However, matching a patient’s unique needs and goals to the right device in a limited amount of time remains a massive challenge, with nearly one quarter of lower limb prosthetics being abandoned.  

Humotech’s pioneering technology is changing that experience for patients and clinicians and also accelerating the research and development of various wearable machines, such as prosthetics, orthotics, and exoskeletons.

“Clinicians are currently relying on their subjective impressions, their clinical experience, and they don't really have any data to drive the selection of which device is going to be best for the patient,” said Josh Caputo, Founder and CEO of Humotech. “We provide that data so we help the clinician navigate the hundreds of foot options that are out there to make an evidence-based, personalized care decision.”

Humotech’s Caplex® System uses wearable devices connected to motors to emulate a variety of prostheses and allows patients to test drive several different solutions by wearing only one device. This allows the patients and their clinician to pick the product that will work best with their physiology and mobility goals. In addition to increasing the likelihood of a patient sticking with the prosthesis, the technology replaces the time consuming and expensive process of trial and error.

“A poorly fitting prosthesis is going to lead to a waterfall of bad outcomes, both for the patient and in terms of healthcare costs. So, there's a strong incentive for everyone to get it right the first time,” say Caputo.

To date, their systems have been deployed at more than 40 research & development sites across the US, Canada, and Europe, including the U.S. Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs. The company also has ongoing clinical trials to further validate the efficacy of their technology.

While Humotech’s most mature offering and near-term focus for growth addresses fitting prosthetic feet in the medical context, their technology can also be used in orthotics and exoskeletons for healthy aging and to protect workers health in industrial settings.

“We have customers all across the potential use cases, from military, to consumer, to workforce,” Caputo says.

“Whether you're on an assembly line or a farm, a lot of back injuries and shoulder injuries could potentially be mitigated with exoskeletons, and our customers are utilizing the Caplex® platform to explore solutions and generate evidence of efficacy.”

Many industry analysts expect the prevalence of assistive robotics and exoskeletons to grow significantly over the next decade, driven primarily by an aging global population, the increased prevalence of chronic disease, and a focus on worker productivity and safety.

It isn’t surprising that a company with novel technology at the intersection of robotics and human health would come out of the Pittsburgh ecosystem. Pittsburgh is the robotics capital of the world, and the prevalence of clinical expertise means multiple applications of robotics in healthcare have grown up in the ecosystem.  The initial intellectual property underpinning Humotech’s products came out of Caputo’s doctoral work in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

“Being in Pittsburgh was great – we have every flavor of robotics here and I could work on my technical skills, and having the University of Pittsburgh nearby meant I had access to patients, doctors, and prosthetists.”

That marriage of technical and clinical expertise is what drove the announcement of Humotech’s first clinical customer, ēlizur, a leading regional orthotics and prosthetics provider.

“I believe this patient-centric technology will create a more efficient and appropriate prosthetic foot selection process for both the patient and the prosthetist. Patients will spend less time in the clinic while being matched with the most biomechanically suitable foot. Meanwhile, practitioners will no longer have to juggle ordering and returning multiple feet from manufacturers. I also believe this technology will provide strong medical justification when obtaining a new foot for a patient transitioning from their preparatory prosthesis to their definitive one,” said Brad Scott, Director of Prosthetics & Orthotics at ēlizur.

This relationship will also help Humotech to develop the clinical and cost-savings evidence from their technology and enable the company to expand use of their product to other providers and payors across the country. 

Photo by: LeeAnn K Photography