Meet Dr. Lynne Lim, the physician who based medtech startup NousQ and invented CLiKX, the world’s first handheld robotic gadget for ear tube surgical procedure.
How has successful the Cartier Ladies’s Initiative Science & Know-how Pioneer Award impacted your analysis and entrepreneurial journey?
It has afforded NousQ immense visibility, validation and an enormous, sensible and great-hearted entrepreneurship ecosystem and sisterhood. It is sort of a tremendous multiplier and accelerator: it opens up so many different worlds that we had not even dared to dream of.
How necessary is it to recognise, help and fund girls entrepreneurs?
With out supporting girls entrepreneurs, the world misses out on improvements and improvement that males don’t give attention to or take care of. Ladies’s ailments and particular ache factors might be higher addressed. As they’re normally the principle caregiver for each kids and the aged, this additionally means kids’s and aged points might be addressed in a extra nuanced approach.
What are the challenges of the present surgical procedure technique for glue ear (also called otitis media with effusion)?
When antibiotics and medicines fail and there may be recurrent otitis media with effusion, surgeons insert a small tube of 1–2mm in diameter onto the eardrum to empty the continual accumulation of fluid within the center ear. The present surgical procedure requires many microscopic devices, which the affected person might not tolerate, and thus require common anaesthesia. As soon as common anaesthesia is required, there must be a pricey working room set-up with heavy manpower help, in addition to an costly surgical microscope to visualise the small ear tube properly within the tiny ear canals. These end in excessive value, lengthy wait instances of as much as years, threat of common anaesthesia itself, low willingness to get remedy, and inequity resulting from boundaries to accessing remedy.
How does CLiKX handle to omit a lot of what has been normal process?
CLiKX simplifies surgical procedure by integrating completely different applied sciences right into a small handheld applicator that makes the incision on the eardrum and inserts the ear tube in simply 1 second, with only a click on of a button. The combination of a proximity indicator, sensor, and software program program permits the usage of only a headlight with magnification, which removes the necessity for a microscope. There may be nice precision and replicability with robotics and automation. Because the process is so fast—quicker than even an injection, Covid swab or tooth extraction—it may be achieved below native anaesthesia.
What’s the size of CLiKX’s potential affect?
Glue ear is the primary explanation for listening to loss in kids. At present, solely about an estimated 18 million ear tube surgical procedures are achieved annually globally, however the true want is an estimated 120 million such surgical procedures. By simplifying surgical procedure, CLiKX can considerably improve the variety of sufferers who can entry the surgical procedure. By treating listening to loss early, sufferers can hear, be taught and communicate. In the long term, they then have extra work and social alternatives, and the entire society advantages.
What have been the challenges you confronted in growing Clikx and constructing NousQ?
An invasive surgical gadget like CLiKX takes a few years of analysis and improvement. I began engaged on this with my cofounder in 2011. Since then, there have been over 5 main and 20 minor iterations and enhancements of the gadget. It takes a whole lot of grants and funding to convey CLiKX to the present stage. After I needed to depart for personal apply in 2014, it grew to become much more difficult, as there may be a lot much less help for analysis within the personal sector. We soldiered on with help from A*STAR and the Nationwide Analysis Basis. In 2021 we needed to spin off our personal firm in order that we are able to increase funds and proceed our work. Plus, there are various facets like manufacturing, scientific trials, laws and fee fashions that we needed to look into. The invasive surgical gadget ecosystem continues to be comparatively unmatured in comparison with the West, and traders listed here are extra threat averse. The expertise pool is smaller too. However there have been extra efforts made by Singapore’s medtech trade to help startups.
This story initially appeared within the August 2024 difficulty of GRAZIA Singapore and Grazia.Sg
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