Sagemill Labs · combat casualty care · Patent pending
A Touch of Malice
Bringing pharmaceuticals to hell on earth.
Modern combat has broken a 20-year assumption.
The Golden Hour, getting a critically injured soldier into surgical care within 60 minutes, drove dramatic survivability gains in Iraq and Afghanistan. For every 10 soldiers injured, only 1 would die. In today’s conflicts, persistent drone surveillance and contested airspace have made that evacuation window unreliable or impossible. Evacuations that once took under an hour now routinely take days.
My childhood best friends, whom I refer to as my brothers, are Marines. If they’re deployed today and are injured in combat, they don’t have the technology to make it home. I cannot let that happen.
What It Does
Touch of Malice is a drug-delivery device, in development, that brings critical-care medications to the point of injury. It connects to a casualty’s IV line and carries multiple medications. Each dose is set with a dial and given with a button press, with onboard sensors confirming correct dosing and administration. Essential drugs like TXA and ketamine run on fixed preset settings, so the right dose doesn’t depend on someone working it out under fire.
Most of what a soldier carries for trauma care is built to stop bleeding: tourniquets, wound packing, hemostatic dressings. Medications are the next level of care, and today they depend on a medic having the time, hands, and supplies to push each one by syringe. Touch of Malice takes that work off the medic’s hands, so the medic can keep the casualty on schedule while treating others or getting back in the fight.
When the Hold Runs Long
When evacuation takes hours or days, a casualty doesn’t need one dose. They need a regimen. Touch of Malice is designed to deliver scheduled doses of each medication on its own, with sensors confirming every dose is delivered correctly. The medic sets it and moves on instead of standing over a syringe. That is the difference between a single intervention and sustained care at the point of injury.
Where It Goes
The first version is built for medics. The long-term goal is a casualty care system that needs less and less human input, so treatment can reach a soldier even when no medic can.
The patent is pending, so I can’t show the device here yet. I’d love to walk you through it, so reach out anytime.