MassDevice is liveblogging the MassMEDIC 11th Annual Medtech Investors Conference. We’re talking to the officers and executives of some of the hottest under-the-radar medical device firms around, finding out how and why their technologies will separate them from the pack.
Allegro Diagnostics, Boston
Allegro Diagnostics’ BronchoGen aims to improve the ability to diagnose lung cancer.
Officers
Dan Rippy, President & CEO
Product
Currently, modalities for diagnosing lung cancer create a clinical dilemma for physicians and their patients. Chest x-rays, CT, and PET scans cannot reliably distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous tissue. While bronchoscopy is an integral next step in the diagnostic work flow, the sensitivity of bronchoscopy is low and results in between 40% and 80% false negatives. Using the BronchoGen product, physicians can detect lung cancer with much higher levels of sensitivity and specificity than they can currently achieve with bronchoscopy alone.
Allegro Diagnostics has licensed three patents pending and has optioned a portfolio of additional intellectual property in process. The company’s technology has been developed and researched extensively by the founders at the Pulmonary Center at the Boston University School of Medicine.
In addition to diagnosing lung cancer, the company’s technology has the potential to identify the cell types and molecular pathways involved in lung cancer and stage of disease. The company’s third product is a screening tool for “high risk” current and former smokers, of which there are 4-6 million in the U.S. and 20 million in the industrialized world. The company believes its technology is also applicable to other diseases of epithelial organs, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).