Medtech trio hoping to make their mark in Silicon Valley
Three Cambridge medtech ventures have ‘made the plane’ to Silicon Valley as part of a national competition to identify and then showcase the best UK startups in the space.
Cambridge Temperature Concepts, Lumora and Sonovia - all of which spun out from or have close links with Cambridge University - will be flying out to San Francisco on Saturday (January 8th) for the six day Future Health Mission 2011. The initiative is being organised by software firm, Polecat and sponsored by UKTI and the Technology Strategy Board.
The Future Health Mission 11 competition launched at the TSB’s innovation conference, innovate10, in October.
100 firms entered, with 20 chosen on their “ability to do meaningful business in the US”, as well as on their business viability and the strength of the management team. Drug discovery and development businesses were not able to enter.
The date of the visit was chosen to coincide with the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which is taking place between Jan 11 and 14 in San Francisco, but the UK start-ups will also visit the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, hear presentations from Valley professionals, including the Silicon Valley Bank, and pitch to US and UK investors and media.
Sonovia was founded by entrepreneur Dr Peter Luebcke, who before setting up the company in 2008, spent over seven years at Cambridge University’s technology transfer arm, Cambridge Enterprise. Sonovia is hoping to commercialise therapeutic ultrasound technology which has possible applications in mobile pain relief, cosmetic dermatology and needle-free drug delivery.
Luebcke said: ““Sonovia is honoured to be chosen as one of 20 companies from the original 100 that applied to take advantage of the life-science and medtech networking opportunities in San Francisco during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference week. The UK Government sponsored trade mission (UKTI & TSB) has organised a back-to-back schedule of meetings and corporate visits so we are confident the trip will be valuable and productive.”
Lumora says its current priority is to introduce BART (Bioluminescent Assay in Real-Time) technology into the human diagnostic market through partnerships with global in vitro diagnostic (IVD) companies, replicating the commercial success it says it has already achieved in food safety testing.
CMO, Paul Weinberger said: “The US market accounts for over half of the product sales today, and with the molecular diagnostics industry being centred in California this visit aligned with the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference offers us a wonderful opportunity to network with corporate and venture capital investors. We will be taking the opportunity to meet with companies who are already interested in BART, and hope to bring home new contacts as well as further funding to accelerate our clinical development programmes”.
Cambridge Temperature Concepts meanwhile, is in the process of seeking US regulatory approval for its female fertility monitor, DuoFertility - the first application for the wireless physiological monitor platform it has developed.
Already successfully launched into the European market, DuoFertility was shown in a study of 99 patients who qualified for IVF treatment for unexplained infertility to be equally effective as a cycle of IVF in achieving pregnancy, after just six months of use.
Founder and CEO, Shamus Husheer said his plans for the US visit involved: "meeting the right players in the US market to make sure we can help as many people as possible as soon as the FDA clears DuoFertility for sale. This means building links with everyone from healthcare professionals, insurers, media and consumer groups and of course potential distributors and investors."
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