On November 24th at the Dutch Life Sciences Conference, Chretien Herben, director LifeSciences@Work Accelerator announced RadiQual Surgery as winning team of the 16th edition of the Venture Challenge. RadiQual Surgery has developed a worldwide unique product called Logi-Knife that enables surgeons to make use of high quality diagnostic imaging data for real-time 3D surgical navigation during their surgical procedures. Using Logi-Knife, surgeons are able to perform the perfect cut to cure cancer.
According to the Venture Challenge Jury the technogical innovation of RadiQual Surgery addresses the high medical need to optimize the success of tumor operations. Radical Surgery presents a missing link in today’s cancer surgery. The fact that several clinical trials are already running and 20 surgeons positively used the new system with 50 patients ultimately lead to the jury’s winner decision. The RadiQual Surgery Logi-Knife has been developed at the Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek by surgeons for surgeons, resulting in an intuitive and clinically relevant product. Additional sponsoring was provided by Alpe d’HuZes/Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) and Vriendenloterij.
The RadiQual Surgery Logi-Knife provides surgeons with a patient specific 3D anatomical map and real-time visualization of their surgical tools on this anatomical map. The technology allows to follow tumor movement during the surgical procedure and in this ways leads to continuous real time visualization of the surgical instrument in relation to tumor tissue and surrounding healthy tissue. For most cancer types, surgery is the only curative option. Although complete removal of the tumor is essential to prevent cancer recurrence, surrounding healthy structures should be spared to avoid complications and to maintain quality of life in cancer patients. Preoperative diagnostic imaging plays a very important role to assess the feasibility of surgery, and to decide on the surgical approach. However, during the actual surgical procedure the imaging information is not used, simply because the surgeon is not able to interact with the images. In 2016, surgeons still rely on the same senses as 100 years ago; what they can see and what they can feel. Unfortunately, this shortcoming results in incomplete resection rates of up to 20% of the cases and long term complication rates of up to 35%. RadiQual Surgery has recognized this essential shortcoming and is ready to deliver their innovative solution. “The Logi-Knife is applicable in a broad range of surgical procedures, such as rectum, colon, liver, lung, and breast cancer”, says Jasper Nijkmap, co-founder. “According to surgeons the Logi-Knife will help to cure more patients, reduce side effects, and assists in complex decision making during surgery”. Radical Surgery will initially focus on rectal cancer surgery, at which a 50% reduction in both incomplete resections and long term complications is to be expected. This will result in cost savings per patient operated with Logi-Knife. By 2024, Logi-Knife will also be certified for liver surgery.
For more information contact the RadiQual Surgery team:
• Jasper Nijkamp, Technical & Research, Phone +31 (0)624696458
• Koert Kuhlmann, Medical & Clinical, Phone +31 (0)619630876
• Theo Ruers, Business & Clinical, Phone +31 (0)651218188
The Venture Challenge Fall 2016 started in September this year and came to an end during the Dutch Life Sciences Conference in Leiden. Other participating teams were STENTiT, GEN-X biotech, AGILeBiotics and BiOND. According to the Jury all teams in their various startup stages are very promising. The Venture Challenge Programme once again lead to clear venture plans, as well as very well prepared and presented pitches.