Profiles in Success
Anna Sadovnikova | LiquidGoldConcept
Better lactation support for parents—worldwide
Anna Sadovnikova, MPH, M.A., IBCLC started her career in public health and is now a M.D./Ph.D. candidate in mammary gland biology and breastfeeding medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Sadovnikova is a NIH-funded investigator, receiving a five-year F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to define the molecular mechanism by which stress negatively impacts lactation.
Sadovnikova is the co-founder and CEO of LiquidGoldConcept and won the $10,000 Health Sector Award in the 2019 Big Bang! Business Competition. Since then, the startup received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I award, won the $25,000 Grand Prize Pitch award at the UC Berkeley Scaling Up Big Ideas Pitch Competition, and formalized a global partnership with Maternova. In 2021, LiquidGoldConcept launched the first cohort of the Pathway 3 Global Mentorship Program to provide clinical skills training and mentorship to aspiring lactation professionals worldwide.
Sadovnikova received the 2020 Daniel T. O’Connor M.D. Memorial Research Grant, which supports deserving medical students who emphasize a multidisciplinary, collaborative “bench-to-bedside” approach to developing new treatments and therapies.
Briefly, what is your venture?
LiquidGoldConcept manufactures the world's only realistic lactation, breast and newborn simulators and incorporates those groundbreaking simulation technologies into live clinical practice experiences for health professionals worldwide.
How does your innovation make the world a better place?
Millions of deaths of women and infants could be prevented if parents received timely and skilled lactation support. LiquidGoldConcept creates products and programs to address the global shortage of timely and skilled lactation support for parents.
What was most valuable about participating in the Big Bang?
Refining a business plan is a healthy exercise for the executive team to perform on a regular basis. I relish the opportunity to sit down with my teammates and get "back to the basics" to remind ourselves about the problem we are solving and for whom, what our mission and vision are, and how we can grow our business sustainably to make the biggest positive social impact in the United States and abroad.
What are LiquidGoldConcept's key milestones?
We have partnered with distributors in 30+ countries. We have sold thousands of simulators globally and engaged tens of thousands of health professionals in live, in-person and virtual clinical lactation practice with our simulation technology.
One of the most exciting achievements has been the receipt of a Phase I SBIR award in 2020 from the National Institutes of Health to develop a realistic newborn simulator (patent pending) that responds to breastfeeding cues by opening and closing its mouth, suckling and swallowing. Our Phase II application was reviewed favorably by the NIH committee in June 2021 and we are optimistic our proposal for continued research and development of this product will be funded.
What's next for your startup?
We just launched a Global Mentorship Program to provide clinical lactation practice opportunities and mentorship from board-certified lactation experts to aspiring lactation professionals worldwide who otherwise would have no access to this education or guidance. Our goal is to grow this program so that we can increase the number of skilled professionals in rural and underserved regions worldwide.
What's your single best advice for Aggie Innovators?
Find co-founders who have complementary skills to yours. Your co-founders are critical to the success of your venture. Once you start to grow your team, it will be your job, as the C-suite executive, to empower your team members to take initiative and become responsible for a particular aspect of the business.
You know you are succeeding as a CEO if you can step away and the 'business machine' is running smoothly without you.