ST. PAUL, Minn. – The single-room office of OrthoCor Medical has the distinct aura of a young start-up company – mismatched furniture, disheveled desktops and maze of boxes shoved here and there.

Located in the University Enterprise Laboratories business incubator in St. Paul, the tiny three-person firm is on the cusp of rolling out its core (and so far, its only) product – a unique knee brace that, according to the company, provides temporary relief of joint pain and arthritis and, longer term, reduces swelling and pain.

This is a particularly frenetic time for the privately held firm. After receiving Food and Drug Administration clearance late last year to market its signature OrthoCor Active Knee System, company officials are preparing a mid-March launch for the device. That means lots of last-minute phone calls and e-mails, sometimes well into the wee hours, to shore up details.

The marketing push will ultimately target the nation’s 60,000 or so chiropractors, beginning in the Upper Midwest. The potential $370 million market is huge and fractured – aging baby boomers with their telltale deteriorating joints. And the Weekend Warriors among them, whose dedication to sporadic exercise extracts a decided toll on bodies, especially knees. Another potential market: the elderly who are fearful of knee replacement surgery and in need of temporary pain relief.

The company’s knee system combines heat with pulsed electromagnetic field technology – electrical energy that sends a series of magnetic pulses through injured tissue to reduce swelling and, by extension, pain. John Dinusson, OrthoCor’s CEO, says that therapy has been around for decades, as has the use of heat to treat joint pain. But the OrthoCor device is unique because it combines the two, he adds.

The device, perfected by an engineering class at the University of Minnesota, is made of heavy-duty fabric that is strapped onto the knee. Two disposable “pods,” each the size of a quarter and snapped into tiny docking stations, deliver the heat and activate the electromagnetic therapy. A small “black box” on the device contains a rechargeable battery and microchip, which controls the therapy that’s delivered over a two-hour period. And during that time the patient can move about normally.

Some months ago, OrthoCor officials approached Joseph Sweere, a professor at Northwestern Health Sciences University in Bloomington, and asked him to assess the device. Sweere, a chiropractor, was intrigued.

“I thought it was novel, very straightforward, safe and user-friendly,” he said.

But cutting through the clutter of knee braces and therapeutic devices now on the market – those available by prescription or over-the-counter – could prove daunting for OrthoCor. A prescription from a doctor or chiropractor is needed, and the $249 device is not reimbursed by insurance.

“I think it will gain a following, it will sink or float on word of mouth,” said Sweere, who has received no remuneration from OrthoCor.