Meet Dr. Lynne Lim, the physician who based medtech startup NousQ and invented CLiKX, the world’s first handheld robotic system for ear tube surgical procedure.
How has successful the Cartier Ladies’s Initiative Science & Expertise Pioneer Award impacted your analysis and entrepreneurial journey?
It has afforded NousQ immense visibility, validation and an enormous, sensible and great-hearted entrepreneurship ecosystem and sisterhood. It is sort of a tremendous multiplier and accelerator: it opens up so many different worlds that we had not even dared to dream of.
How vital is it to recognise, help and fund ladies entrepreneurs?
With out supporting ladies entrepreneurs, the world misses out on improvements and improvement that males don’t concentrate on or take care of. Ladies’s ailments and particular ache factors could be higher addressed. As they’re often the primary caregiver for each kids and the aged, this additionally means kids’s and aged points could be addressed in a extra nuanced approach.
What are the challenges of the present surgical procedure methodology for glue ear (also referred to as otitis media with effusion)?
When antibiotics and medicines fail and there’s recurrent otitis media with effusion, surgeons insert a small tube of 1–2mm in diameter onto the eardrum to empty the power accumulation of fluid within the center ear. The present surgical procedure requires many microscopic devices, which the affected person could not tolerate, and thus require normal anaesthesia. As soon as normal anaesthesia is required, there needs to be a expensive working room set-up with heavy manpower help, in addition to an costly surgical microscope to visualise the small ear tube effectively within the tiny ear canals. These end in excessive value, lengthy wait instances of as much as years, threat of normal anaesthesia itself, low willingness to get remedy, and inequity as a result of obstacles to accessing remedy.
How does CLiKX handle to omit a lot of what has been customary process?
CLiKX simplifies surgical procedure by integrating totally different applied sciences right into a small handheld applicator that makes the incision on the eardrum and inserts the ear tube in simply 1 second, with only a click on of a button. The mixing of a proximity indicator, sensor, and software program program permits the usage of only a headlight with magnification, which removes the necessity for a microscope. There may be nice precision and replicability with robotics and automation. Because the process is so fast—sooner than even an injection, Covid swab or tooth extraction—it may be carried out underneath native anaesthesia.
What’s the size of CLiKX’s potential influence?
Glue ear is the primary reason behind listening to loss in kids. At present, solely about an estimated 18 million ear tube surgical procedures are carried out every year globally, however the actual want is an estimated 120 million such surgical procedures. By simplifying surgical procedure, CLiKX can considerably improve the variety of sufferers who can entry the surgical procedure. By treating listening to loss early, sufferers can hear, be taught and communicate. In the long run, they then have extra work and social alternatives, and the entire society advantages.
What had been the challenges you confronted in creating Clikx and constructing NousQ?
An invasive surgical system like CLiKX takes a few years of analysis and improvement. I began engaged on this with my cofounder in 2011. Since then, there have been over 5 main and 20 minor iterations and enhancements of the system. It takes loads of grants and funding to convey CLiKX to the present stage. After I needed to depart for personal apply in 2014, it turned much more difficult, as there’s a lot much less help for analysis within the personal sector. We soldiered on with help from A*STAR and the Nationwide Analysis Basis. In 2021 we needed to spin off our personal firm in order that we will increase funds and proceed our work. Plus, there are lots of features like manufacturing, medical trials, laws and fee fashions that we needed to look into. The invasive surgical system ecosystem remains to be comparatively unmatured in comparison with the West, and buyers listed here are extra threat averse. The expertise pool is smaller too. However there have been extra efforts made by Singapore’s medtech trade to help startups.
This story initially appeared within the August 2024 challenge of GRAZIA Singapore and Grazia.Sg
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