Photonics West has always been an event that champions commercial breakthroughs as much as scientific progress. And nowhere were these two sides of the same coin more evident than at the Startup Challenge, where early-stage companies compete to win funding from some of the largest companies in the photonics industry. The event has been taking place all week, with companies entering the competition taking part in qualification rounds while also benefitting from expert advice and training on, among other things, how to hone their pitch. But the grand finale was on Wednesday afternoon, when six wannabee companies presented their ideas and business models to seasoned professionals from both established optics companies and technology investment firms.
The overall winner was Avenda Health, a Santa Monica firm that is helping patients suffering with prostate cancer by providing a personalized treatment plan that enables the tumour to be targeted more effectively – and therefore minimize common complications such as sexual and urinary dysfunction. Presenting the company’s business plan, co-founder and COO Brittany Berry-Pusey said the targeted approach mirrored the developments in breast cancer treatment, where full mastectomies have largely been replaced with less invasive surgeries.
The technique developed by Avenda combines focal laser ablation with real-time imaging and analysis to guide the procedure. This image guidance exploits a machine learning approach, with biopsy information from the patient compared with a large biopsy database that Avenda has assembled. One key advantage is that the procedure can be carried out under local anaesthetic by a urologist in a clinic, and in a single-site trial with 11 patients the procedure was found to be safe and effective – without any of the side effects that can accompany surgical techniques.
Healthcare solutions featured strongly in the other contenders too. In third place was opto biolabs, a German company that has developed an optical module to boost the throughput of optogenetic techniques – in which cells taken from the patient are genetically modified to respond to treatment by light. The problem is that each cell must be inspected under a fluorescence microscope before being transplanted back into the patient, at a typical rate of just 50 cells per minute. opto biolabs have solved this problem by building an optical module called the pxONE that can be bolted onto a commercial flow cytometer. This approach enables high-throughput analysis using machines that are widely available in bio-analysis labs.
Other companies aiming to improve cancer treatment were Leuko and dermadiagnostics. Leuko has developed a simple diagnostic system for monitoring white blood cells during chemotherapy, which has the potential to replace a test normally performed in the clinic. The non-invasive PointCheck device exploits a light-based system that links up to a mobile phone to record and share the data with the physician, which the company believes will help to prevent the danger of infection when white blood cells fall to dangerously low levels.
dermadiagnostics, meanwhile, has developed a non-invasive patch that exploits photonic detection of biomarkers to diagnose cervical cancer. Presenting the technology, Eydis Lima pointed out that conventional cervical smear tests only achieve an accuracy of 55.4%, and many women who are recalled for further tests choose not to go. In contrast, the patch offers an accuracy of 98% and delivers results within 35–40 minutes, much faster than the two to three weeks needed for current tests.
The two other finalists had their sights set on very different markets. Radiance 4D, the overall runner up of the competition, is pioneering the use of optical coherence tomography to print complete 3D objects in just nine minutes, unlike existing 3D printers that build up structures over a couple of hours. And Unistellar claims to be first company to offer a digital telescope that delivers powerful imaging capabilities in an easy-to-use device that costs just $2000. The aim, said Franck Marchis, is to democratize astronomy and to build a community of amateur astronomers who can share images and information.
