As a former owner of Riddell Sports Inc. – the NFL’s official helmet maker – Joseph McHugh knows a thing or two about football helmets.
And as a lawyer, he knows a thing or two about liability issues. (When he bought Riddell in the 1980s and turned it around, the company was facing bankruptcy because it had been hit with a multimillion-dollar personal injury suit.)
So, a year ago, when the former Chicago businessman heard that Peter Cripton – a professor at University of British Columbia’s Orthopaedic and Injury Biomechanics lab – had developed a double-shelled football helmet designed to reduce concussion and neck injuries, he knew it was a product with a ready-made market.
“I know the industry,” said McHugh, Cripton Technologies Inc.’s CEO. “I immediately saw the advantages this had, because it was a whole new direction. There’s absolute demand for it. It’s not a product that’s looking for a market.”
In football alone, there were 1,588 neck injuries reported to emergency departments in the U.S. between 1990 and 1999. And according to one study, 65% of 220 spinal-cord injuries in football players were the result of head-first impact. That’s not even counting all the head and neck injuries in other sports, like hockey.
The Pro-Neck-Tor prototype Cripton has been working on is adapted for football helmets, but the design can be used in hockey, motocross, snowboarding, mountain biking and riding helmets.
Cripton’s lab at UBC specializes in biomedical research. About six years ago, Tim Nelson, one of Cripton’s graduate students at UBC, came up with a design for a sports helmet that diffuses the force of impact by essentially turning the neck into a shock absorber. Cripton has taken the idea and spent the last five years developing and testing it.
The key is an inner shell, made of a carbonate material, that is attached to the outer shell, but which will detach when the helmet meets a significant force. As the inner shell comes away from the outer shell, it moves forward, bending the head and neck.
“The typical helmet, on impact, cushioned the head, but it did not move the head,” explained Cripton, the company’s CTO.
“Our helmet guides the head so that it does not stop. If we can keep the head moving this way, it allows us to decrease the force on the head and on the neck.”
Unlike a motorcycle helmet, which is supposed to be discarded after an accident, helmets with Pro-Neck-Tor design will be able to be reset for reuse after a significant impact.
The Pro-Neck-Tor is a major departure from traditional helmet design, McHugh said, because all other sports helmet manufacturers are focused on padding as a way to reduce injury.
Sports helmets are designed to prevent fractured skulls – they’re not designed to prevent concussions, much less neck injuries, McHugh said. Many come with disclaimers to that effect.
So a helmet that can do all three will have huge appeal to anyone who plays sports, McHugh said, even if it’s more expensive ($50 to $75 more for a $300 football helmet).
“We don’t think there’s an entry barrier here,” McHugh said. “The biggest fear of anyone who plays – and their parents – is that kid is going to break his neck or sustain a big concussion. If you were a hockey dad, how much more would you pay for a helmet that reduces the force?”
The Pro-Neck-Tor design isn’t the only thing Cripton has going for it as it moves closer to commercialization.
It also has a unique research position, thanks to Cripton’s association with UBC’s Injury Biomechanics Laboratory and Vancouver General Hospital.
“We have something that nobody else can deliver,” McHugh said. “We have five years of Peter’s blood, sweat and tears, all documented, plus – and here’s the big thing – 20 cadavers.”
Because of Cripton’s affiliations with UBC and VGH, the company has access to human bodies that have been donated for medical research. McHugh said being able to test the Pro-Neck-Tor on cadavers gives the Pro-Neck-Tor a significant marketing edge.
“We’ve already tested this on the human body. The marketing ability to make those claims, supported by all of Peter’s numbers and testing – that’s enormously powerful to get this sold.”
In addition to the private investment McHugh has already raised, UBC has invested roughly $1 million to help Cripton test and patent the Pro-Neck-Tor. •
