Zak Marks was just five years old when he discovered he had a severe nut allergy.
Since getting a frightening reaction from toast that had been spread with a knife that had traces of peanut butter he has had to be hyper vigilant.
So the 27-year-old invented a wall-mounted emergency kit with life-saving adrenaline syringes, which he compares to a defibrillator for allergy sufferers.
He and business partner James Cohen, 28, braved the investors on last night's (Feb 27) Dragon's Den - securing a combined £75,000 cash boost from Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett for their start-up Kitt Medical.
"It's a TV show, but the part where you are called into the den is not TV, it's real. You have a two-minute pitch, which we had practised and practised so you are on autopilot. Then you get to questions and Deborah leaned forward and said 'I absolutely love this'."
The episode was shot some months ago and both dragons have been in constant touch since, offering advice and mentoring - with Bartlett installing one of the kits in his office.
Zak explained how he discovered he had a potentially fatal allergy.
"I was at my friend's house and offered peanut butter on toast," he says. "I had instinctively never liked it so I asked for just toast and butter, but the same knife was used and it caused me to have a severe reaction.
"I got my allergy test with all the skin pricks and found I was allergic to all nuts and legumes like chick peas and peas.
"Now it's something that needs to be in every conversation every day or I could be served something that makes me unwell. If I go to an event where there are bowls of nuts out, I am even conscious of shaking people's hands."
Zak cites a 300 per cent increase in adrenalin prescriptions in the UK over the last 20 years for allergies to foods like eggs, milk, sesame and soya.
There have also been tragic but rare cases of young sufferers who have died after going into anaphylactic shock because they could not get hold of an adrenaline pen.
Zak designed the kit for his final-year project at university and after much testing, he and James launched their £650-a-year service in 2023.
It provides a package of online training and up to four Epipens suitable for adults and children, which are swiftly replaced if they are used or out of date.
They are already stocked in 500 schools, businesses and hospitality venues like Alton Towers Resort, with 15,000 people having completed the training.
"Deaths are pretty much always avoidable," says Zak. "They are either a lack of training, the staff not doing the right thing, or the individual is not aware they had an allergy.
"Sometimes it's a lack of medication or struggle to find stock in a pharmacy. 50 per cent of people don't carry their pens, they expire regularly and are easy to forget if you haven't really had a reaction until that one that strikes them down.
"It's not linear, you can be caught out, one day you'll be ok to eat a frozen pea, the next you won't."
Kitt Medical has also won the London’s Mayors Entrepreneur, Santander X and The Conduit Young Innovator awards, and potentially saved ten lives, including 53-year-old teacher Elaine Fraser, who had no known allergies but last September survived a life-threatening reaction.
"When the first incident happened I felt incredibly emotional," says Zak.
"Some were kids, and some adults who didn't know they had an allergy including a staff member who only realised she was having a severe reaction to bee stings because of the training.
"It has been such amazing validation to learn their stories and to realise your design really works."
