Stairway Medical is a Swedish medicotechnical startup company founded in 2020 by medical and dental research innovators in continuous collaboration with the Innovation and Holding units at Lund University. We develop medicotechnical solutions for upper airway patency to promote safety, comfort, predictability, efficacy and credibility during procedural sedation for unpleasant diagnostic or therapeutic interventions. Our invention, STAIRWAY, is the only useful medicotechnical device for airway patency during procedural sedation.

Millions of procedural sedations are carried out in Europe alone each year. The total number of procedural sedations is rapidly growing in response to higher demands all over the world, and increasing numbers are run by non-anaesthesia professionals outside hospitals.

Although procedural sedation is commonplace, it is no simple task. We have recently carried out a survey in almost one hundred anaesthetists frequently involved in procedural sedation in three healthcare regions in southern Sweden. Airway and respiratory problems are common during sedation. It is often hard to adapt sedation levels to individual needs without causing patient discomfort, interrupting the procedure, or inducing airway occlusion calling for rapid and appropriate manual airway management. Accordingly, an effective medicotechnical device for mechanical airway patency during procedural sedation is considered most desirable.