Here's a nice interview from MD+DI with Crystal Icenhour, Ph.D., President and Chief Science Officer with Phthisis Diagnostics.
Charlottesville, VA–based startup Phthisis Diagnostics began
operations in 2006 with a mission to bridge the translational gap
between infectious disease research and diagnostic products that help
patients. The company now has its first product on the international
marketplace and it is making progress in expanding its distribution
channels. Only recently, Phthisis has announced distribution agreements
for its products in Latin America, Asia, and the United Kingdom. In
July, the company received a second round of angel funding.
MD+DI
recently had the opportunity to speak with the company’s president and
chief science officer, Crystal Icenhour, PhD, who was the recent
recipient of the Kauffman Outstanding Postdoctoral Entrepreneur award
and our very own “40 Under 40” feature. In this Q&A, Icenhour provides an overview of her plans for the company and how she became an entrepreneur.
MD+DI: Could you explain how the different
distribution agreements Phthisis Diagnostics has signed recently are
helping you to tap into the global diagnostics market?
Icenhour: Our first product is a tool that clinical
laboratories use for doing the downstream diagnostic but it is not a
diagnostic itself. Our second product, for which we are getting ready to
start clinical trials, is a clinical diagnostic. Our strategy is to get
all of our international distributors in place now so that once we get
[regulatory approval for] the first diagnostic, we will be able to very
quickly and efficiently push that out into [a number of markets].
Actually, before we get it cleared by FDA, we will be able to introduce
it into a lot of the international markets because we are able to do the
CE Marking more efficiently than going through the FDA clearance
process.
MD+DI: I’ve heard a lot about how the CE
Mark process is generally more efficient than going through the U.S.
system. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Icenhour: For us, the CE Mark has been much more
efficient than the FDA 510(k) clearance. It allows us to begin sales in
Europe before we technically get our FDA clearance here in the United
States. From a cash flow standpoint, that is ideal because we can begin
bringing in revenue for the products. We can also begin collecting a lot
more data about the product before it ever hits the U.S.-based market.
There are a couple of different reasons why it has been beneficial to do
that, but, right now, everybody is facing the same economic crunch.
Getting revenues rolling in on each individual product as efficiently as
we can is really important.
MD+DI: When you say “economic crunch,” are you referring to the global efforts to cut costs in healthcare?
Icenhour: More basic than that: we are an early
stage company and we only have a certain amount of funds to carry us
through. Our last round of funding was specifically invested to get us
through clinical trials. If we expend those funds before we are able to
make it all the way through our clinical trials without bringing in some
sales revenues, that would be an issue because we don’t have unlimited
resources to fund the company.
MD+DI: Another thing I was interested in relates to MD+DI’s
selection of you for our “40 Under 40” features. Can you give me some
background on how you became a healthcare entrepreneur at a young age?
Icenhour: To be honest, I didn’t really even think
about it. I grew up in a family-run business and that was simply the way
that my world existed. You see a problem, you create a solution for it
and you run a company. In my case, it has been a much different
industry. My family owns a truck repair shop. So I am definitely not in
the same industry but the idea of working for yourself and of being able
to step into a business setting wasn’t a foreign idea to me.
MD+DI: The mission of Phthisis Diagnostics
is to bridge "the translational gap between infectious disease research
and the patient." Could you provide some more context on how it does
that?
Icenhour: A lot of my earlier days as a researcher
were spent investigating things such as sugar transport pathways.
Although it was very interesting, as a researcher I didn’t feel very
fulfilled by that because it didn’t have an immediate or even a
sometime-in-the-future impact on an actual patient who was suffering
from the infectious diseases. Certainly, those questions are incredibly
important and worth finding the answers to, but for me, I really wanted
to be able to apply my scientific knowledge to problems and come up with
some more tangible solutions to things and to actually measure the
benefits that you are able to create.
Some of the technology that has been explored more thoroughly is real
time PCR. It is a fairly well understood technology from the science
realm but from the clinical diagnostic perspective, it is newer. I want
to be able to take that basic biology understanding and be able to
develop products that will solve a need, which is to diagnose patients
who have different infectious diseases. That is something I have a
passion for and something I think I am good at.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Phthisis Diagnostics' President on Translating Research into Diagnostic Products
at 1:40 PM
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