MatchPlay Ventures, an early-stage investment syndicate with Maryland roots, has announced an investment in SOLUtion Medical, a Philadelphia drug delivery startup working on TwistJECT, a device designed to make emergency injections for adrenal crisis simpler and safer to administer under pressure.
The Problem TwistJECT Is Built to Solve
Adrenal crisis is a medical emergency that requires an immediate injection of hydrocortisone, but the drug itself is a complication. It has to be stored as a dry powder to stay stable, which means patients or caregivers have to reconstitute it with a liquid diluent before they can give the shot, a multi-step process SOLUtion Medical says can run as many as 14 steps. That’s a lot to ask of someone managing a medical emergency, often a parent or caregiver rather than a trained clinician, in a moment when hesitation or a mixing error can matter. TwistJECT is SOLUtion’s answer: a dual-chamber, prefilled device that combines the powder and diluent in a single unit, collapsing that reconstitution process down closer to one step. The company has not yet secured FDA approval for the device, so this remains a product still working its way toward market rather than one already in patients’ hands.
A Founder Who Lived the Problem First
SOLUtion Medical’s origin traces back to its founder, Julia Anthony, who has Salt-Wasting Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, the same condition her brother has, and who has watched him go through repeated adrenal crises. She developed the early concept for what became TwistJECT as a graduate student in Thomas Jefferson University’s industrial and product design program, building out the device’s early prototypes through NextFab, the city’s maker and prototyping space, which at the time operated a location in South Philadelphia (NextFab has since consolidated its Philadelphia operations into a single North Philadelphia facility). Along the way it has drawn support from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the UK’s Addison’s Disease Self-Help Group, and Johnson & Johnson’s JLabs innovation program, along with grant funding through the Pennsylvania Pediatric Medical Device Consortium. Todd Wallach now serves as SOLUtion’s CEO alongside Anthony, who leads as Founder and Chief Strategy Officer.
Two Regions, One Deal
The investment itself is a small but tidy example of two of the mid-Atlantic’s life sciences hubs intersecting. MatchPlay runs as a sidecar fund investing across life sciences, fintech, and energy, and its roots trace back to the Baltimore area, where Managing Partner Mahesh Narayanan is himself based as an investor; here, that Maryland-rooted fund is backing a company built in Philadelphia’s device and manufacturing corridor. Narayanan framed the investment around both the clinical need and the team behind it: “Adrenal crisis requires immediate treatment, yet patients and caregivers are often expected to manage a complex injection process under extreme stress. SOLUtion is changing that with TwistJECT, a platform designed to simplify how reconstituted medicines are prepared and delivered.” On the leadership driving the company forward, he added that Anthony and Wallach “combine deep patient insight with the operating discipline needed to build a scalable pharmaceutical platform. They understand both the human reality of the problem and the complexity of building a pharmaceutical company capable of solving it.”
Why It Matters Beyond One Device
Narayanan’s broader point in announcing the deal is really about where drug delivery is headed industry-wide: “Patient-centric drug delivery is moving from a convenience to a clinical requirement, and the company is reaching an important stage where strong execution can turn years of research, product development, and patient insight into meaningful regulatory and commercial progress.” That’s the bet MatchPlay is making with this investment, that SOLUtion’s device platform, honed on one especially unforgiving use case in adrenal crisis, has a shot at becoming infrastructure other drug-device combination products can build on as more treatment moves out of clinical settings and into patients’ own hands.
