Delphinus Medical Technologies is putting its newly acquired venture capital money where its staff is. The Plymouth-based start-up has hired 14 people over the last year, and plans to add as many as nine more over the next year.
Delphinus Medical Technologies is spinning out technology for an alternative test to mammography from the
Karmanos Cancer Institute. It has raised $9.5 million in seed capital so far and expects to pick up even more venture capital investment in 2012 as it gets closer to commercialization.
"We're still a development-stage company," says Bill Greenway, CEO of
Delphinus Medical Technologies. "We expect to have a product complete and to move into commercialization next year."
Its principal product is SoftVue, which is expected to effectively differentiate benign from malignant masses in breasts, helping eliminate false positives and reducing unnecessary biopsies. It can also accurately measure breast density, a known risk factor for developing breast cancer, as well as detect many early stages of cancer in women with dense breast tissue, which is often not picked up by mammography.
SoftVue works by surrounding a breast submerged in warm water with an ultrasound ring that captures detailed, three-dimensional images with sound waves. The results are similar to an MRI, but the procedure takes only a few minutes and costs much less. The procedure was the inspiration for the company's name, which is Latin for dolphins.
Delphinus Medical Technologies moved to the Michigan Life Science & Innovation Center in Plymouth last year to put SoftVue's development on a fast track. "It really allowed us to get up and running almost instantly," Greenway says. "Everything was turnkey ready."
Source: Bill Greenway, CEO of Delphinus Medical TechnologiesWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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