Introduction

VentDx is a medical device company that is developing and commercializing a novel lung monitoring device to help clinicians decide ventilator settings based on individual patient needs. Currently, the lack of a relevant lung monitor by the bedside leads to patients having a high risk of ventilator-induced lung injury due to lung underinflation (atelectasis) and overinflation (volutrauma and barotrauma). VILI has been known to cause significantly higher morbidity, mortality, length of stay, and treatment costs. Our technology, InspiWaveTM, will provide clinicians with an objective monitoring tool to decide important ventilator parameters, including tidal volume and positive end-expired pressure (PEEP), avoiding the unnecessary risk of under and over-inflating the lung. In other words, InspiWaveTM will enable personalized mechanical ventilation to improve patient safety and efficacy.

Vision

Our vision is to build a medtech company based on global, exceptional talents. To tackle a global problem, it makes sense to us to assemble an international team of the best individuals in their expertises. We have been consistent with this approach and will continue to do so. We are under no illusion that the problem we are addressing is a simple task, it has not been done for more than 4 decades, however we have shown that we have the resilience to overcome many obstacles and challenges to make it thus far, and are now so close to putting our solution in the hands in the hands of clinicians. If successful, the result is going to be beautiful – both in terms of lifelong impact and value creation.

Our mission is to make personalised mechanical ventilation a new standard of care. We don’t drive cars without lights, we don’t even pump a tire without knowing its pressure. It is not right that clinicians still treat patients without knowing what the ventilators do to the lungs.

Mission

The Values

It is hard to uphold the values in every instance, we are human after all, but we commit to trying our best to achieve them.

Integrity

We believe in saying the right things, and doing the right things when it matters. We believe in upholding strong ethical and moral principles, and by that, we mean justice, honesty, compassion, fairness, and respect for others. Every relationship should be built based on mutual trust and respect, and not doing things that we don’t want others to do to us.

Teamwork

To achieve great results, it requires a great team. We understand that everyone has strengths and weaknesses, complementary skills and expertise, good and bad. A great team is formed based on compassion, mutual trust and respect. We watch out for each other, help each other grow, and win or lose together. We would like to do things in a way that one day we can look back and say: “it has been great playing with you, guys and girls”.

Sportsmanship

May the best technology win.

The History

InspiWaveTM technology was born from the Nuffield Division of Anaesthesia, at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Excited by a novel idea of Zwart (a brilliant Dutch scientist who sadly passed away in his prime), Prof. Clive Hahn and Prof. Andrew Farmery began experimenting with ways to investigate the lung using Nitrous Oxide (commonly known as the “laughing gas”). Back then, sensing technology and computing power was not sufficient to build a system that the bedside could use. In the past 10 years, we continued to refine the concept with modern sensing technology, pioneered some of the most advanced lung modeling techniques available today, including Bayesian machine learning coupled with a 50- compartment lung model, validated the device in various patient populations, including healthy volunteers, animals, patients with COPD, ventilated patients in operating theatres and ICUs. Fast forward to today, our latest device version can be attached to the side of a ventilator, inserted into the existing patient breathing circuit, and run in the background of the ventilator. We are rolling out multi-centered testing of the device in ICUs and refining the technology for manufacturing, making it reliable, and robust which is required for use in a routine ICU environment.