HEARTY SOFTWARE: New WFU spinoff could revolutionize cardiac MRI use
Marc Barnes, The Business Journal
WINSTON-SALEM — A new computer software and hardware firm just spun out from research by a cardiologist at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine will soon begin selling what doctors are calling the most significant development in heart care since cardiac catheterization.
MRI Cardiac Services Inc.'s proprietary technology allows the use of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner instead of invasive procedures to do stress tests of the heart to diagnose arterial blockages. The new technology has been made possible by discoveries of ways to do MRI scans of moving organs, like the heart. In the past, MRI scans could only be done on organs or tissues at rest, like a knee joint.
MRI Cardiac Services is in the final stages prior to a product rollout. Next week, the company, led by President and CEO Scott Huber, will begin raising $1 million from investors for beta testing of the company's technology in as many as 25 sites across the United States.
At the moment, the company has just one employee — Huber. Plans call for MRI Cardiac Services to hire a staff of specialists to provide MRI cardiac training to customers, and to market the device through trade shows and partnerships with existing companies that market products to MRI users. It plans to employ 60 people in the Triad within five years, Huber said. If regulatory approval goes as expected, the product, for now called "SView," will become commercially available next August at an estimated price of $50,000, including software, hardware and training.
MRI Cardiac Services is predicting swift approval, since its equipment has been successfully used in more than 1,000 procedures over the past four years at Wake Forest's medical school, and some MRI cardiac procedures are already reimbursed by Medicare.
Currently, around 400 state-of-the-art MRI centers nationwide are already equipped to do some cardiac studies and would be the primary market for SView. Those centers represent potential sales of $20 million. But the market could grow much larger as the 4,400 oldest MRI facilities nationwide upgrade their scanners by adding electrocardiogram equipment. Huber estimates that as many as 75 percent will eventually upgrade, which would create an additional market of $156 million for SView.
All of those numbers, company officials say, are based on SView's stress-test product alone. Huber says the deal that licensed the technology from Wake Forest to his company in return for an equity stake will mean more opportunities in addition to SView in the field of cardiac care. "Our anticipation is this relationship (with Wake Forest) will allow the company to develop new products as the technology grows," Huber said.
Revolutionizing Heart Care
Dr. W. Gregory Hundley, the Wake Forest University cardiologist whose nearly 10 years of research led to the development of the product, said MRI Cardiac Services enables the MRI to do cardiac stress tests for the first time. MRI scans are used primarily to evaluate joints and the central nervous system. "This could revolutionize the way that (cardiac) medicine is practiced," he said. "This could change the field a great deal."
The company said the size of the potential market is some indication of the size of the underlying medical condition.
Coronary artery disease, in which blood flow is impeded by blocked arteries, is the leading cause of death and disability in the United States, killing 725,000 people each year, according to the American Heart Association. Health analysts say that number will only increase, given the aging population."This gives much clearer images than previous technologies," Huber said. "The big advantage is that you can see problems within the heart. This is pretty impressive technology."
Dr. Charles H. Wilson, medical director of The Heart Center at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, was more blunt. "I think this is the most significant diagnostic modality to be introduced in the field of cardiology since cardiac catheterization," he said. "(The MRI) will have the same impact on diagnosing cardiac conditions as it has had in diagnosing problems elsewhere in the body."
Packing A Powerful Punch
The system, which was developed by Hundley and medical engineer Craig Hamilton, is installed outside the MRI control room and networked to the scanner.
It works this way: The MRI takes scanned images of the heart between beats. The patient is then given a medication to cause the heart rate to increase and more images are taken.
Both sets of images are taken from the scanner and pulled into the SView computer. The results come so fast that the test can be halted if the patient is in any danger.
Dr. Tom Stuckey, medical director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Moses Cone Heart and Vascular Center, said SView has the potential to pack a powerful punch. He said the SView can show a doctor the structure, function, blood flow and level of oxygen in the heart, replacing such tests as an echocardiogram and a nuclear stress test. It can also perform additional tests on functions of blood flow in the carotid artery, the abdomen and the leg. Stuckey added that what used to take all day can be done in an hour or two.
Spencer Lemons, director of the office of technology asset management for Wake Forest University Health Sciences, said that originally the inventors contacted his office less than a year ago with the idea of providing the technology to medical centers for a small fee. "As we looked at it, we thought there was a real opportunity and that the market was bigger than that," Lemons said.
MRI Cardiac Services represents the sixth commercial spin-off from Wake Forest research in recent years. Others include: Pilot Therapeutics, Amplistar, PointDx, Kucera Pharmaceuticals and MithraGen.
One Way to Cut Costs
Huber, a specialist in early-stage software development firms, was hired by Wake Forest to do a market study and a competitive analysis, then stayed on to launch the company.
Lemons said so far things are going well, especially since the product is already so well developed that it will get to the marketplace more quickly and will therefore more generate revenue faster. That, he said, will help the company raise the $1 million in capital it needs from investors.
Tom Gunderson, a senior research analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis, said the device is coming on the market at a time when demand is high from health insurers for better diagnostic tools to ensure appropriate treatment and ultimately to cut costs. "We don't want to say, 'No, we don't want to give you that therapy,' " Gunderson said. "We want to say, 'No, we don't want to give you that therapy because it is not appropriate and this imaging has told us why.' "
So far, initial research grants have paid for the research — and Wake Forest has paid out $44,000 to cover the expenses to get it this stage.
Lemons said Wake Forest licensed the technology to MRI Cardiac Services in exchange for an equity stake, but he would not disclose the percentage. Others who have ownership interests in the company include the two inventors and Huber.
© 2002 American City Business Journals Inc.
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Media Contacts: Robert Conn, rconn@wfubmc.edu, Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, or Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, at (336) 716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine and its other related enterprises including the Piedmont Triad Research Park. The Medical School is ranked 4th in the Southeastern United States in revenues from its licensed intellectual property.