In 2019, Dani Wilder lost a close friend to an opioid overdose. People around him owned naloxone, the medication that can reverse an overdose, but none of them had it on hand. Not long after, Dani's classmates watched someone overdose in public in St. Louis. Again, naloxone existed. Again, it wasn't there when it mattered.
Those two moments revealed a problem nobody was solving: owning naloxone isn't the same as carrying it. Lifesaving medication was sitting in bags, cabinets, and cars instead of within reach.
This is the story of how Dani and Matt Bitner-Glindzicz set out to close that gap.
The Moment That Started Everything
While walking through a neighborhood in St. Louis, a group of friends encountered someone experiencing an opioid overdose. One of them owned naloxone – the medication that reverses opioid overdoses – but it wasn't with them at the moment it was needed.
That moment echoed a deeper tragedy Dani Wilder(Cofounder) had already lived through. Dani had lost a close childhood friend to an opioid overdose. He owned naloxone too. It just wasn't with him.
"That single gap – between access and presence – cost someone I loved their life."
That gap became the foundation of everything nCase exists to do.
Who Built It
Dani Wilder is an emergency medical resident at the University of Pennsylvania.. After losing her friend, she began researching why people who owned naloxone weren't carrying it and what it would take to change that.
Matt Bitner-Glindzicz is an experienced engineer and project manager, with two MS degrees in engineering from WashU. Having spent his earliest post-grad years designing complex optical sensors for extreme environments, he went on to co-found nCase Technologies.
Dani and Matt met as undergrads at Washington University in St. Louis, where a late-night dorm fire drill sparked their first conversation. What started as a friendship became a partnership – personal and professional – and eventually a marriage. Dani Wilder, AB '21, MD '26, and Matt Bitner-Glindzicz, BS '21, MS '22, cofounded nCase Technologies in 2024.
Together, they brought complementary skills to a shared problem – Dani's clinical understanding of naloxone access and overdose response, and Matt's engineering background in designing things built for extreme conditions.
The Problem They Set Out to Solve
Through research and conversations with community members, Dani and Matt discovered a set of simple but persistent barriers to carrying naloxone: bulkiness, inconvenience, stigma.
People weren't failing to carry naloxone because they didn't care. They were failing to carry it because nothing made it easy to carry. It lived in bags left at home, in cabinets at work, in cars parked too far away. Owning naloxone and having naloxone on you in the moment of an emergency are two very different things – and nobody had built a product that bridged that gap.
nCase Tech was created after real-world experiences revealed a gap too many people face: lifesaving medication exists, but it isn't always with us when it's needed the most.
Building the Product
Matt took the engineering challenge seriously from the start. The case had to be compact enough to carry on a keychain, durable enough to survive everyday life, and designed so that it could be opened with one hand in a moment of panic – without accidentally discharging the medication inside.
"From an engineering perspective, having a soft case instead of a hard one allowed me to make this into a single-body design, which is really important," Bitner-Glindzicz says.
The result was nCase Lite – a waterproof, UV-resistant silicone case that clips to a keychain, a bag, or a belt loop. It intentionally looks more like a discreet accessory than a medical device – by design. Reducing stigma around carrying naloxone was always part of the mission, not an afterthought.
The Pilot Study That Proved It Worked
Good intentions aren't enough. Dani and Matt wanted data – real evidence that nCase Lite actually changed behavior rather than just attitudes.
They ran a pilot program with 120 participants to test whether the case changed real behavior. People using the case were over 4.5 times more likely to carry naloxone regularly, and 87% reported feeling meaningfully more prepared to respond to an overdose.
Ten percent of participants said they used the nCase they were carrying to reverse a real overdose. Four of those individuals had never owned naloxone before joining the pilot program.
"When we got that first survey back confirming our product had saved lives, it completely redefined for me what impact means," Bitner-Glindzicz said.
Growing in St. Louis – and Beyond
nCase Technologies is proudly rooted in St. Louis. The city's harm reduction community, medical ecosystem, and startup infrastructure all shaped what the company became.
The fledgling company won an Arch Grant for $75,000, followed by an additional infusion of $100,000 in investments.
Dani was named to the St. Louis Business Journal's Inno Under 25 list – recognition that came just months after one of nCase's beta testers used the case to save a life. That timing felt meaningful.
As of June 2026, the technology has saved a total of 40 lives. Since so many overdose incidents go unreported, Wilder and Bitner-Glindzicz suspect that number is even higher.
With thousands of units already in the field and partnerships emerging across hospitals, harm reduction groups, and universities, nCase Technologies is building a future where carrying emergency medicine is as natural as carrying keys or a phone.
What Comes Next
nCase Lite is now compatible with NARCAN®, neffy®, VALTOCO®, and other emergency nasal sprays – expanding the product's reach beyond opioid overdose prevention to anaphylaxis and seizure emergencies. The mission remains the same: close the gap between owning lifesaving medication and having it within reach.
The Gap it Exists to Close
nCase didn't start as a business idea. It started as grief, and then as a question: what would it take to make sure this never happens to someone else?
The answer turned out to be deceptively simple – make naloxone easier to carry. Not easier to access. Easier to have on you, right now, in this moment, on these keys.
One of them owned naloxone – but it wasn't with them at the moment it was needed. Those experiences made something clear: access alone isn't enough.
That's still the whole story. And it's why every case that clips to someone's keys carries a little more weight than it might appear to.
See nCase Lite
