Combat medicine, meet biomedicine: biomedical startups pitch Tar Heel technologies that promise to save life and limb on the battlefield.

• Position: DEPLOY: BIOMEDICAL

When former combat medic Corey Russ decided to strike out from the military into the private sector in 2008, the 20-year Army vet and two medic friends had a surplus of ideas for products that would help treat combat injuries in the field. They turned those ideas into Combat Medical Systems LLC and set up shop in Fayetteville, where Russ knew he'd have a receptive marketplace. U.S. Army Special Forces medics at Fort Bragg are always looking for better ways to administer lifesaving critical care in chaotic, nonsterile combat environments.

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Being near a major military base is key to the company's ability to meet needs that evolve with warfare tactics, CEO Russ says. For example, it developed what it calls the Combat Ready Clamp to staunch bleeding in pelvic arteries, where tourniquets can't reach, after learning that increasing numbers of soldiers on foot patrol in Afghanistan were being injured by stepping on pressure-plate-activated explosives buried by insurgents. "In some cases, we could make things move a little faster than in the government," Russ says of Combat Medical Systems, now a 25-person company that's expanding its product lines to include devices such as mobile ventilators and monitors. North Carolina, he says, is building a reputation for innovation, becoming a "Silicon Valley" of military biomedical companies.

The bioscience sector already is a major part of the state's economy. A study by Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute and commissioned by Research Triangle Park-based N.C. Biotechnology Center pegged economic output for the industry at $64.6 billion in 2010. According to the report, 108 drug and pharmaceutical companies and 175 medical-device and--equipment companies were based in the state. How much of that output is consumed by the military is unknown, but the industry consensus is that it's not enough. Demand for long-term care combined "with the need to develop new products based on lessons learned" means opportunities for biomedical companies to develop and sell new products are limitless, says Scott Dorsey, executive director of the North Carolina Military Business Center in Fayetteville.

Mario Moreno, chief technology officer of BioMedica USA LLC, hopes the Army will recognize the Research Triangle Park-based business' brand of startup innovation. The three-year-old company is developing a handheld device that would let combat medics quickly determine the...