🔒CT startup aims to bring safer batteries to market

In a small lab inside Fairfield University, Melissa Fensterstock, a mom of two young children, and her partners are closer than ever to launching a safer battery designed to prevent serious injury or even death in children if accidentally swallowed.

Fensterstock, CEO of Landsdowne Labs LLC, said the goal is to get the new battery technology that’s been in development for over a decade into the hands of consumers in the next 18 to 24 months.

As of late October, the technology had received a U.S. patent.

Button batteries are commonly found in household products like children’s toys, key fobs, watches, hearing aids, flameless candles, remote controls, calculators and even greeting cards.

Because of their tiny size, if accidentally ingested, they can cause serious, even fatal, damage to children’s airways and internal organs, according to Fensterstock.

The National Poison Control Center in 2019 reported that nearly 3,500 button battery ingestions were reported in the U.S., with the majority involving children under age six.

Fensterstock said she receives daily emails and text alerts about children accidentally swallowing these tiny batteries, many dying before being diagnosed.

“A safer battery is a must have,” Fensterstock said. “Right now, children have access to loose batteries or from devices that are not intended for children. Parents often do not witness an ingestion (of a battery) and serious, life-threatening damage can take place in as little as two hours, and it’s too late once it’s diagnosed. Children should not be dying from ingesting button batteries — they are essentially an unsecured poison. The technology exists to solve this problem and it should be solved in the marketplace as well.”

Manufacturing partner

Fensterstock, who has an MBA from Harvard, teamed up six years ago with MIT’s Robert Langer, known as the “Edison of Medicine” and co-founder of Moderna, and Jeff Karp, professor at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School, to find a solution for a safer battery. The technology began in Langer’s MIT lab 10 years ago.

Thanks to a $1.1 million investment from Connecticut Innovations, along with funding and grants from various other sources, Fensterstock said the team has been diligently working to commercialize their potentially life-saving product.

The technology involves an innovative coating that Fensterstock said is the first of its kind. The coating is aimed at halting chemical reactions when batteries come into contact with aqueous environments — such as the esophagus, stomach or intestinal tract — thus reducing risks of chemical burns, permanent tissue damage to internal organs or even death, if swallowed.

The earth metal known as niobium is a key component of the coating.

Fensterstock said the technology has been extensively tested and adheres to strict practices and regulations by the battery manufacturing industry.

She said finding a major partner to launch with would be the preferred outcome, but if that doesn’t happen, she and the team are prepared to release the product and launch a battery on their own. Fensterstock said the company is in talks with several major manufacturers.

“We have a solution on hand that we can bring to market, but it’s not as cost optimized as we want yet and we are working on lower-cost solutions,” Fensterstock said.

At Walmart, for example, a two-pack of Energizer coin batteries sell for around $5, and a three-pack of Duracell button batteries cost about $8.

Fensterstock said the technology her team developed would add “only a few cents more” to the cost of existing batteries and is “a drop-in solution to the manufacturing process” that would cause no changes to an existing assembly line.

Saving lives

The technology has been lauded by U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who paid a visit to Landsdowne Labs in October.

Blumenthal introduced and led the passage of “Reese’s Law,” which requires the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to strictly regulate the packaging and enclosures of button or coin batteries. The legislation, passed in August 2022, is named after Reese Hamsmith, an 18-month-old girl who died after ingesting a button battery from a remote control.

While the legislation mandates consumer warning labels and child-resistant enclosures on the small battery packages, and is something Fensterstock applauds, she said it still can’t stop a child, pet or elderly person from accidentally swallowing a battery.

Blumenthal said what Landsdowne Labs is doing will go far toward saving lives.

“We need this kind of inventive, ingenious and hopefully successful solution to an everyday problem in people’s homes,” he said.

Doug Roth, managing director of investments at Connecticut Innovations, the state’s quasi-public venture capital arm, said investing in Landsdowne Labs was a no-brainer.

“Given the strength of the team and the critical problem they are solving, this was an easy investment opportunity for Connecticut Innovations to pursue,” said Roth. “Landsdowne Labs has a solution that will significantly reduce the harm caused by a battery’s electrical discharge if swallowed, without impacting the electrical properties of the batteries, and with volume production, will add only negligible costs to the manufacturer.”

Fensterstock said she and her team continue to push forward because they want to see safer batteries on the market.

“The technology is available to prevent tragedies from happening,” she said.