Anyone who has experienced kidney stones knows how painful they can be. Roughly one in 10 people will develop kidney stones in their lifetime, leading to 1.5 million kidney stone surgeries and 800,000 ureteroscopies every year in the United States alone. Forty percent of these procedures, however, leave some stone fragments behind, and patients with residual fragments are nine times more likely to have an additional stone episode.
That’s where Maguro Surgical Inc., a startup founded by urologists and scientists at Stanford University comes in. The company aims to improve patient experience with its groundbreaking technology, the MagStone System, which deploys a coating to magnetize the individual stone fragments and then retrieves the fragments—from dust up to four millimeters in size—with a specialized wire with a magnetic tip.
To advance their commercial trajectory, Maguro recently joined Fogarty’s Company Accelerator Program (CAP), a six-month program for early-stage companies, designed to help them achieve specific objectives within their broader business plan.
From clinical insight to company
The first-of-its-kind magnetic retrieval device began with an idea from Jessie Ge, MD, to improve kidney stone fragment removal. As a visiting medical student at Stanford, Ge had previously worked on an intravascular device for magnetic cancer cell removal. Then as a urology resident, she witnessed the pain points with kidney stone surgery and saw the potential to adapt the technology to retrieve kidney stone fragments.
Along with three other founders—CEO Kunj Sheth, MD, assistant director and an alumna of the Stanford Mussallem Center for Biodesign faculty fellowship; director of clinical consulting Joseph Liao, MD, and director of R&D Daniel Massana Roquero, PhD—they have been developing the technology inside the Stanford ecosystem since 2021.
“Because three of us are urologists, we recognized the clinical need, yet also realized others had tried and failed to create successful technologies for magnetic retrieval so our early project focused on the feasibility,” said Sheth.
The company began searching for a CEO in late 2024 and started fundraising in the spring of 2025. This process helped shift Sheth’s mindset from viewing her role as an early innovator transitioning the project out of the university ecosystem to that of an external entrepreneur actively building a company she was equipped to lead.
“I had been a founder, board member and consultant, but hadn’t thought about being a CEO until then. The team was very comfortable with the idea, and Fogarty was on board, too.”
Fogarty’s support fuels progress
Fogarty has been a foundational part of Maguro’s growth from the beginning. Previously Maguro had participated in the Fogarty Invention Accelerator Program in 2023, where program director John Morriss supported the team with developing a regulatory strategy, identifying suppliers and testing their value proposition within the medical community.
Maintaining lab space as a visiting company, Maguro has stayed close to the team, and as part of CAP will leverage Fogarty’s guidance to accelerate preclinical work, move toward first-in-human studies, and complete the close of its $4 million seed round.
Along with the founders, the Maguro Surgical team includes Eric Johnson, principal engineer, who was previously with Radial Medical, a former Fogarty company; and Jon-Michael Knapp PhD, chief of staff.
Maguro has received numerous grants and awards, including a Coulter Foundation Seed Grant, a Coulter Translational Grant, an American Urological Association Foundation Award, the High Impact Technology Award from Stanford Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), and funding from The National Institutes of Health. The MagStone technology received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation and was the gold winner of the UCSF–Stanford Pediatric Device Consortium and Midwest Pediatric Device Consortium pitch competition in November 2025.
Sheth credits Fogarty with being a powerful force in Maguro’s momentum. “Everyone other than me is a first-time founder, and we are focused on thinking through and addressing any risks proactively, along with making connections,” she said. “We really appreciate the support from Fogarty—being accepted into the incubator gives us immediate credibility and being part of this community of CEOs, who are so willing to share information and advice, has been helpful from the start.”