Originally reported by Katelyn Biefeldt for teknovation.biz · May 26, 2026. Shared here with credit to the original publication.
We are honored to share this powerful story featuring Tasia Malakasis and her journey through breast cancer, a journey that ultimately opened the door to SOMAVAC® and our mission to improve post-surgical recovery for women.
Tasia Malakasis, CEO of the Company Lab (CO.LAB), is well known across Tennessee’s entrepreneurial ecosystem as a fierce advocate for startups, a connector of people and ideas, and a unifying voice for regional founders. Since early 2026, she had been privately battling breast cancer. She discovered a concerning lump at the end of 2025, and physicians confirmed the diagnosis in January. On May 4 she underwent a double mastectomy to address invasive lobular carcinoma, a particularly difficult form of the disease, known for forming chains of tumors that are hard to detect and challenging to remove.
Malakasis approached her diagnosis the way she approaches everything: with a business mindset. She researched, made appointments, and prepared her team. But the Friday before surgery, reality shifted.
“Life is going to look different now.”
Discovering the options, and a 50-year gap
After her diagnosis, Malakasis navigated multiple specialists while facing a rapid schedule of appointments. One aspect of post-surgical recovery concerned her in particular: the drainage system.
Following a mastectomy, patients typically go home with Jackson-Pratt (JP) bulb drains: a manual, analog system that requires emptying three or four times a day, measuring fluid, and recording output.
“At first, I didn’t really know anything about drains. But after your surgery, you can’t manage them yourself because it’s painful,” Malakasis explained.
Online forums, YouTube videos, and blog posts confirm widespread frustration with this system, which has remained nearly universal despite enormous investment in breast cancer research. The United States dedicates at least $1 billion annually to breast cancer research, according to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health notes that breast cancer consistently receives more research and clinical funding than any other cancer type.
Yet for 50 years, post-surgical recovery hardware has remained unchanged.
Jane Berz, board chair for SOMAVAC®, addressed that gap directly: “Breast cancer is the number one researched, the number one funded, the number one talked-about cancer of all. Yet no one invested in the recovery. And that’s what we’re doing.”
What is SOMAVAC®?
SOMAVAC® is a Memphis-based med-tech startup developing the first real alternative to the JP bulb drain in half a century. The company created a portable, battery-powered electromechanical pump that uses negative-pressure vacuum therapy to remove post-surgical fluid. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared it for use following mastectomies, plastic surgeries, and other general procedures.
Where the traditional JP bulb costs roughly $0.50 and requires constant patient management, SOMAVAC® is discreet and self-contained.
Elizabeth Hoff, SOMAVAC®’s founder, described the user experience: “You can put your shirt over it. It pulls the fluid out into a waste collection unit. Patients don’t have to touch the fluid or worry that it’s going to get on them. They simply throw it in the kitchen garbage and put a new bag in.”
Early clinical data shows patients can have drains removed 30% sooner with SOMAVAC® compared to traditional methods, thanks to the device’s negative-pressure therapy technology.
A Tennessee connection, accelerated by urgency
Malakasis had met Berz in Chattanooga before her diagnosis, through her work at CO.LAB. She knew about SOMAVAC®’s FDA clearance and its growing hospital partnerships. After her diagnosis, she became determined to use it.
“I became interested in using SOMAVAC, having heard Jane’s passion for the product and all the lives it had already touched. The only problem is that SOMAVAC hadn’t been approved to be used at Erlanger,” Malakasis noted.
Hospital approval for new medical devices typically takes months or years. With surgery scheduled four weeks out, Malakasis decided to accelerate the timeline.
“I got real serious about it. SOMAVAC would be helpful for me. But, even bigger than that, helping SOMAVAC get used at Erlanger became about helping somebody else, too. It became about helping a Tennessee startup. It became about helping the hundreds of thousands of women who may come after me with this diagnosis,” she explained.
She contacted Sheila Boyington, chair of the Erlanger Health board, with a direct request: “I said, personally, I’m having a double mastectomy in your hospital in the next four weeks. I want to use this product. Can you help me get it approved for my surgery?”
With Boyington’s support, the SOMAVAC® team met with the hospital board. Within weeks, Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga became the first hospital in East Tennessee to use SOMAVAC® for post-surgical care, on a timeline that would normally have taken months or years.
“My core belief in all of this is that this diagnosis happened for a reason. Maybe this is the reason. It’s my raison d’être to support startups. I now get to use a new product in my own life and be an advocate for them beyond just my role with CO.LAB.”
What patients say
Malakasis reported that SOMAVAC® was “working great” days after surgery, and that she needed it for roughly one week, consistent with the company’s clinical data on accelerated drain removal.
Others have experienced similarly profound impacts, particularly those requiring multiple surgeries. Lynne Brewer, a breast cancer survivor diagnosed in 2023, underwent a bilateral mastectomy using traditional JP drains. Within eight weeks she developed an infection that required a second surgery and 14 additional days of drainage. Over two years she had four surgeries for reconstruction, all requiring drains.
For her final surgery at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, she told her surgeon she was worn down by the drains, and he listened. After that surgery, she woke up with SOMAVAC®.
“I normally average 14 days with the JP bulbs. I had SOMAVAC taken off in six days. I am perfect now. No infections. Plus, it gave me the independence and the freedom that I could recover, not on my own, but in my own way,” Brewer reported.
Hoff views patient advocates like Brewer and Malakasis as central to SOMAVAC®’s growth: “There is nothing in med-tech like good old-fashioned feet on the street. Our patients are the best pressure because they want and deserve the best recovery care available to them.”
What’s next for SOMAVAC®
SOMAVAC® currently has a Series A+ funding round open, seeking $8–10 million to scale operations, outreach, and marketing across U.S. hospital systems. Since inception, the team has raised approximately $12 million.
The rollout has been strong. SOMAVAC® is in the vendor approval committee process at notable hospitals including UPenn, UT Southwestern, Houston Methodist Hospital, and Henry Ford Hospital. The company has full approval at Hoag Hospital in Orange County, California; Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia; Ohio State in Columbus; and eight institutions across the Mississippi and Tennessee regions, including the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson and Baptist East Hospital in Memphis. Each of these institutions has completed more than 100 procedures using SOMAVAC®.
Longer term, Hoff and Berz envision the platform technology extending beyond breast cancer recovery into orthopedics, general surgery, and cosmetic procedures.
Finding purpose in the diagnosis
Berz characterized Malakasis as “a warrior, charting her own path through all of this.”
Roughly three weeks after her early-May surgery, Malakasis was already back to engaging with and supporting Tennessee founders, including SOMAVAC®, in a substantive way.
“I’m not saying this is the reason I got breast cancer, but I would like to believe that my story can be a benefit to other women. For me, it gives purpose to this journey,” Malakasis said.
At SOMAVAC®, we are driven by the belief that healing matters, and that innovation should meet patients where they are in some of life’s hardest moments. Thank you, Tasia, for sharing your story and helping shine a light on the importance of better recovery solutions for breast cancer patients.
This story was originally reported and published by Katelyn Biefeldt at teknovation.biz on May 26, 2026. All credit for the original reporting belongs to teknovation. Read the original article on teknovation.biz →
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