Health Tech: FemTec scoop - Axios

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It's Monday, Health Tech readers

✨ Erin has the latest on FemTec in today's BFD. Read on.

1 big thing: A miniature feat in spotting lung cancer

Illustration of a stethoscope in the shape of a pair of lungs — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Leadoptik CEO Reza Khorasaninejad is attempting no small scientific feat: developing human hair-sized technology to help doctors spot lung cancer early.

Why it matters: The company raised $5 million in seed funding led by MetaVC Partners with support from Sony Innovation Fund, SOSV, and others, Khorasaninejad tells Erin exclusively.

Details: Funds will go toward hiring, product development, clinical studies, and pursuing regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Khorasaninejad expects Leadoptik to raise a Series A in the summer of 2024.

How it works: The San Jose, California-based company is building a probe to navigate narrow airways and imaging systems to enable real-time imaging, tumor detection and biopsy guidance.

Leadoptik is working with nano-sized materials (a human hair is about 60,000 nanometers thick) with the bold goal of enabling surgeons to see objects 50 times smaller than today’s imaging systems permit.
A core component of its imaging technology is the ability to adapt to movement inside the lungs — as patients breathe — with what it calls adaptive focusing, which makes use of multiple focal spots rather than one to capture a high-resolution image.
"Most of the time technologies today are blind. They take tissue near the nodule and collect it without real-time imaging," says Khorasaninejad. "We can see where the needle goes, when it punctures the nodule, and where we take tissue from."

What they're saying: MetaVC managing partner Conrad Burke tells Axios he foresees interest from academic medical centers and hospitals in Leadoptik's imaging devices.

What's happening: Leadoptik is targeting hospitals in areas with the largest lung cancer biopsy volume such as Los Angeles, Florida and New York.

The company is also pursuing FDA clearance as a Class II medical device under the 510(k) pathway.
Importantly, Leadoptik is not attempting to diagnose lung cancer but rather to assist clinicians in identifying it.

Flashback: Khorasaninejad, a former Harvard research associate whose 2016 paper on high-end optical lenses landed him on the cover of Science magazine, built a prototype of Leadoptik's system in his garage in 2020.

That's where he met Burke, who says he was attracted by Khorasaninejad's "infectious energy."
"He called it speed dating," says Khorasaninejad. "We did that for a year and then he became interested in leading this round."

State of play: Most of Leadoptik's potential rivals are publicly traded medical device and imaging giants that manufacture one of the two components of Leadoptik's system. For example...

Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) has a market cap of $76.7 million.
Olympus, based in Japan, has a market cap of $2.89 trillion.

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