Hundreds of perfectly good pacemaker devices just get tossed aside in the U.K. alone.
Currently, pacemakers removed prior to cremation are not recycled and are either thrown away or dumped into boxes and stock piled over years in funeral parlors and mortuaries.
The idea for Pace4Life came out of a chance conversation with a mortuary technician who mentioned that the cupboards in her lab were being cluttered up with discarded pacemakers.
Researching pacemakers and their background further, Lavan discovered significant research that supported the recycling and reuse of pacemakers and thus an idea was born.
In March 2012, Lavan attended Startup Weekend (http://startupweekend.org/). Pitching the concept of the recycling and reuse of pacemakers a team was formed consisting of Janet Chapman, Tarun Dhillon, Margarida Costa Faria and Barbara Diehl.
54 hours later, with extensive research performed, links established with funeral parlors, mortuaries, senior cardiologists and educational institutes, Pace4Life was born.