In the world of microwave ablation where heat is deployed to kill tumors, larger names dominate the market. You have J&J Ethicon’s NeuWave Microwave Ablation Systems, Medtronic’s Emprint ablation systems, Angiodynamics’ Solero Microwave Systems, MedWaves’ AveCure system and Perseon’s MicroThermX system. Jointly, these systems have cornered 75 percent of the market.
But a much smaller startup founded in 2017 and based in Manhattan, Kansas, is aiming to carve out its own niche right beside these companies claiming that it has something they don’t: a more precise way of delivering heat to target tissue in the form of a differently-designed applicator.
Precision Microwave won the medical devices track judged by active venture capitalists at the INVEST Pitch Perfect contest that occurred during the annual MedCity INVEST conference in April. The startup is seeking $2-$3 million in a Series A funding round.
In a recent phone interview, the company’s founder and president, Austin Pfannenstiel, explained that the company has developed a new applicator that applies the heat in a semi-circular fashion compared with current applicator systems that deliver heat in either spherical or elliptical format thereby heating areas that perhaps do not need ablation.
“If you think about the applicator as a needle, at the tip of the needle it will radiate in all directions radially from the needle. It will be a sphere centered on the tip,” Pfannenstiel said, describing current microwave ablation systems. “Ours is designed to radiate in 120-180 degree radius around the applicator – so it’s half of the sphere.”
Precision Microwave’s side-firing applicator in action as it shows how egg whites are being cooked in a half-sphere format.
That can be an advantage when the tumor being tackled is small and in a tricky region.
“If you had a tumor in the kidney where it’s a small organ and if you heat too much, you can damage too much of the kidney, [then our applicator with its directional heating is a benefit],” he said. “Or if the tumor was near the colon you want to aim the heat, the energy, away from the colon toward the tumor. Whereas if you had the spherical applicator treatment zone, the paradigm right now is inside out.”
Pfannenstiel contended that because of this spherical design, in some challenging cases where the tumor is small or near an organ — for example a small tumor near a bile duct in the liver — microwave ablation is no longer an option.
“To me, it doesn’t make any sense that a person shows up and has a tumor especially if it’s like a smaller tumor, right now what they do is we’ll wait and see if it grows and if it grows, we’ll do surgery. And if we can’t do surgery we ‘ll do chemo or radiation. That’s ridiculous,” he said. “We’ll take this needle and we’ll stick it in the tumor and we’ll just cook it. In 10 min you are out of the procedure room and in two hours you are home.”
The product and Pfannenstiel’s presentation impressed the three venture capitalist judges – Paul McCreadie, partner at Arboretum Ventures; Amrinder Singh, director, venture capital, Medtronic; and Rob Barmann, partner, Endeavor Vision — at the INVEST Pitch Perfect contest in late April. In choosing the Kansas startup as the track winner, Singh said:
“Precision Microwave is developing a unique technology that has an opportunity to significantly improve how cancer and benign tissue ablation is delivered. On behalf of MedCity INVEST and the other judges, we’re excited to support Precision as the winner of the medical devices startup competition and look forward to it impacting patient care in the future.”
It’s not just about patient care of course. These days the economics of care is equally important.
Pfannenstiel believes that while his company’s single-use side-firing disposable applicator will be more expensive than the spherical or elliptical applicators of competing systems made by the larger companies, overall the system will be cost effective.
“Our applicators are going to be more expensive, but given the precision, that side-firing, directional ability that we have, [doctors] will be able to save time in the procedure room,” he said. “We’re really trying to provide doctors more tools in their toolbox. They are really effective in using what they have but right now, in terms of the world of thermoablation, they have a sledgehammer relative to what we provide with our applicator.”
The company is still more than a year away from its expected 510(k) filing with the FDA. First, it has to develop the energy generator that transmits the heat through the applicator. The $2-$3 million Precision Microwave is seeking in a Series A round will go squarely into developing that.
Ultimately, the goal is to go beyond treating cancer tumors to treating other kinds of benign tumors.
“From there on we would expand to beyond cancers like benign adrenal gland tumors that are causing hypertension so nerve ablation to treat nerves in the spine region that are causing chronic pain or thryoid tumors.”
