Meet Dr. Lynne Lim, the physician who based medtech startup NousQ and invented CLiKX, the world’s first handheld robotic system for ear tube surgical procedure.
How has successful the Cartier Girls’s Initiative Science & Expertise Pioneer Award impacted your analysis and entrepreneurial journey?
It has afforded NousQ immense visibility, validation and an enormous, good 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 vital is it to recognise, help and fund ladies entrepreneurs?
With out supporting ladies entrepreneurs, the world misses out on improvements and growth that males don’t give attention to or take care of. Girls’s ailments and particular ache factors will be higher addressed. As they’re often the primary caregiver for each kids and the aged, this additionally means kids’s and aged points will be addressed in a extra nuanced manner.
What are the challenges of the present surgical procedure methodology for glue ear (also called otitis media with effusion)?
When antibiotics and medicines fail and there’s recurrent otitis media with effusion, surgeons insert a small tube of 1–2mm in diameter onto the eardrum to empty the persistent 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 effectively 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 attributable to limitations to accessing remedy.
How does CLiKX handle to omit a lot of what has been commonplace process?
CLiKX simplifies surgical procedure by integrating totally 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 mixing of a proximity indicator, sensor, and software program program permits using 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—sooner than even an injection, Covid swab or tooth extraction—it may be achieved underneath native anaesthesia.
What’s the dimensions of CLiKX’s potential affect?
Glue ear is the primary reason for listening to loss in kids. At the moment, 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 enhance the variety of sufferers who can entry the surgical procedure. By treating listening to loss early, sufferers can hear, study and communicate. In the long term, they then have extra work and social alternatives, and the entire society advantages.
What had been the challenges you confronted in growing Clikx and constructing NousQ?
An invasive surgical system like CLiKX takes a few years of analysis and growth. 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 system. It takes quite a lot of grants and funding to deliver CLiKX to the present stage. After I needed to depart for personal apply in 2014, it turned much more difficult, as there’s a lot much less help for analysis within the non-public 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 will increase funds and proceed our work. Plus, there are numerous elements like manufacturing, scientific trials, rules and fee fashions that we needed to look into. The invasive surgical system ecosystem remains to be comparatively unmatured in comparison with the West, and traders listed below 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 concern of GRAZIA Singapore and Grazia.Sg
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