This Slovenian Founder Is Tackling a €42B Market Healthcare Systems Can’t Solve — With a Sub-€1K Device

Neuro Muss targets 150M stroke survivors with NewPulse, a home rehab device that delivers the high-repetition therapy neuroplasticity requires.

The strategy: Class I launch in 2027, Class II in 2029, both under €1,000. Behind it is a founder who rehabilitated her own mother after doctors said it was impossible.

When doctors told Sasa Lavric that her mother would never walk again after a stroke, Sasa disagreed — then spent years proving them wrong. Her mother walked for the next fourteen years. What never returned was her left hand. Pain, swelling, and immobility remained constant. Sasa remembers her mother massaging her paralysed hand with her other hand just to cope. “When I think about how much my mum suffered, I know that if a device had existed to help her even a little, we would have bought it — just to show her that her pain mattered,” Sasa says.

Today, Sasa Lavric is the CEO and co-founder of Neuro Muss, a women-led Slovenian MedTech startup building NewPulse, a home-based rehabilitation device for stroke survivors. The numbers are enormous: 150 million people worldwide live with stroke consequences, growing 10% annually. Nearly 70% suffer from weak or paralysed hands — the hardest function to recover. That creates a total addressable market of € 42 billion. Neuro Muss is going after it with a two-phase regulatory strategy and a sub-€1,000 price point designed for direct-to-consumer and B2B2C distribution.

The Two-Phase Launch Strategy

Neuro Muss is pursuing a pragmatic market entry that acknowledges regulatory reality. Phase one: launch NewPulse as a Class I device (EU) / 510(k) device (US) in 2027, focused on relief of spasticity-related pain, priced at €600. This version addresses symptoms already backed by studies and requires less regulatory burden.

Phase two: launch a Class II device (EU) in 2029, focused on neuroplasticity-driven rehabilitation to help patients regain lost motor functions, priced at €900, after completing clinical trials. Both devices will be developed in parallel.

For the Class I device, the addressable market in the EU and the US is approximately 12 million users. Capturing 3% market share represents 360,000 devices and €216 million in revenue. The Class II device targets an annual incidence pool of 1.2 million first-time stroke patients per year in the EU and the US. At 3% penetration, that’s 36,000 devices and €32 million annually. The company projects sales ramping from 1,000 devices in 2027 to 12,000 in 2029, with revenue growing from under €1 million to approximately €5 million.

Why Healthcare Systems Can’t Deliver What Neuroplasticity Requires

Neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself after injury — allows stroke survivors to regain lost motor functions. But it requires early, high-volume rehabilitation. Tens of thousands of repetitions. That level of therapy is not feasible in clinical settings. By 2030, Europe alone faces a shortage of 4 million healthcare workers, leaving patients with longer waiting lists and higher treatment costs. The annual cost of stroke care is €64 billion in the EU and $56 billion in the US, with total economic impact reaching €120 billion and $120 billion, respectively. The rehabilitation gap is not just a healthcare crisis — it’s a market opportunity.

NewPulse shifts stroke-hand rehabilitation from clinic to couch. The device enables patients to perform high-repetition therapy independently at home, accumulating the volume of repetitions neuroplasticity requires without depending on clinical appointments that may never come. For a healthcare system under mounting pressure, home-based medical devices are no longer peripheral innovations — they are essential infrastructure.

Product Design: Why These Features Matter

NewPulse is a passive rehabilitation device that uses a modular mechanical hand unit to safely move all five fingers through high-repetition cycles, paired with a control module providing visual and audio guidance. The design choices reflect real-world constraints: usable with one hand (critical for stroke survivors), physical buttons instead of touchscreens (suitable for elderly users), works with both left and right hands, fits all hand sizes with a single device, and functions even with a completely paralysed or weak hand.

Neuro Muss conducted competitive analysis against Neofect Glove, Saebo Glove, Motus Nova Hand, and Neurofenix Neoball. NewPulse is the only device that combines all critical features: appropriate for paralysed hands, one device for both hands, one size fits all, easy independent use, moves all five fingers, and remains affordable at under €1,000. Competitors typically fail on at least two of these dimensions; none meet all six.

Go-To-Market: B2C and B2B2C

The distribution strategy is dual-channel. B2C includes direct sales through the company website, social media, PR campaigns, and stroke support associations. B2B2C targets rehabilitation centres, pharmacies, hospitals, and healthcare providers as distribution partners. This reflects the reality of medical device adoption: some customers buy directly, but many discover products through clinical settings and prefer institutional validation before purchase.

The Team and Traction

Sasa Lavric is a breast cancer survivor and former director of the Savinja Region Incubator, with prior management roles at SPIRIT Slovenia, where she led the Shanghai EXPO 2010 project. Her co-founder is Ula Toplak, a kinesiologist focused on product development and customer support. The seven-person team includes R&D specialists in mechanical engineering and mechatronics (Luka Hus, Borut Štorman), and Katja Kresse, a senior external and corporate affairs leader who handles public affairs and product launches.

The company has secured €112,000 in non-dilutive funding: €72,000 Slovenian Startup Grant, €25,000 from InnoStars Awards, and €15,000 in other grants. Neuro Muss completed EIT Health’s Women Entrepreneurship Bootcamp and Regulatory Bootcamp, and is currently conducting product development and user testing for both devices. The roadmap: Class I device launches in 2027; ISO 13485 QMS certification for Class II device in 2027; MDR-EU certification in 2028; FDA clearance for the US market in 2029.

“I am persistent, and my mission is to bring such a device to the market. Then the market will decide whether it is needed or not,” Sasa says.

For the 150 million stroke survivors who never fully regain hand function — and the millions more joining them each year as one in four people over 25 experiences a stroke — the market has already decided. What remains is execution. And for a founder who spent years rehabilitating her mother when doctors said it was impossible, execution is exactly what she’s built her career around.