Companies-in-Development

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.”

Bernie Andreas, BSME

ReSept: Transseptal closure
El Camino Health

Bernie Andreas is currently working at Fogarty Innovation as an Engineer in Residence where he supports various engineering projects, as well as the Innovation Accelerator Program. 

Click here to read the latest update on Bernie. 

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 Fellowship 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. She has worked with medical devices, in both startup and large-scale companies. She led a therapeutic ultrasound neurostimulation device from ideation to prototyping and pre-clinical evaluation, andwas 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 holds a BS from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and an MS and PhD in bioengineering from UCLA.

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.

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.

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.

Kevin Bui, PhD

Selera: Therapeutic for heart failure
Stanford Biodesign

Kevin Bui completed his PhD in  bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where his research spanned the fields of robotics, cognitive neuroscience, and stroke rehabilitation. As a predoctoral trainee in the Neuroengineering and Medicine Training Program, he developed and tested technology-based strategies to assess chronic neurologic injury in stroke and HIV populations. This work led to the design of new adaptive rehabilitation solutions that have been deployed as part of low-cost robotic rehabilitation systems in Mexico, Jamaica, and Botswana. While at Penn, he also worked in various roles across the health tech space in the Penn Medicine Center for Healthcare Innovation, Penn Center for Innovation Ventures, and University City Science Center. He earned his undgraduate degree in bioengineering at Stanford University, where he did research in sports-related mild traumatic brain injury and developed a portable device for cystic fibrosis that received national recognition. Kevin is a 2021-22 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship alumnus.

Stacie Arechavala, MEng

Selera: Therapeutic for heart failure
Stanford Biodesign

Stacie Arechavala holds a master of engineering degree in bioengineering from Duke University and a BS degree in biomedical eningeering from the University of Miami. After graduating from Duke, she worked as an R&D engineer II at Medtronic before moving to Rad AI as chief of staff. In that position, she led strategy development, created and implemented new processes for company operations, and was involved in product management including generating product roadmaps, and managing engineering from prototype to commercial launch.  She is passionate about improving healthcare hrough technology and innovation and believes the greatest innovations are created through interdisciplinary collaboration. Stacie is a 2021-22 Stanford Biodesign Innovation Fellowship alumna.

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. 

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. 

Christopher Strand, PhD

NEC Breath Test: Early diagnosis of neonatal disease
Stanford  University

Christopher Strand, PhD is a senior research engineer, mechanical engineering at Stanford University

Janene Fuerch, MD

NEC Breath Test: Early diagnosis of neonatal disease
Stanford University

Janene Fuerch, MD is an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Univversity

David Goldenberg, MD

Easy PEG: Low profile gastric feeding tube
Stanford  University

David Goldenberg, MD is the director of general gastroenterology at Stanford University.

Bahman Nouri, MD

Nouri: 7 early-stage concepts
Sequoia Hospital/ Dignity Health

Bahman Nouri, MD is an interventional cardiologist at Sequoia Hospital/Dignity Health

Sindy Tang, PhD

EasyBAT: Basophil test for food allergies
Stanford University

Andréas Ward

KoolGuard: preventing oral mucositis
Stanford Biodesign

Konstantina Stankovic, MD PhD

uOCT: high resolution cochlear imaging
Stanford University

Konstantina Stankovic, MD PhD, is an Otolaryngology Professor at Stanford University.

Raag Airan, MD PhD

Clearoson: Ultrasonic clearance of brain waste products
Stanford University

Raag Airan, MD PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Radiology (Neuroimaging) at Stanford University.

Matine Azadian, PhD

Clearoson: Ultrasonic clearance of brain waste products
Stanford University

Ashwin Ramayya, MD PhD

SEMTANA: Automated neurological assessment
Stanford University

Ashwin Ramayya, MD PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University.

Zakia Rahman, MD

SnipTag: Skin tag removal system
Stanford University

Zakia Rahman, MD, is a Clinical Professor of Dermatology at Stanford University.

Michael Chen, MD

SnipTag: Skin tag removal system
Stanford University

 Michael Chen, MD, is a Clinical Professor of Anesthesia and Neurology at Stanford University.