Companies-in-Development
Accelerating the development of new medical technologies
The companies currently hosted within Fogarty Innovation span a wide range of sectors and technologies. However they are all united by a common goal—improving patient care.
Companies-in-Residence
Boomerang Medical
Autoimmune diseases are the third most common category of disease in the U.S. after cancer and heart disease. According to the National Institutes of Health, autoimmune diseases affect up to 27 million people in the U.S. alone. Boomerang Medical is a bioelectronic medicine company developing technology to advance the treatment of autoimmune diseases by harnessing the body’s own “peripheral wiring” in order to manage inflammation and immune response. Boomerang Medical is backed by Arboretum Ventures.
Eclipse Regenesis
Current chronic therapies for short bowel syndrome (SBS), a malabsorption disorder caused by the lack of a functional small intestine, include expensive medication and intestinal surgery. These approaches have low success rates and a staggering average 5-year cost of care of $1.6 million per patient. Eclipse Regenesis is developing the first restorative therapy for pediatric and adult SBS patients, which harnesses the body’s own tissue regenerative capabilities to produce new, fully functional intestine.
Enspectra Health
Skin cancer is the most common form of malignancy, with more individuals diagnosed each year than for all other cancers combined. For the last 150 years these malignancies have required an invasive biopsy for diagnosis, but Enspectra is leading a digital transformation in pathology by imaging real-time cellular anatomy in living tissue, without cuts or stains.
G-Tech Medical
Up to 60 million individuals in the U.S. suffer from debilitating gastrointestinal disorders. G-Tech Medical is developing a wearable technology aimed at improving outcomes and reducing costs by non-invasively monitoring gastrointestinal tract activity.
iDentical
One hundred seventy-eight million adults in the United States are missing at least one tooth, and a surprising 40 million are missing all their teeth. Currently, dental implants are the top choice of treatment, yet less than two percent of those impacted by tooth loss are able to reap the benefits due to limited accessibility, high cost, high risk and long treatment time. iDentical is leveraging the latest 3D technology to offer a safer, faster and more affordable solution through its drill-free, non-invasive dental implants.
Materna Medical
Approximately 50 percent of all women in the U.S. will suffer symptoms of a pelvic floor disorder resulting from childbirth by the time they turn 55, and over 20 million suffer from pelvic pain. Materna has developed an obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN) platform of medical devices: the first, Prep, is aimed at preventing maternal pelvic injuries during childbirth and shortening delivery time; the second, Milli, is helping treat pelvic pain and dyspareunia.
Ryme Medical
As the third-leading cause of death worldwide, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of diseases that causes airway blockage and breathing problems. These diseases include chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Ryme is focused on alleviating the suffering of patients who struggle to breathe by targeting the autonomous nervous system. The condition impacts more than 375 million people worldwide at an annual cost of approximately $50 billion and is a huge burden to healthcare systems around the world. Ryme has already received its first funding from Santé Ventures.
Company Accelerator Program
Auricle
Auricle is developing a minimally-invasive cochlear neurostimulation device technology to restore hearing in adults with severe high-frequency hearing loss. The condition, which makes it increasingly difficult to understand speech, affects over one million adults in the US. The condition has few treatment options; hearing aides can become less effective over time, and the only other solution is cochlear implants, an expensive and irreversible treatment that can risk residual hearing.
EarFlo
Otitis Media with Effusion (OME) is one of the most frequent infectious diseases in children and is the most common cause of acquired hearing loss in childhood. The disease commonly affects children between the ages of 1 and 6. PE Tube surgery to address OME accounts for $2B in direct surgical costs in US each year. EarFlo is a precision, non-invasive medical device disguised as a sippy cup that treats OME during natural drinking, allowing caregivers to treat the condition at home and avoid surgery. The product facilitates early treatment to minimize developmental delays, and includes tracking and real-time indication of treatment success. Early clinical data demonstrates efficacy and the startup has filed two patents and received numerous grants.
Invention Accelerator Program
Principal Entrepreneurs
Vincent Gaudiani, MD
Gaudiani: Sinus Pacing
El Camino Health
Vince Gaudiani is the senior cardiac surgeon at Pacific Coast Cardiac & Vascular Surgeons. He is also surgeon-in-chief of the California Pacific Medical Center Heart Institute and director of cardiac surgery at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula. With more than 10,000 heart operations under his belt, Dr. Gaudiani is one of the most prolific practitioners in cardiovascular surgery.
Reflections on his experience in the IAP:
“I didn’t particularly want to start my own company – I’m an operating surgeon and that’s what I like to do. My primary goal was to see if my idea for a pacing system was marketable to a medtech company in the space. Going through the IAP process with John Morriss helped me get prepared to take the next steps to get companies to look at my idea, from better defining the clinical need and market opportunity, to developing a functional prototype, demonstrating the method in vivo, and gathering data to compare to the standard of care.
However, if you read Clayton Christensen’s book about the nature of disruptive technology, sometimes it’s very hard for companies that are really good at doing something to change gears and do something else. So it hasn’t worked out so far that that anybody wants to build this pacemaker.
But that doesn’t take away from the joy of going through the process. People talk about life as a journey and it’s a series of experiences. As someone who has always been clinically focused, this was an enriching experience for me. Fogarty Innovation – and John in particular – represents one of the most important ideas in translation – that the best medicine is the best business and vice versa. You have to be thinking that way all the time when you’re taking care of patients.”
Chad Rammohan, MD
ReSept: Transseptal closure
El Camino Health
Chad Rammohan is a structural cardiologist practicing at El Camino Health’s Mountain View hospital and the former medical director of the Norma Melchor Heart and Vascular Institute. He has over 25 years of experience in the field, specializing in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology.
Reflections on his experience in the IAP:
“The IAP program was excellent at putting you in contact with thought leaders and setting up a process that helps your figure out if your idea is going to work, understand the timeframe and the odds of success, get a sense of what the market is like, and learn what other experts in the field think. It’s a structured timeline that allows busy clinical people to explore the translational process and learn whether it’s likely that your idea is going to be successful enough for you to devote the time and resources needed to take it to the next level.”
While I ultimately decided not to pursue the concept I took through the IAP, I learned a lot. For my next idea, I have a clear plan for how to approach it, what resources to use, and how to be more effective in the process.
One thing that surprised me was how small the innovation community is. Everyone knows each other, and people are very collaborative and helpful, especially when they learned I was part of the Fogarty Innovation community.”
Eric A. Appel, PhD
“Appelsauce”: Adhesion prevention
Stanford University
Eric A. Appel is an assistant professor of materials science & engineering at Stanford University. He received his BS in chemistry and MS in polymer science from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; then obtained his PhD in chemistry from the University of Cambridge. During his post-doctoral work, he received a Margaret A. Cunningham Immune Mechanisms in Cancer Research Award. He recently received a Terman Faculty Fellowship from the school of engineering at Stanford University.
James Kintzing, PhD
Spirair: Correction of nasal septal deviation
Stanford Biodesign
James Kintzing is a 2019-20 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship alumnus. He earned his BS in chemistry, molecular biology and mathematics from Grove City College; and his MS and PhD in bioengineering from Stanford University. Prior to his fellowship, he worked as a consultant with Biotech Connection and the Stanford Consulting Student Group.
Brandon McCutcheon, MD
Spirair: Correction of nasal septal deviation
Stanford Biodesign
Brandon McCutcheon is a neurosurgeon and a 2019-20 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowhip alumnus. He received a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and an MD from the University of California, San Diego – School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in neurological surgery at Mayo Clinic. He is the co-founder of Phraze, a digital technology company .
Meg Babakhanian, PhD
EpiEndoAF: Ablation system for atrial fibrillation
Stanford Health Care
Meg Babakhanian is an inventor and entrepreneur in the life science industry with experience in medical devices in a wide range of disciplines. She worked with medical devices, both with start-up and large-scale companies. She led a therapeutic ultrasound neurostimulation device from ideation to prototyping and pre-clinical evaluation. She was involved in the development of the first innovative bionic eye/retinal implant (Second Sight Medical, CA), and design and development of spinal neurostimulation devices at Boston Scientific. Meg currently works at Stanford hospital as an R&D scientist engineer where she practices initial needs-finding, rapid development, clinical evaluation, and commercialization and translation of devices she develops to patient care. Meg participated in the Stanford Biodesign faculty fellowship program and is currently an analyst-in-residence at Health Tech Capital, a health tech angel group, screening companies and evaluating investment opportunities. She earned a bachelor of science from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and an MS and PhD in bioengineering from UCLA.
Paul Wang, MD
EpiEndoAF: Ablation system for atrial fibrillation
Stanford Health Care
Paul Wang is the director of the Stanford Cardiac Arrhythmia Service and professor of medicine and of bioengineering (by courtesy)(since 2003). Paul is an expert in the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, ventricular arrhythmias, supraventricular arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death. He has practiced cardiac electrophysiology as an arrhythmia expert for over 26 years. He was a co-inventor of catheter cryoablation, which has been used to treat over 250,000 patients with atrial fibrillation, and has pioneered new techniques in the management of heart rhythm problems. He has co-authored numerous textbooks and book chapters on catheter ablation, implantable defibrillators, sudden cardiac death, cardiac resynchronization/ biventricular pacing therapy, and innovations in arrhythmia therapy.
Francis Wong, MD, MBA, MPH
Auricle: Neurostimulation for hearing loss
Stanford Biodesign
Francis Wong holds an MD from Imperial College in London and practiced in the UK’s National Health Service. He also holds an MBA and MPH from UC Berkeley. He is a 2019-20 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship alumnus and the founder of Outcomes.com, a healthcare IT company that enables the routine collection and use of patient-reported outcomes data at the point of care.
Jay Dhuldhoya, MS
Auricle: Neurostimulation for hearing loss
Stanford Biodesign
Jay Dhuldhoya is a biomedical engineer and innovator focused on user-centric product design in the consumer health and medical device space. He has experience in early-stage concept development, product realization, design for manufacturing, and pilot launch. Jay is also a 2019-20 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship alumnus.
Allison Okamura, PhD
VTS: Glove for stroke rehabilitation
Stanford University
Allison Okamura received her BS degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and her MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University. She is the Richard W. Weiland Professor of Engineering at Stanford University in the mechanical engineering department, with a courtesy appointment in computer science. She is an IEEE Fellow and is currently the co-general chair of the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems and a deputy director of the Wu Tsai Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Her awards include the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award, and Duca Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. Her academic interests include haptics, teleoperation, virtual reality, medical robotics, soft robotics, rehabilitation, and education.
Caitlyn Seim, PhD
VTS: Glove for stroke rehabilitation
Stanford University
Caitlyn Seim works at the intersection of computing devices and the body, aiming to define new methods in healthcare and human augmentation. Her background is in electrical engineering, which enables her to design physical computing devices and hardware. During her PhD at the Georgia Institute of Technology, she specialized in wearable technology and haptics (technology for touch and force feedback). She combines this background with her training in neurology and rehabilitation to design and test new technology-based interventions to improve sensorimotor function. Caitlyn currently works in Stanford’s mechanical engineering department with Allison Okamura and Maarten Lansberg.
Helen Bronte-Stewart, MD
QDG: Parkinson’s disease diagnostic
Stanford University
Helen Bronte-Stewart is the John E. Cahill Family Professor in Stanford’s department of neurology and neurological sciences. She is a neurologist, neurophysiologist and movement disorders specialist, who has used her training in mathematics and physics, bioengineering, neurology, movement disorders, and single unit electrophysiology in primates to develop a rigorous translational program in motor control research in human subjects with movement disorders. Helen is the director of the Human Motor Control and Neuromodulation Laboratory, where she has developed computerized, quantitative measurements of motor behavior, which are being implemented in a wide range of movement disorders
Patrick McGlynn, MD
Neptune: Home peritoneal dialysis
El Camino Hospital
Patrick McGlynn is a nephrologist at Sutter Health-Palo Alto Medical Foundation. He was previously an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and an interventional nephrologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He received his MD from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and completed his internship, residency, and fellowship in internal medicine and nephrology at Boston Medical Center.
Reflections on his experience in the IAP:
“There are a lot of problems with the catheters used in peritoneal dialysis (PD). They have mechanical dysfunctions, which can be related to malposition or kinking. They can develop fibrin deposits. They can migrate to another location in the abdomen. And because nephrology is an area where you string together a group of specialists to try and fix problems, the outcome can depend on who is available at the time and their particular expertise.
These dysfunctions occur so frequently that they prevent widespread adoption of peritoneal dialysis, despite the fact that both private insurers and government are incentivizing the approach as part of a trend towards more cost-effective, home-based care.
I’ve been focused on trying to identify and solve the problems in the PD catheter to improve patient outcomes since my fellowship. More recently, over many conversations in the cath lab, Fabio Komolos, an interventional radiologist, and I have come up with some strong core concepts of how to address those problems.
We applied for the IAP because we felt it was the right time to see if we could put together a business to improve the technology. We were looking for some external validation that we weren’t just spinning our wheels and that somebody else with experience also felt that this was worth pursuing.
When we applied, we were focused on solving an important problem for the 60,000 or so patients on PD. But we hadn’t thought about it from an economic standpoint. It’s not enough to have a good idea that is going to make a big difference in a small subset of the population. You have to be able to build a business that is self-sustaining. And that framed the problem a little bit differently.
Through our work in the IAP with John Morriss and a series of experts, we started trying to identify where all the problems are in PD, and where the financial opportunities are. Then we explored project plans, milestones, and budgets across different company formation scenarios. These ranged from launching a standalone dialysis company to a scenario where we sell our inexpensive catheter solution to an existing company as a way to unlock future opportunities to make other improvements to PD process further down the road.
Ultimately, we came back to our initial focus on the catheter, with the realization that we needed to build the business case for why a company should get excited about it. To do this, we re-envisioned the pathway that patients take to get onto PD and figured out how our improvements could help more patients have a better experience with this approach. The insight enabled us to build a much stronger financial story around the catheter as a standalone product. And because it is the core problem, solving it will increase the market size and make the other problems we identified more attractive to solve.”
Fabio Komlos, MD
Neptune: Home peritoneal dialysis
El Camino Hospital
Fabio Komlos is an interventional radiologist with Sutter Health – Palo Alto Medical Foundation. He earned his MD at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and completed his internship in general surgery at Mayo Clinic, his residency at Beath Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Harvard Medical School, and fellowship at Baptist Cardiac and Vascular Institute. He also completed a Fogarty Fellowship in endovascular interventions.
Rohit Girotra, MSME
Neptune: Home peritoneal dialysis
El Camino Hospital
Rohit Girotra is a medical device consultant with 17 years of experience taking medical devices from the requirements definition and concept stage to product development, clinical trials and regulatory approvals, through manufacturing transfer and launch. He is experienced at building and managing engineering teams, and his regulatory experience includes 510(k)s and PMAs including drug-device combination products and electromechanical devices with software. Rohit has more than 30 issued US Patents/pending applications. He holds an MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
Marc Melcher, MD, PhD
Diatiro: Organ preservation device
Stanford Biodesign
Marc Melcher is a professor of surgery at the Stanford University Medical Center. After receiving his BA in biochemistry from Harvard University, he completed his medical doctorate at Columbia University and a PhD in molecular biology at UC Berkeley. He was formerly the president of the San Francisco Surgical Society. Now, at Stanford, he does research and clinical trials on organ transplantation and is interested in implementing AI algorithms in making decisions in transplantation surgery. He practices at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Keith Hansen, MD
Diatiro: Organ preservation device
Stanford Biodesign
Keith Hansen is a UCSF general surgery resident and the founder of DIATIRO – a medical device company. He earned his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Purdue University. While at Purdue, Dr. Hansen received a gubernatorial appointment to the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and worked in the state legislature. He spearheaded the initial donation and organized students and faculty in Purdue’s Colleges of Engineering, Technology & Arts to create an innovation design building – a 24/7 mentored maker’s space that was completed in 2017. Keith worked in engineering roles at Abbott and Akina before obtaining his medical degree from Indiana University, where he served as president of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. Keithis a graduate of the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship, where he trained in the needs-based process of identification, invention, and implementation of medical devices.
Todd Coleman, PhD
PedOSA: Pediatric home sleep apnea testing
Stanford Health Care
Todd P. Coleman is an associate professor in the department of bioengineering, and by courtesy, electrical engineering at Stanford University. He received BS degrees in electrical engineering (summa cum laude), as well as computer engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of Michigan. He received MS and PhD degrees from MIT in electrical engineering and computer science. He did postdoctoral studies at MIT and Mass General Hospital in quantitative neuroscience. Todd’s research is very multi-disciplinary, using tools from applied probability, physiology, and bioelectronics. Examples include optimal transport methods in high-dimensional uncertainty quantification and developing technologies and algorithms to monitor and modulate physiology of the nervous systems in the brain and visceral organs. He has served as a principal investigator on grants from the NSF, NIH, Department of Defense, and multiple private foundations. Todd is an inventor on 10 granted US patents.
Sumit Bhargava, MD
PedOSA: Pediatric home sleep apnea testing
Stanford Health Care
Sumit Bhargava is a clinical professor of pediatrics at Stanford University. He is an experienced pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician, and focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia. He is particularly passionate about design innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea and respiratory disease in children.In addition to his clinical work, Sumit also helps teach the Practice of Medicine course at the Stanford School of Medicine and helps mentor and guide medical students. He is a faculty affiliate at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and a member of the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute.
Kevin Bui, PhD
Selera: Therapeutic for heart failure
Stanford Biodesign
Stacie Arechavala, MEng
Selera: Therapeutic for heart failure
Stanford Biodesign
Thomas Anderson, MD, PhD
Sonoanalgesia: Ultrasound for pain management
Stanford Health Care
Thomas Anderson is a clinical professor of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Stanford University and a member of the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute. He holds a PhD from MIT, and an MD from the University of Michigan School of Medicine. He did his medical residency at UCSF and completed fellowship training at Boston Children’s hospital. Thomas is board certified in anesthesia and pediatric anesthesia, and is a Stanford Biodesign Faculty Fellowship 2018-19 alumnus. His clinical focus is acute pain mangement, regional anesthesia, anesthesia, and chronic post-surgical pain.
Joseph Liao, MD
Magstone: Magnetic retrieval of kidney stones
Stanford University
Joseph Liao is the Kathryn Simmons Stamey Professor at Stanford University, and a professor and vice chair of urology in the School of Medicine. He is a board-certified urologic surgeon and a NIH-funded physician scientist who is nationally recognized for his contributions in optical imaging and image-guided surgery of urological cancers, and development of urine-based precision diagnostics for bladder cancer and urinary tract infections. Fellowship-trained in endourology and minimally invasive surgery, his clinical practice focuses on care of patients with early-stage high risk urothelial and prostate cancer.
Dr. Liao graduated with honors from Harvard University and earned his medical degree from Stanford School of Medicine. He completed his urology residency and clinical fellowship at UCLA Medical Center and a research fellowship at UCLA School of Engineering. He joined the faculty in the department of Urology at Stanford in 2006 and currently serves as vice chair for academic affairs and co-director of the endourology fellowship. For 15 years, he served as the chief of urology at VA Palo Alto Health Care System, the major academic affiliate of Stanford Medicine. Dr. Liao is a member of Stanford Bio-X, Cancer Institute, Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, and Canary Center for Early Cancer Detection.
Jesse Ge, MD
Magstone: Magnetic retrieval of kidney stones
Stanford University
Jesse Ge earned her BS in bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology and her MD from Washington University St. Louis School of Medicine. She was a 2015-16 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Fellow.
Renee Zhao, PhD
Millispinner: Thrombectomy device for stroke treatment
Stanford University
Ruike Renee Zhao is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University where she directs the Soft Intelligent Materials Laboratory. Renee received her BS degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2012, and her MS and PhD degrees from Brown University in 2014 and 2016, respectively. She was a postdoc associate at MIT during 2016-2018 prior to her appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University from 2018 to 2021.
Renee’s research focuses on the development of stimuli-responsive soft composites for multifunctional robotic systems with integrated shape-changing, assembling, sensing, and navigation. By combining mechanics, polymer engineering, and advanced material manufacturing techniques, the functional soft composites enable applications in soft robotics, miniaturized biomedical devices, flexible electronics, and deployable and morphing structures.
Jeremy Heit, MD, PhD
Millispinner: Thrombectomy device for stroke treatment
Stanford University
Jeremy Heit is a neurointerventional surgeon (neurointerventional radiologist) who specializes in treating stroke, brain aneurysms, brain arteriovenous malformations, brain and spinal dural arteriovenous fistulae, carotid artery stenosis, vertebral body compression fractures, and congenital vascular malformations. Dr. Heit treats all of these conditions using minimally-invasive, image-guided procedures and state-of-the-art technology.
Dr. Heit’s research lab seeks to advance our understanding of cerebrovascular disease and to develop new minimally invasive treatments for these diseases. They study ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, cerebral aneurysms, delayed cerebral ischemia, cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), dural arteriovenous fistulae, and other vascular diseases of the brain. The lab uses state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques to non-invasively study these diseases, and they are developing future endovascular technologies to advance neurointerventional surgery.