Four Pillars of the Strategic Plan

1.     Design

2.     Celebrity Endorsement

3.     Hospital Based Sales and Marketing

4.     Competitive Pricing

Patent Pending Design:

Waterguard is a lucent, lightweight, self-sealing TPU upper and lower extremity protector designed to exclude water and foreign material from injured arms and legs primarily while bathing.  Waterguard’s unique material composition and thickness possess elastic characteristics that ensure a water-tight seal at the proximal end of the device where the extremity and the limb protector come into contact.  Waterguard is the only product on the market validated to create a watertight seal without creating a potentially harmful venous tourniquet.  It is this unique material property, which is a function of both the elastic mechanical properties of TPU and the manufactured gauge of the protective sleeve, which allows enough pressure at the skin-protector interface to ensure a water-tight seal without preventing venous return from the injured extremity.  No other protective sleeve has been designed specifically to meet the functional imperative of ensuring continuous venous blood return from the injured extremity while simultaneously preventing moisture and microscopic debris from violating the skin-sleeve interface.  In conclusion, Waterguard is the safest and most efficacious upper extremity protector currently available.

Celebrity Endorsement:

Waterguard is fortunate to have involved five time Olympic Gold Medal winner Eric Heiden as celebrity endorser, product educator, and physician user.   Eric Heiden is a busy Orthopaedic Surgeon in Park City Utah.  As the son of an orthopaedic surgeon in Madison, Wisconsin, Eric was no stranger to the world of medicine and hard work.   After completing his Olympic career winning five Gold Medals at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games in New York, Eric then went on to become a professional cyclist, co-founding the 7-Eleven Cycling Team, and ultimately competing in the 1986 Tour De France.  Dr. Heiden then completed medical school at Stanford University, and now is considered a foremost expert in the field of Orthopaedic Sports Medicine, and currently practices in Park City, Utah.  Also, Dr. Eric Heiden is training the United States Speed Skating Team for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Dr. Heiden is involved in multiple philanthropic endeavors, and a portion of the Waterguard sales proceeds have been committed to the Foundation SPLORE, which carries the mission to create educational and recreational outdoor experiences for the disabled individual.  It is through Dr. Eric Heiden’s celebrity endorsement and commitment to Waterguard that we will reach a larger community of injured patients and their families.

Hospital Based Marketing and Sales:

Waterguard LLC is working diligently with hospitals, physicians, and nurses to create awareness in the market place with the goal of ultimately generating the critical mass and demand for the product in the retail environment.

Through the efforts of Dr. Matthew L. Jimenez, co-inventor and managing partner in Waterguard LLC, a sales and marketing plan has been implemented to saturate the local, and ultimately the national hospital systems in North America.  By leveraging Dr. Jimenez’s multiple relationships with the Orthopaedic implant vendors and pharmaceutical companies, alliances are being formed to place a direct sales force for Waterguard in the community and university hospitals.  Dr. Jimenez is Founder and Chairman of the 12^th Annual Chicago Trauma Symposium, which was sponsored by 58 separate corporations in August of 2010.  It is these very same corporations that have direct sales forces building strong relationships with purchasing departments in hospitals throughout the North America.  Waterguard is in negotiations with several corporations to carry the Waterguard product into the hospital systems as an additional sales item.

Hospitals systems will purchase Waterguard in bulk and distribute in the emergency room and surgical recovery room to patients that have injured upper and lower extremities.  The hospitals have significant incentive to ensure that a patient does not return to the emergency room with a wet cast, since insurance companies typically will not reimburse the additional hospital charges incurred when related to a complication from the initial injury or treatment.  The bottom line is that the hospitals have significant financial incentive to keep patient’s upper extremities clean and dry to avoid a return visit to the emergency room.

Waterguard’s competitors are not “pulling through” hospital awareness.  By making patients and families aware of the Waterguard product at the point of initial service, which is with the health care provider, Waterguard LLC is creating demand and driving the business to the retail outlets for follow-up purchases of the product.  The competitors are not.

Most Competitive Price Point:

The Waterguard price point is lower than other poorly constructed and less efficacious products on the market.  Please refer to the remainder of this document which goes into significant detail regarding the historical aspects of product development and the medical evidence supporting Waterguard’s superior value.

Historical Information

An exhaustive search of the literature has produced multiple protective sleeve designs implemented over several decades.  All previous limb protector designs rely on a proximal seal apparatus that requires excessive pressure at the proximal skin-device interface.  Examples of such designs include but are not limited to fiber string cinches, rubber band constrictors, restrictive adhesive tapes, tourniquet inducing vacuum seals, and Velcro-fabric proximal restriction cuffs.

The important issue regarding all previous designs is that by their very nature, they create a proximal seal between the skin and the protective sleeve by tightly cinching the material to the injured extremity.  Water molecules, being extremely small, can easily penetrate microscopic gaps and incongruities between the skin and protective sleeve.   Previous designers have attempted to solve the problem of water penetration by creating significant pressure at the proximal end of the device where it attaches to the limb.  In so doing, the external water and debris would often be prevented from invading the injured skin, but the cost to the patient would be a harmful reduction of venous blood from the distal portion of the injured extremity returning to the cardiopulmonary system.

The Waterguard design is a unique solution to the water penetration problem that has plagued the extremity protector product category.  The Waterguard proximal self sealing sleeve was designed to generate enough pressure at the skin-sleeve interface to prevent entrance of water and foreign debris, but at a pressure low enough to prevent disruption of blood flow returning from the injured extremity to the heart and lungs.  It is this signature innovative design characteristic that distinguishes Waterguard from all other sleeves in the product category.   For this reason, Waterguard is the safest and most efficacious extremity protective sleeve available.

Relevant Anatomy

The human cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary system is a complex network involving multiple organ systems.  To simplify the matter, imagine a system where oxygen in the air we breathe is transported across the lungs into tiny blood vessels called capillaries.  The small capillaries drain into larger vessels called veins, specifically the pulmonary veins, bringing oxygen enriched blood to the heart, which pumps the oxygen saturated blood through arteries to the other organs of the body, including the musculoskeletal system, which includes the arms and legs.

Once the tissues in the arms and legs have consumed the oxygen and other nutrients, waste products such as carbon dioxide are transported from the extremities and other organs through veins back to the heart and then to the lungs to expel the carbon dioxide, where new oxygen is acquired.

Arteries are vessels traveling away from the heart carrying blood to the oxygen starved tissues.  Blood is pumped under high pressure from the heart to the extremities.  Arteries, being a high pressure system, are thick walled, and reside deep in the tissues near the center of the limbs.

The veins are vessels that transport blood away from the tissues and extremities to the heart, and are a relatively low pressure system.  The majority of veins reside superficially in the limbs just beneath the skin.

When pressure is applied to the extremity, if the pressure is great enough, both the deep arteries and superficial veins become occluded.  This is called a complete arterial and venous tourniquet effect.  When pressure is applied to the extremity high enough to occlude the superficial veins, but not high enough to occlude the deep thick walled arteries, this is known as a venous tourniquet effect.

When a venous tourniquet exists, blood is being pumped by the heart under high pressure into the extremities, but is not being allowed to return to the heart because of the venous occlusion.  This is a very dangerous scenario that can lead to significant venous congestion, swelling, delayed wound healing, infections, compartment syndromes, loss of limb, and in some cases even loss of life.  Any type of tourniquet effect should be avoided at all costs.

The situation is magnified when an extremity is injured.  Take for example when a patient sustains a fracture of the tibia in the lower leg.  When the bone breaks, a cascade of metabolic events result in significant capillary leak, increased arterial blood flow, decreased venous return secondary to swelling, and disruption of local blood flow to the bone and soft tissues.

If a restrictive device is placed around the injured extremity, even for a brief period of time, and the device creates pressure exceeding the venous pressure of returning blood, a venous tourniquet effect is created.  As previously explained, this can lead to disaster, particularly since injured tissues are already suffering from venous congestion due to metabolism at the fracture site.  In summation, Waterguard is the only product available for extremity protection that creates a water tight barrier without producing a harmful venous tourniquet

Conclusion

Waterguard was designed with a specific problem in mind, which has not been addressed by any other product currently on the market.  The problem is that of the harmful venous tourniquet effect produced by all other products available.  The solution is Waterguard’s proximal seal, which simultaneously prevents water and contaminants from accessing the injured extremity without restricting the return of venous blood from the extremity to the cardiopulmonary system.

WaterGuard™ is now being carried by Safeway and Amazon.com and is aggressively pursing new distribution relationships.

“The Excellent Products call for entries proved to result in a great mix of products for all members of the family,” said Emily Smith, vice president of Disney Online’s Mom and Family Portfolio. “With summer quickly approaching, we saw a lot of entries geared toward warm weather fun as well as some truly innovative products aimed at improving the overall lifestyle of moms and dads.”

Excellent Products winners geared towards parents include:

WaterGuard Cast & Skin Protectors – These reusable watertight bathing sleeves by WaterGuard keep casts and wounds dry while showering or bathing. The self-sealing, watertight sleeves also keep medications and ointments in, while keeping moisture out, and are lightweight and comfortable to wear.

To be considered for an iParenting Award, companies submitted samples of each product that were precisely matched using iParenting’s state-of-the-art technology to experienced reviewers within iParenting’s database. Products were thoroughly reviewed and evaluated by a variety of sources including experts and families. Results were compiled and submitted to the iParenting Awards Executive Committee for final approval.

About iParenting Awards:

iParenting Awards is part of the Disney Online Mom and Family Portfolio, a leading group of sites that provide inspiration and ideas for parents on a variety of topics important to today’s families. Sites include Disney Family.com, Kaboose.com, FamilyFun.com, and BabyZone.com.

iParenting Awards, a leading family products evaluation program, is committed to helping parents make informed decisions as they choose products for their family. The iParenting Awards’ method for testing and evaluating products requires review by experts, parents and childcare providers, and each product is evaluated on numerous attributes such as quality, durability, age-appropriateness and play value, among many others. The iParenting Awards product testing and evaluation practices ensure that high quality products offering great value for families are recognized in the marketplace.

They can also learn more about iParenting Award-winning products by visiting http://iparentingmediaawards.com/winners.

Disney Interactive Media Group
Brandy Phillips, 818-623-3764
brandy.phillips@disney.com
Copyright © 2010 Business Wire. All rights reserved.

A Well-Stocked Medicine Cabinet Should Include WaterGuard™ to Keep Bandaged Wounds Clean and Dry

April 29, 2010; Salt Lake City, UT— As the days get longer and temperatures rise, so do incidences of outdoor-related injuries.

According to Matthew J. Jimenez M.D., a board certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in orthopedic fracture care and joint reconstruction based in Chicago, IL, children sustain more injuries during the warmer months because they engage in more vigorous activities.

Research confirms intuition – the more time children spend outside running, playing sports, riding bikes and skateboards, the more likely they are to suffer an injury.

Armed with these facts, parents should prepare for their kids’ cuts, scrapes, burns and even fractures with a well-stocked medicine cabinet.

“While it’s necessary to have bandages and anti-bacteria cream readily on hand, it’s equally important to have something to protect the wound against water when bathing, and dirt, grime and sweat when playing,” said Dr. Jimenez.

The patent-pending, self-sealing, WaterGuard™ sleeves were designed specifically for this purpose.

Made of a tear-resistant, flexible, ultra-thin polyurethane film, the WaterGuard sleeve is latex-free, non-toxic, hypoallergenic and provides easy, slip-on, self-sealing protection that fits snug enough to keep water and dirt out, while remaining comfortable to wear.

“By creating a product that achieves a watertight seal without restricting blood flow, we believe WaterGuard is a major advancement in wound and cast protection,” said Dr. Jimenez, a founding partner of WaterGuard LLC. “WaterGuard makes performing everyday tasks easier for people who have suffered an injury and need to keep their cast or wound dressing clean and dry.”

WaterGuard LLC is committed to the design, development and marketing of products that make everyday tasks easier for those dealing with adversity, hardships and injury. FMI please visit www.waterguard.biz.

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