Sepsis Kills Around 3 Million Children Under Five Every Year: Efferon, Using Technology from Moscow State University, Filters Their Blood

Sepsis, the acute inflammation triggered by infection, is among the leading causes of death in children: every year it kills around 3 million children under the age of five. Taking on that number is Efferon, a start-up that has developed a medical device for blood purification and claims it reduces organ failure and significantly speeds up recovery in children.

When antibiotics can't stop the immune system's overreaction, the patient's blood has to be filtered to remove deadly toxins. Co-founder and CEO Dima Romashin compares sepsis to a fire: "In a fire there are two things: the flame itself and the smoke it produces." Endotoxins are the flame, cytokines are the smoke - and Efferon's device, Romashin says, unlike others on the market, absorbs both at the same time.

The company also makes absorbers for adults, but it says Efferon NEO is proving especially effective - a device built specifically for small children, who have a much smaller volume of circulating blood. In April it received the CE mark, the European equivalent of US FDA approval, becoming the first multimodal blood purification device designed specifically for paediatric sepsis. Today it's used in intensive care units in 30 countries, including European hospitals, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.

The technology was developed by scientists at Moscow State University, among them co-founder Ivan Bessonov. Romashin, a serial entrepreneur, took the helm this year to commercialise it. The next step is applying for FDA approval, and the company expects to reach 2 million dollars (about 1.7 million euros) in annual revenue by the end of 2026 at its current pace.

Romashin admits Efferon isn't growing at the dizzying pace of today's AI start-ups. In a world where AI companies are valued in the billions before they've earned anything, 2 million dollars of revenue looks modest. But he says real success is measured differently - by every child who goes home. The question is a different one: how many inventions like this from Eastern European labs are still stuck in drawers because nobody came along to sell them?