Clear Guide Medical

software to create a cost effective ultrasound guidance device that enables more doctors to do more needle procedures in more places, faster

  • Stage Full Product Ready
  • Industry Medical Devices and Equipment
  • Location Baltimore, MD, USA
  • Currency USD
  • Founded October 2010
  • Employees 13
  • Website clearguidemedical.com

Company Summary

Clear Guide Medical uses computer vision in medicine to improve minimally invasive interventions. The company has two clinical products, the Clear Guide ONE which is FDA-cleared and guides needle-based procedures like cannulations, anesthesia, biopsy, and pain injections. The ONE allows all physicians to hit the target with one stick.

The Clear Guide Scenergy (FDA 510k submitted and pending) fuses CT and Ultrasound slices to improve the image clarity of ultrasound and to make CT slice visualization real-time. The ability to use ultrasound to guide biopsies and tumor ablations that are currently feasible only under CT-guidance (for example, Lung or Bone biopsies), reduces time in the CT-suite, patient radiation, and hospital costs.

Three disposables are a recurring revenue: the VisiMARKERs that make the Scenergy run, the PercepTIP needles that show the needle tip even when it is not visible by the ultrasound, and the SteriMASK, which provides a full-sterility cover for the Scenergy and the ONE when that is required.

Using computer vision in medicine creates a new, disruptive technology that makes big changes in image-guidance medicine. There are many new product combinations of imaging modalities (e.g. ultrasound and MRI, C-arm and ultrasound, real-time CT-scroller) that are easily created using Clear Guide's hardware platform. This modular approach (separating the hardware from the software) makes FDA submissions for future products easier, and may reduce the time for future product clearances.

Using computer software also makes modeling possible, so, for example, it may be possible to assist physicians doing lung biopsies by compensating for breathing motion, giving the physician a better shot at the target than CT alone. With the Clear Guide hardware platform (the optical head) and computer algorithms, the huge medical imaging market can be reached.

These same computer vision algorithms can also be licensed to robotic surgery firms, and thus the know how and IP that Clear Guide has developed is applicable in other markets as well.

Team

  • Philipp Stolka
    Chief Technology Officer

    Philipp Stolka joined the company full time as CTO. He oversees the main technical development and manages the development team. He previously managed research projects funded by the German Research Foundation and developed surgical robotics and navigation systems. As an academic he was author or co-author of 20 peer-reviewed publications in the fields relevant to Clear Guide Medical and is co-inventor of five enabling patents.

  • Dorothee Heisenberg
    CEO

    A former banker at what is now JP Morgan Chase & Co., Dorothee managed a credit portfolio of more than $60 billion and sold investment banking products to her primary clients. Her focus at CGM has been getting funding, leading the organization to get FDA clearance, hiring, and grant applications and compliance.

  • Jim Condon
    President

    Jim has more than 25 years of broad based experience in running existing companies, repairing troubled companies, scaling start-ups, instituting sound operational, information technology, human resources, marketing and financial infrastructures, negotiating business relationships and acquisitions, raising capital and hiring senior staff.
    Jim holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago and a BS in Mathematical Sciences from JHU.

  • Jack Kent
    Director of Regulatory Affairs and Quality System

    Jack Kent, MBA, RAC, has more than 7 years of Regulatory Affairs consulting experience, first with Becker & Associates Consulting, Inc. and then with Blue Crab Device Consulting, LLC. Jack earned a BSE in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MPH/MBA from Johns Hopkins. Jack is RAPS certified.

  • Susan Benkowski
    Director of Supply Chain Management

    Susan Benkowski, MBA has more than 15 years of experience with Supply Chain manufacturing in both small and larger enterprises, including Agilent Technologies and the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State, and an MBA from University of Michigan.

  • Jay Lightfoot
    Director of Federal and Channel Sales

    With 25+ years of Senior Sales and Business Development success, Jay has brought 8 early adopters to Clear Guide and is the driving force behind the Federal Sales opportunities that Clear Guide has at the VA and the DoD. Jay has listed Clear Guide products on a GSA schedule of a service-disabled veteran, and continues to make progress in both Federal and non-Federal sales.

Advisors

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