perform a hook wire localization on the same day that a surgeon can perform breast-conserving surgery, King says. And eliminating the need to do a hook wire procedure before surgery would benefit not just healthcare providers, but also patients, she adds.
“The patient can avoid a second painful and invasive procedure,” King says.
Lee says he and Elucent’s other co-founders decided to form a company in part because of their experiences caring for breast cancer patients who need surgery.
“This was very much a clinical thing—something that was bothering me and was a pain point in my life and in our patients’ lives,” he says. “[We had] a desire to solve that through technology.”
King says that Elucent plans to seek a 510(k) clearance from the FDA so it can sell its system in the U.S. She declined to say when she expects that will happen, saying only that “we are still in development.”
King also declined to reveal Elucent’s current headcount, but says the startup has employees in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Two of the six co-founders listed on Elucent’s website, Elizabeth Burnside and Chris Brace, are no longer with the company, King says.
One reason Elucent picked the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for its headquarters is because of the “talent pool of experienced medical device people” there, King says. Perhaps the best known medtech company in the Twin Cities is Medtronic (NYSE: [[ticker:MDT]]). The firm is officially based in Ireland but according to Medtronic’s website, its “operational headquarters” is in Minneapolis.
Several of Elucent’s founders were also part of NeuWave Medical, another medtech company whose flagship product uses microwave energy to zap tumors. NeuWave was acquired last year by Ethicon, a surgery-focused subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: [[ticker:JNJ]]), for an undisclosed sum.
