‘Every second counts’
Alumnus Matt Bitner-Glindzicz engineers a life-saving solution
When McKelvey Engineering alumnus Matt Bitner-Glindzicz was writing his college application essay, he focused on his interest in “space as the next frontier for humanity.”
Today, he’s keeping his feet on the ground as he takes on a crisis happening here on Earth — the opioid epidemic. As co-founder of nCase Technologies, he’s revolutionizing the accessibility of life-saving naloxone nasal spray (commonly known as Narcan) through the company’s flagship product: NALOX-1, a soft-plastic keychain case that securely and discreetly encapsulates the spray, while allowing for rapid access and administration. Naloxone, sold over the counter, reduces opioid overdose deaths up to 93%.
“First and foremost, we want to normalize carrying naloxone — for health care providers and the general public,” he said. “Every second counts when someone is experiencing an overdose.”
nCase Technologies is a joint venture between Bitner-Glindzicz and his fiancée, Danielle Wilder, a fourth-year emergency medicine student at Washington University School of Medicine. Wilder had a personal connection to the opioid epidemic, having lost a close friend to overdose several years earlier. Then, in early 2024, a group of Wilder’s classmates encountered someone experiencing an overdose in Tower Grove. Although the students had just been trained to administer naloxone and had been given a dose to take home, they didn’t have the drug available when they needed it.
“Without having it in hand, all they could do was call 911,” Bitner-Glindzicz said.
When they recounted the story to Wilder and Bitner-Glindzicz, their shared frustration became a “call-to-action moment,” he said. “Why not make naloxone easily accessible to everyone?”
For Bitner-Glindzicz, who earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in dynamics and mechanical design in 2021, followed by a master’s in materials engineering in 2022, it was an opportunity to use his engineering design skills in an area that he had before seen as Wilder’s domain — saving lives.
“Without trying, we found the perfect intersection of what we both do,” he said.
In April 2024, nCase won $10,000 in Catalyst funding in the Skandalaris Center’s Spring Venture Competition, giving the business a crucial boost that allowed it to move past the concept stage to testing and making a prototype.
“We took this product from concept to market in 11 months with no entrepreneurial experience,” Bitner-Glindzicz said. “It’s been an exciting time, but it’s not without risk. You are so close to really launching this thing, or you could still burn up before takeoff.”
He calls the WashU community “instrumental at so many levels” to the speed with which they have been able to bring the keychain to market. Last year, nCase conducted pilot testing with 120 participants, many of them WashU Med health care professionals.
“Across the board, we wouldn’t have gotten this off the ground without the support we’ve received from WashU and the St. Louis innovation ecosystem,” he said. “We’re at the point where we are asking how we can make this even better. That’s where those connections to the emergency department and toxicology at WashU are so important.”
Bitner-Glindzicz, originally from Grapevine, Texas, first heard of WashU when a high school friend attending the school encouraged him to apply.
“And then later I got the greatest phone call of my life when Dean Bobick called to say I’d been chosen as a Langsdorf Scholar,” he said.
Once on campus, he benefited from the support of Guy Genin, the Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
“He was an incredibly pivotal figure for me in my undergrad years, setting me on a path to study abroad and get my master’s early,” he said. “He really listened and took time to help me make my vision clear.”
After WashU, Bitner-Glindzicz stayed close to campus, working as a design engineer for a small St. Louis startup that managed more than $2 million in NASA and DOE-funded projects. Building optical sensor hardware for use in extreme environments, including in space or on the ocean floor, allowed him to “fulfill some of those pre-college dreams of pushing the next frontiers of humanity,” he said.
He calls the experience “the perfect first gig that I would have been really hesitant to leave” if not for the startup’s reorganization and layoffs, which turned out to be a blessing.
“It gave me a three-month runway to launch nCase,” he said.
Based in St. Louis, nCase is committed to fostering safer communities through innovation, education and strategic partnerships. Bitner-Glindzicz says the city’s wealth of health care professionals, community workers and harm reduction organizations makes it the perfect place to raise awareness of “how simple it can be to save a life.”
It’s a realization that has changed his perspective permanently.
“My idea of meaningful impact has shifted and will never shift back,” he said. “I’ll spend the rest of my career chasing simple solutions that can have the biggest impact.”
