Industry Insider: An Inside Look at Novadaq Technologies Inc.

Today’s Wound Clinic speaks with Arun Menawat, PhD, MBA, president and chief executive officer.   Today’s Wound Clinic (TWC): How long have you been in wound care, and how did you enter this area of healthcare?   Arun Menawat (AM): Novadaq entered into wound care based on common elements between optimal wound healing and optimal outcomes of complex surgeries, which were the first applications for our core SPY® Imaging. It was also beneficial that many of the surgeons who have used SPY in other applications, such as plastic reconstruction and cardiovascular surgeries, recommended and encouraged Novadaq to develop a system for wound care. Many of these same surgeons are part of the team caring for patients with chronic, nonhealing wounds. SPY Imaging for wound care, which is marketed under the brand name LUNA,™ enables visualization of physiologic blood flow in vessels and tissue perfusion. Adequate blood supply to tissue is critical to healing and, therefore, the ability to distinguish between well-perfused and poorly perfused tissue allows wound care specialists to make treatment decisions that can impact healing and assist patients in returning to activities of daily living.   TWC: What’s your day-to-day role?   AM: Our vision is clear; we are about providing clinically relevant imaging to wound care specialists and various surgical specialties. Most importantly, my role is to try to ensure that we have the resources to achieve this goal. As the healthcare market evolves, my focus is to make sure that we as a company also continue to evolve and grow. For example, in 2005, following our first clearance by the Food and Drug Administration for our SPY Imaging for use in cardiac surgery, our vision was to put imaging in the hands of surgeons performing open surgery procedures in the operating room (OR). Today, our vision goes substantially beyond open surgery, as we now have products that address the needs of clinicians performing a variety of procedures in open surgery and outpatient wound care clinics and laparoscopic and robotic surgical suites. Our value proposition across these broad markets is the same. Multiple publications show that the use of Novadaq’s imaging technologies leads to improved patient outcomes, reduced rates of complications, and, consequently, lower healthcare costs.   TWC: What do you find most rewarding about providing for your industry?   AM: A surgeon once told me that an average complications rate in certain surgeries is 10 percent, and that he finds that unacceptable. We were discussing life-threatening diseases and surgeries associated with those diseases. I cannot imagine anything more rewarding than to have the knowledge that through the use of our products, physicians and hospitals provide high-quality care and, as a result, patients benefit in terms of faster recoveries, shorter hospitals stays, fewer clinic visits, and lower rates of readmission and returns to the OR. It is very gratifying to report that more than 75 peer-reviewed publications demonstrate that the use of Novadaq’s imaging technologies leads to fewer postoperative complications, lower hospital costs and, in many cases, life saving.   TWC: How would you describe the overall mission of your company?   AM: Our global mission is to enable the broad community of medical professionals with clinically relevant, innovative imaging solutions to enhance their lives and the lives of their patients while reducing healthcare costs.   TWC: What’s new with your company in 2013?   AM: This year has been a really busy, banner year for us. First, we launched our LUNA fluorescence angiography system at the Diabetic Foot Global Conference in March and quickly followed up with outstanding reception at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) Spring/WHS. Most recently, we met with more than 125 wound care specialists at the SAWC Fall in Las Vegas. In addition to the launch of LUNA, we fully launched our PINPOINT® endoscopic fluorescence imaging system at the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons meeting in April and completed a clinical study of its use in 150 patients undergoing high-risk colorectal resection. We expect that final results of the study will be published in the near future. In September, we completed the acquisition of a scintigraphy imaging system that we will develop for use by surgeons during operations to treat cancer. Identification and removal of tumor margins and cancerous lymph nodes is critical for surgical success. On top of all this, we really pushed our global agenda in 2013 and I am happy to report that we are successfully driving our products into markets outside the US. To support all of this activity, we have continued to grow our direct sales and marketing teams and other internal resources, and have nearly doubled the number of employees we had at this time last year.   TWC: How is your company unique?   AM: We believe we have created a market that we call “imaging for surgeons.” Interestingly, with the introduction of our technology into wound care, we are expanding the market to “point-of-care imaging.” Additionally, our business model of partnering with market-leading companies to drive adoption of our imaging technology in certain specialty markets such as robotics and breast-reconstruction surgery, while building our own commercial infrastructure to serve the wound care and laparoscopic surgery markets, is unique and is the cornerstone of our corporate strategy for growth.   TWC: Why are you passionate about the work of your company?   AM: I am passionate about the Novadaq team and the medical professionals I work with. Their intelligence and dedication to improving healthcare is so admirable that it makes it easy to be passionate about spending my day working with them. It is also truly about the patients.   TWC: How is your company approaching challenges in wound care?   AM: Knowing that patients living with chronic wounds experience a long and arduous path toward healing, it is gratifying to hear that by seeing LUNA images, patients are more likely to comply with treatment.   In addition, unlike other tests available in wound care that may be impossible to perform in certain populations due to diseases such as atherosclerosis, LUNA is ideal for use in nearly all patients. We are also keenly aware of the financial challenges that often prevent wound care clinics from acquiring new technologies. To help overcome the burden of acquiring LUNA, our team worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to help establish outpatient code and payment for LUNA procedures that were effective at the time of product launch.   TWC: What are your most popular products and/or services?   AM: Today, there are more than 1,000 SPY Imaging — either SPY Elite,® PINPOINT, Firefly (which is our product integrated into the da Vinci robot) or LUNA — installed in US hospitals alone. As papers become published and the benefits message spreads from clinician to clinician, procedural usage of our systems continues to grow. In 2013, we increased our focus on markets outside the US, where the reception for our products has been welcoming.   TWC: How do you ensure proper training on products and services?   AM: We spend ample time and resources providing comprehensive medical team training and educational programs. In today’s environment, and in the best interest of our customers and ourselves, we take special care to ensure our training efforts are measured against our strict code of ethics. On the wound care side of our business, we partner with experienced physicians and wound care professionals to provide peer-to-peer team preceptor training in our centers of excellence. We also employ a team of highly experienced senior registered nurses to support our training and education initiatives. Recently, we have partnered with outside continuing medical education (CME) providers to offer programs that support our customer’s CME requirements.   TWC: What are the future goals for you and your company?   AM: We intend to continue to drive the development of new and improved products and programs to meet the needs of our customers and their patients. As 2014 approaches, we are focused on initiatives surrounding the electronic medical record.   We are also focused on introducing our technologies into woman’s health medicine such as imaging to improve the detection of endometriotic lesions and cancerous tumor margins in lumpectomy breast surgery for cancer. And, certainly not last and definitely not least, we will continue to focus on expanding into other applications that are related to wound care, such as interventional vascular procedures and endovascular surgery. I believe the future is a bright one for Novadaq.