M.J. Kievman entered the health care industry as a seventh grader. After suffering from hiccups for three months, the Manchester preteen invented Hiccupops, lollipops that aim to stop occasional hiccupping.
Now, at age 23, Kievman is the co-founder and CEO of Meter Health, a Hartford-based biotech firm that is launching the nationwide sale of her lollipop for occasional hiccups, while also developing a drug to stop more severe, “clinically significant” cases of hiccupping.
After years of research and reformulation, the original citrus-flavored Hiccupop will be sold nationwide at 864 CVS locations.
Kievman, who lives in Boston, founded Meter Health in 2017 with Bartholomew Bacak, a hiccups researcher who is an ear, nose and throat doctor with University of Rochester Medical Center.
She said Meter’s research is based on the hypothesis that hiccups, rather than being a respiratory or gastrointestinal problem, are neurological in nature.
“You have to send a signal to the brainstem to stop the abnormal breath pattern,” Kievman said. “The Hiccupop sends the signal but the pill is a much more targeted compound. It sends the signals more strongly, in a more lasting way.”
The Hiccupop — made with apple cider vinegar and a few other ingredients — is for anyone who hiccups, for any reason, and can’t stop the hiccupping using well-known home remedies such as holding breath, drinking water, eating peanut butter, etc.
The pill will be for those whose hiccups are long-lasting, are caused by serious health issues or that threatens their health.
Chronic hiccups can be caused by chemotherapy, anesthesia, GERD, Parkinson’s disease, stroke and other medical conditions, Kievman said.
“You could be coming out of surgery and out of the anesthesia and start hiccupping. It can tear your stitches,” she said.
Life-changing invention
Kievman’s three-month bout of hiccups at age 12, which was relieved only when she was asleep, bothered her so much she started researching and experimenting.
“I was just a kid, so I just tried all kinds of things, put things together, saw what worked, what didn’t. I saw that putting it in the form of a lollipop worked,” she said. “I always was interested in science but it was the first thing I applied myself to. I didn’t know a lot about the scientific basis of what I was doing.”
The Hiccupop changed her life.
In 2012, at age 13, she was invited to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, along with other young entrepreneurs. The bell-ringing marked the first anniversary of Startup America Partnership. In 2014, at age 16, she appeared on Disney Channel’s “Make Your Mark,” a series of short films focusing on innovative youths. In 2015, she was a guest of President Obama at the White House Science Fair, where she represented the Connecticut Invention Convention. Today, Kievman is a board member of the convention.
Kievman graduated from Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor and went on to Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She plans to stay in the pharmaceutical industry, but at Colby, she got a degree in English, with an emphasis on creative writing.
“I am passionate about communication. I want to be able to communicate with authority about what we are doing,” she said.
Kievman graduated from Colby in 2020 but, because of the pandemic, didn’t walk in her graduation ceremony until this year.
She still gets hiccups every now and then.
“I get it most often when I eat kale,” she said. Her sister Megan had a similar lengthy hiccup period in her youth. The Hiccupop helped Megan, too. She also has a brother, Brennan, and another sister, Mackenzie. Her parents are Adam Kievman, who is chairman of Meter, and Shannon Kievman of Manchester.
In addition to spearheading research into the pill program, Kievman wants to change the way people think about hiccups, which many consider an insignificant, even amusing affliction.
“For so many people it’s a devastating, debilitating, deadly problem. People who go to the doctor’s office because they’ve been hiccupping nonstop for two weeks, they hesitate to say anything because people tend to think it’s a silly, stupid, minor annoyance,” Kievman said.
“The universality of hiccups is a double-edged sword. Everyone knows how it feels. But some people get them for like five years and people will say, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine’.”
She hopes to someday establish an association to advocate for hiccupping research, similar to other medical advocacy groups such as the American Heart Association.
“If we get the message across it’ll build empathy and disease awareness,” she said.
Find more information at hiccupops.com.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.