Hatch Podcast: EP4

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Host: 0:01

Hatch. This is the Hatch Podcast, where technology comes to life. A Hatch Fairhope production.

Host: 0:08

At Hatch, fairhope, we’re all about cultivating creativity, driving innovation and accelerating growth. Welcome to the Hatch Podcast. Each episode will bring you inspiring conversations with innovators who are pushing boundaries, solving problems and building the next wave of success. Today at Hatch, we’re excited to welcome Ryan DeBoer, ceo of the Shape Sensing Company, a leader in 3D guidance systems that enhance precision in vascular procedures. Their innovative fiber optic shape sensing technology allows physicians to navigate surgical devices with 3D visualization, cutting down procedure times and improving accuracy With a focus on endovascular aneurysm repair. This technology is set to transform how over 2.8 million procedures are performed each year. We’ll explore their journey, their groundbreaking technology and how they are expanding through key collaborations. Welcome to Fairhope,Ryan.

Ryan DeBoer: 1:09

Thank you very much, Stephanie. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Host: 1:12

Yeah, we’re excited to sit down and talk about what you guys have going on at the Shape Sensing Company. So let’s just start by talking a little bit about your backstory and how you got involved with the company.

Ryan DeBoer: 1:24

Sure, sure I’d love to. I joined the company a little over a year ago and my background is all in the commercialization of medical devices. I started my career just out of college, working for St Jude Medical before spending some time at Boston Scientific and then joining a digital health startup all on the commercialization side. And when I was approached about considering joining the company, they told me what the technology did and for me it was a magic. Light bulb went off in my head. It was just such an amazing technology. I had to be involved. Part of my career.

Ryan DeBoer: 1:57

I was actually spending time in cath labs, in electrophysiology labs and a lot of the procedures we had to wear these lead aprons and there was always a thyroid collar. They were heavy, he got sweaty and as a rep, my job was to assist the doctor with whatever he or she needed, but I had the benefit of standing kind of in the back corner, away from where the x-ray was right. I could pull myself away, whereas the doctor had to be right up next to the x-ray machine. Every procedure, every day. And, having seen that for so many years and the impact that it had on the doctors, when I saw this technology and the ability to take away that radiation exposure. I just had to be involved.

Host: 2:40

So we were talking earlier, before we started, about kind of how the technology originated, and that’s an interesting story too.

Ryan DeBoer: 2:48

Yeah, yeah. So the company, the Shape Sensing Company, actually spun out of a former parent company in Austin, texas, and that parent company was doing some really cool things with strain measurements on structural items like bridges and airplane wings. And if you go back even further, the earliest versions of our technology actually came out of NASA, and they were taking systems that aren’t too different from ours and putting them onto spaceships and flying them out into space to make sure that the airplane wings weren’t flexing too much, there wasn’t too much strain. So fast forward 10, 15 years and our CTO, who had worked at NASA, figured out a way to take that same type of data off of the fiber optics and turn it into 3D visualization, 3d measurements of shape, and from there they spun out the Shape Sensing Company. And here we are today.

Host: 3:39

So for the average listener who is, you know, just tuning in, for the average listener who is, you know, just tuning in, may not be familiar with all the things we’re talking about. What is fiber optic shape sensing?

Ryan DeBoer: 3:50

At its simplest form. What we do is we take a long, thin fiber optic sensor and this sensor is about the size of a fishing wire and about 1.2 meters long and we shoot a beam of light down the length of it and we’re using a laser for that and the way that the light reflects back inside the sensor gives us data about the bends all along the length of the sensor. And when you take the bend at each individual point along the way and you add it all up together, you get shape. So we can take that shape and use it for 3D guidance.

Host: 4:23

So not just you talked about the extra exposure preventing that, but just accuracy in general.

Ryan DeBoer: 4:30

By using 3D guidance we can allow doctors to have better precision in surgery because they can actually know where the device is with respect to the patient’s anatomy. Using x-ray, the doctor only is able to see where the device is and x-ray actually doesn’t show you soft tissue. In order to see soft tissue in x-ray, the doctor has to shoot contrast or dye through the blood vessels to be able to see that and even then it’s only a two-dimensional view. So by using 3D guidance, we can allow a doctor to see where a device is in relation to that soft tissue, having better precision to be able to navigate into different vessels.

Host: 5:09

And particularly right now or first off, you guys are looking at using it on endovascular aneurysm repair.

Ryan DeBoer: 5:17

That’s right. That’s right. So our first application is endovascular aneurysm repair. We do plan on taking this to virtually any minimally invasive procedure, but we’re starting with EVAR, as it’s called, and EVAR is a procedure that can be very long. The doctors go in, they put in a stent into a patient’s aorta to protect them against their aneurysm. Well, these stents are becoming more and more complicated and therefore the placement procedure becomes more complicated. The most recent innovations in stent development have actually led to these procedures taking as much as five to seven hours, with radiation exposure as much as four hours per procedure. With radiation exposure as much as four hours per procedure. By using something like 3D guidance, we can allow doctors to navigate devices inside the body with better precision and without that x-ray radiation. Fibro-optic shape sensing has actually already been shown to reduce procedure times in these complex EVAR procedures by as much as 37%, and with that comes radiation reduction as much as 70%. So we know that this is a great place for us to start with the technology, and then we can take it beyond there.

Host: 6:18

So where are you guys in your process? What are the next steps?

Ryan DeBoer: 6:22

So we have developed our first generation prototype at the end of last year. We’re spending this year getting ready for our second generation, which will be finished at the end of the year, and then 2025 is going to be all about collaborations with major medical manufacturers. Our go-to-market strategy is to develop partnerships with the largest organizations in the world that are creating these amazing devices, and together we will create shape-sensed or 3D-guided versions of devices that will allow doctors to perform the procedures safer and faster. So 2025, we’ll be working with our eight existing customers that we already have and continuing to expand our partnerships as well.

Host: 7:04

So you’ve just finished up the Hatch Powered by Bessel cohort. What was your experience like?

Ryan DeBoer: 7:11

Oh, it’s been such an amazing experience. Two key aspects I take away from this opportunity. One, the knowledge that the group that we’re working with here has really helped advance a lot of aspects of the business. Chris from Bessel has really offered a lot of strategic guidance, both technically and with business relations, in terms of how we work with our customers. So we’ve already gained a couple customers throughout the summer, so it’s been very productive and we’re really looking forward to where it’s going to take us later as well. So the other aspect of the accelerator that I’ve really appreciated is the cohort members and getting to know the other co-founders, other CEOs of the companies within the cohort Just such great people all working together towards great causes to improve patient care in various aspects, various medical specialties.

Host: 8:04

What advice would you give to other innovators who are looking to kind of solve these complex problems in health care that you guys have been working on the past 10 weeks or so?

Ryan DeBoer: 8:13

Yeah, yeah, sure, good question. I would say there’s a lot of support for people trying to do big things out there. Hatch Fair Hope is such a great example of that. There are countless people who want to see others succeed and create innovations that will help improve patient care. So, just getting involved, networking, talking to people there are resources out there, applying to accelerators, applying to different grants, I would say the more people you talk to, the more you’re going to learn and the more successful you’ll be.

Host: 8:48

So other than vascular, I mean what other areas do you see this technology working?

Ryan DeBoer: 8:54

We’re really excited about where all this can go. As I mentioned earlier, it can really almost go to any minimally invasive procedure that uses any sort of device. We can help out with 3D guidance. But we have identified six target markets large, large markets here in the US. They actually combine to about $120 billion in total addressable market here, and those markets are endoscopy, electrophysiology, orthopedics, robotics and imaging outside of vascular, and we already have customers working on projects in several of these. So it’s actually somewhat in the near term that we’re going to be expanding beyond vascular.

Host: 9:35

So what has the reception been like?

Ryan DeBoer: 9:39

Yeah, so we have some key advisors on board vascular surgeons that are world-renowned and speak all over about endovascular aneurysm repair in particular and they’ve been just super helpful for helping us identify our path. And one of the key things we’re finding is that there’s actually one other version of this technology on the market. It really just hasn’t spread around the country just yet. I think there’s fewer than 10 systems installed, so our advisors are just really excited about having another option out there to make sure more patients can have access to this groundbreaking technology.

Host: 10:15

Ryan, thanks for sitting down with us today. In closing, is there anything you want to share with our audience before you go?

Ryan DeBoer: 10:21

We’re working on something big here and we love hearing from people who see our vision and like what we’re doing and want to be involved. So if anyone out there wants to be a champion, head over to wwwshapescensingcom. You can see videos of the progress we’ve been making and feel free to reach out and contact us, and we’d love to talk. So thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate it.

Host: 10:54

Awesome. Thanks so much.