Ida Pavlichenko
PionEar Technologies
Ida Pavlichenko, a technology development fellow at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Bio-Inspired Engineering, is the president and co-founder of PionEar Technologies.
The company, which was last year’s grand prize winner at the MassChallenge, is developing novel tympanostomy tubes made from materials designed to reduce revision surgery in children and promote drug-delivery to the middle ear.
“We’re solving a very big unmet need,” she said. “Children who develop chronic ear infections suffer from pain and constant fluid in the ears, impairing their hearing and potentially leading to language and speech delays. So we would like to intervene early with a novel technology that will not only allow for ventilation and drainage, but also be able to better promote the fluid transfer to the ear.”
When it comes to the IGNITE program, Pavlichenko also pointed to its focus on medtech as an enormous benefit.