- So many of the biggest innovations
in healthcare start with those small companies,
those small ideas, those really fearless leaders.
It's an incredible privilege
of the job at Intuitive Ventures
to invest in early-stage companies,
looking at the future of innovation and opportunities
to really make an impact.
- Cancer is almost like having a weed in your garden.
Superficially, it looks like it's gone if you cut it,
but if you don't get at the root of the problem,
it'll return and spread and cover your entire garden—
and that return and spread accounts for 90%
of cancer-related deaths.
What happens, right now, is a surgeon will go in,
resect the tumor, and then typically suture up the patient.
We thought,
"Wow, that seems like a really big missed opportunity."
Instead, we could administer a drug
right then and right there;
exactly where it's needed,
exactly when it's needed.
- This innovation from SURGE Therapeutics,
we see it as a step change in the field more broadly,
but we also see a super alignment
with that mission to reduce the impact
of cancer surgery itself.
- Instead of thinking about a treatment,
we can, for the first time, really think about a cure.
- I've always been incredibly passionate
about medicine and healthcare.
I started my career as a junior doctor.
I have the privilege of getting to meet and interact
with innovators and visionaries
that are driving the future
of minimally invasive care.
We launched Intuitive Ventures
with a hundred million dollars of capital
to support a portfolio of early-stage companies
across the different fields that we are gonna be backing
in minimally invasive care.
So, KelaHealth is one of our earliest investments.
It is really a digital-health solution embedded
within the clinical workflow of a patient journey,
as someone goes from diagnosis to treatment
to follow-up and recovery within the surgical journey.
Flywheel's providing the infrastructure
to enable collaboration between
different stakeholders
within the AI and machine learning
innovation landscape of healthcare.
Endogenex is a company that's in stealth mode:
We identified an incredible team,
an incredible technology,
and an incredible market opportunity
in metabolic and GI disease,
and a very proprietary route to unlocking value
for those through a device-based
therapeutic mechanism,
really targeted around chronic disease.
And SURGE Therapeutics and their mission
couldn't be more aligned
towards that minimally invasive goal.
In their case,
bringing these powerful immunomodulatory agents
into the tumor resection workflow,
trying to reduce the systemic impact that surgery itself
has on a cancer patient's recovery
and rehabilitation and their prognosis.
- SURGE Therapeutics seeks to disrupt
how, when, and where cancer immunotherapy is deployed
in order to dramatically improve
cancer patient survival
by preventing post-surgical cancer recurrence.
- Still, 50% of patients go and have a surgical treatment:
They have their tumor removed,
and nearly half of those, that's curative.
But if it's not cured, as it sometimes happens,
there are small numbers of residual cells which get left
after the tumor is removed or after you've had radiotherapy,
or even if you've had chemotherapy.
- We developed a biodegradable hydrogel
that is thermosensitive,
meaning it's a liquid
at room temperature that gels
at body temperature.
And it's modular,
so it can have pretty much any drug that one wants—
almost like a fancy version of jello.
- Here's a example of what a formulation
will look like at room temperature:
If I slowly tip it like this, you can see it moving.
A surgeon would take this vial from the refrigerator,
and the idea is then he would inject the solution
at the site where the tumor was, and then it will harden.
As the body temperature rises,
it'll become a gel-like material.
It starts to become white opaque—
showing the solution is transitioning to a gel.
- How do I put this?
There are moonshots in cancer, and there's rooftops.
If you put together enough rooftops,
it's still very, very valuable for an individual patient.
- That's a really exciting moment
as an investor when you see that opportunity to collaborate
with someone that is that passionate and visionary.
- We were fortunate to speak
with a number of really elite perspective investors.
The relationship with Intuitive Ventures
goes far beyond access to capital—
we view them as a true partner
in our future development plans.
- One of the biggest assets we have
at Intuitive Ventures is access to Intuitive,
our corporate parents, and with that comes the expertise,
the networks, the ecosystem of clinical champions,
of experts in regulatory reimbursement.
- We live in an unprecedented time.
This idea of taking very highly innovative approaches
is critical to the healthcare system of the future.
We'll all benefit from it in the end—
there's no question.
- We have a small portfolio today,
but we see this as the first fund and the first portfolio
of investments for a long-term commitment
to supporting the innovation ecosystem
beyond where Intuitive is as we accelerate
the future of minimally﻿ invasive care.