Children’s National Wins $8M to Advance Female Pain Measurement Device

Most patients are familiar with those little round faces doctors use to measure pain (a smile, frown and something in-between). Such an assessment system seems archaic, considering all the healthcare advancements that have occurred over the past several decades.

Children’s National Hospital researchers, however, are striving to bring pain assessment into the 21st century with a new device backed by an $8 million award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health.

The sprint addresses critical unmet challenges in women’s health, champions transformative innovations, and tackles health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect females. Children’s National researchers–with collaborators from Johns Hopkins University and Medstar Research Institute—are furthering the development of the AlgometRx Nociometer, a pain measurement device to better understand and treat women’s pain.

Julia Finkel, M.D., pediatric anesthesiologist and director of Pain Medicine Research at the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation (SZI) at Children’s National, is hoping to improve the understanding of gender differences in pain and better treat patients of all ages with analgesics. Children’s National will receive the $8 million over two years through the Sprint for Women’s Health’s launchpad track for later-stage health solutions.

“As physicians, we often feel helpless to understand how our patients are experiencing pain and whether treatments are working,” Dr. Finkel said. “We use the Visual Analog Scale, which fails to classify the pain’s etiology or help guide a specific intervention, often leaving us to treat by trial and error. The Nociometer will change that.”

Using a nonpainful stimulus, the portable Nociometer uses noninvasive technology and algorithms to analyze pupil dilation and the body’s response to stimulation along select nerves.  In under one minute, the data collected can formulate a patient profile quantifying how the nervous system is processing painful stimuli. This new construct can be used to characterize pain type, intensity and assess the impact of pain relief medications. 

Dr. Finkel spent nine years developing the Nociometer at SZI and her spin-out company, AlgometRx, which receives commercialization support from Children’s National Innovation Ventures. She said the platform technology can be applied to any population—including elderly, nonverbal, or pediatric patients—and will be instrumental in studying women’s pain experiences. 

“Research studies have long shown that pain in women and girls is underestimated and undertreated,” Dr. Finkel noted. “Creating a novel technology to quantify pain has tremendous applications in pinpointing and effectively treating pain, potentially altering treatment in nearly any medical setting.”

ARPA-H sought solutions within six topics of interest in women’s health and received an unprecedented response of submissions. ARPA-H launched the Sprint for Women’s Health in February, with First Lady Jill Biden announcing the funding as the first major deliverable from the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

The ARPA-H Sprint for Women’s Health is conducted in collaboration with the Investor Catalyst Hub of ARPANET-H, the agency’s nationwide health innovation network that connects people, innovators and institutions to accelerate better health outcomes for everyone. Children’s National is a spoke member of the Investor Catalyst Hub.

Children’s National will work with an ARPA-H program manager and the Investor Catalyst Hub over two years to develop the proposed solution, receiving milestone-based payments aligned to research activities and performance objectives. 

The ARPA-H launchpad program accelerates transformative health solutions’ path to impact by providing funding and market transition support. As a launchpad performer, Dr. Finkel will also work with an entrepreneur-in-residence and participate in Launchpad Accelerator, which includes a customized curriculum, virtual events, and in-person workshops to support the transition from research to commercialization. 

Washington, D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital was established in 1870 and currently is one of the top 10 U.S. children’s hospitals ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. The Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus opened in 2021, a first-of-its-kind pediatric hub dedicated to developing new and better ways to care for kids. Children’s National has been designated three consecutive years as a Magnet hospital, demonstrating the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a community-based primary care network and specialty care locations in the D.C. metropolitan area, including Maryland and Virginia. Children’s National is home to the Children’s National Research Institute and Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation.