Sepsis, an acute inflammation triggered by infection, is a leading cause of childhood mortality, claiming roughly 3 million children under the age of five annually.

Efferon, a startup selected as one of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026’s Startup Battlefield 200, is on a mission to drastically lower that number.

The company has developed a medical device that it says lowers organ failure rates and significantly accelerates recovery in children.

When standard treatments like antibiotics cannot stop the immune system’s overreaction, a patient’s blood must be filtered to remove deadly toxins. That is where Efferon’s devices, of absorbers of dangerous cytokines and toxins, step in to make a critical difference.