Executive Summary
In this episode of Startuprad.io, host Joe Menninger welcomes Giuseppe Solomita, Director of Vivascope, who discusses the inefficiencies of traditional histology methods and the need for rapid cancer diagnosis. Solomita introduces Vivascope's digital in vivo and ex vivo imaging technologies, which significantly reduce diagnosing time from weeks to minutes, crucial amidst rising cancer cases and a shortage of pathologists. Highlighting a successful case in India, Solomita explains the progress their AI-integrated systems have made and calls for collaboration with talented professionals and investors to further advance their technology and individualized medicine solutions.
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Introduction
Welcome to Startuprad.io, your go-to podcast for startup news and stories from around the globe. In today's episode, our host Jörn "Joe" Menninger sits down with Giuseppe Solomita, the director of Vivascope, to explore groundbreaking advancements in medical diagnostics.
Giuseppe reveals how Vivascope is revolutionizing the cumbersome and time-consuming traditional histology methods with a cutting-edge, digital imaging process that drastically reduces diagnosis time from weeks to mere minutes. With the world facing a critical shortage of pathologists amidst rising cancer cases, Vivascope's technology aims to alleviate these pressures, particularly in handling liquid biopsies and smaller samples which are challenging for the current analog system.
From successes in India to hurdles overcome in Europe and the US, Giuseppe's journey with Vivascope is a captivating story of innovation, collaboration, and the push towards personalized medicine enhanced by artificial intelligence. Tune in as they delve into the urgent need for faster cancer diagnoses and the transformative impact Vivascope is making in the medical field. Join us for an insightful conversation on this essential advancement in healthcare technology.
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Questions Discussed in the Interview
The Evolution of Histology: How do the traditional paraffin and frozen section methods differ, and what are their main limitations according to Giuseppe Solomita?
Innovation in Diagnostics: Can you explain how Vivascope's digital, in vivo imaging process works and how it differs from traditional methods in diagnosing histology?
Impact on Treatment: How did Vivascope's technology manage to reduce the diagnosis time from 4 weeks to 1 day for an aggressive tumor case, and what were the implications for the treatment outcome?
Workforce Challenge in Pathology: With the increasing number of cancer cases and a limited number of pathologists globally, how does Vivascope's technology help alleviate the workload and accelerate diagnosis?
Handling Small Biopsies: What are the challenges faced by the current analog system in handling small liquid biopsy samples, and how does Vivascope's digital imaging address these issues?
Market Penetration: What motivated Giuseppe Solomita to start the Vivascope project in India, and what have been the initial results in terms of sales and deployment?
Regulatory and Market Differences: How does the regulatory environment in Europe and the US impact the deployment of Vivascope’s devices, and what challenges has the company faced in these regions?
AI Integration in Pathology: How is AI being integrated into Vivascope’s diagnostic processes, and what roles does it play in preliminary diagnosis and sample quality assessment?
Individualized Medicine: Why is individualized medicine important in the context of Vivascope’s technology, and how does the company cater to the varying treatment needs of different patients?
Future Collaborations: What kind of collaborations and investments is Vivascope seeking to advance its technology, and what expertise or resources would be most beneficial for the company at this stage?
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The Guest
Welcome to another episode of Startuprad.io, where we delve into the world of innovative startups and disruptive technologies. Today, we are joined by Giuseppe Solomita (https://www.linkedin.com/in/giuseppe-solomita-9959509/), the visionary Director of Vivascope. Giuseppe brings with him a wealth of experience in the field of histopathology, aiming to revolutionize how we diagnose and manage cancer. Originating his groundbreaking project in India, Giuseppe has already made significant strides by deploying four devices within their first month. His endeavor does not stop there, as Vivascope has also established 50 centers in Europe and 5 in the United States, despite the rigorous regulatory challenges. Based in Munich, Giuseppe finds his inspiration in the cultural blend and vibrant similarities between the German city and his native Italy.
Vivascope aims to address a critical bottleneck in current cancer diagnostics. The traditional methods of paraffin and frozen section histology not only consume substantial time but also often lead to tissue loss. With the alarming rise in cancer cases and the dwindling number of pathologists worldwide, there is a pressing need for more efficient solutions. Vivascope's digital, in vivo imaging for skin and ex vivo tissue scanning is a monumental leap forward. Giuseppe shares a compelling narrative of how Vivascope’s technology once reduced the diagnosis time of an aggressive tumor from four weeks to just one day, underscoring the life-changing impact this innovation can have on patient outcomes. Through AI integration and promoting individualized medicine, Vivascope is not just keeping pace with modern challenges; it is spearheading a transformative shift towards faster and more accurate cancer diagnostics.
The Startup
Giuseppe Solomita works for Vivascope (https://vivascope.com/) with the vision to revolutionize the traditional methods of diagnosing histology through digital innovation. Vivascope's pioneering technology focuses on in vivo imaging for skin and ex vivo tissue scanning, which significantly reduces diagnosing time from weeks to mere minutes. The urgency for faster diagnoses is driven by the global increase in cancer cases and a dwindling number of pathologists, making Vivascope's solution particularly critical. In just a month, the company has already sold four devices in India, tapping into the country's large population and high number of doctors. The company's growth isn't limited to India; they have also established 50 centers in Europe and 5 in the United States, despite facing challenging regulatory landscapes in the latter. This rapid international expansion showcases the significant demand and effectiveness of Vivascope's groundbreaking technologies.
What sets Vivascope apart from competitors is their successful integration of systems which aid in preliminary diagnosis and sample quality assessment, outperforming traditional analog systems that often struggle with small or liquid biopsy samples. Their digital scanner provides immediate, detailed results, making it ideal for hospitals aiming for quick diagnosis to commence urgent treatments, as demonstrated in cases where diagnosis time was cut from four weeks to just one day. The company's dedication to individualized medicine, catering treatments to each patient's molecular composition, further distinguishes them. Vivascope's ability to adapt and thrive even during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to innovative solutions that have accelerated the field of pathology. Now, they are actively seeking talented individuals and welcoming collaborations with investors and other companies to further their technological advancements and continue their transformative impact on medical diagnostics worldwide.
Hiring!
Vivascope is hiring. You can learn more about the open positions here: https://vivascope.com/about-us-neu/open-positions/
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Automated Transcript
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from start up rate dot I o, your Startupradio podcast and YouTube blog from Germany, Bringing you yet another interview today. Today, I do have Giuseppe here with me. Hey. How are you doing?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:00:14]:
Hi. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me here.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:00:17]:
It's totally my pleasure. A little disclaimer here. Today, we do the first interview on my new computer. I was building Startupradio rate.l on a laptop that was first produced in 2015, and now I upgraded it seriously, to to computer, together with with a friend who actually called the computer only the beast. So let's see how this is performing and if everything works. I actually have not all the cables yet, so that means I'm working only on 1 monitor. But I'm sure we'll
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:00:50]:
I keep my fingers crossed so that everything goes well.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:00:54]:
Yeah. In Germany, thumbs press, but we do both both that and everything will be totally fine. Today's episode is sponsored by start up raven.com, the fastest and most efficient way to find new investor Startupradio connect and cooperation partners. Giuseppe, you are an Italian living in Munich. Funny funny note here, I've heard a lot of people from Munich referring to it as the most northern city of Italy.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:01:25]:
Yeah. Exactly. So Munich is seen as the most northern city of Italy. It's because of the
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:01:31]:
Is there
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:01:32]:
something climate, because of the. No. It's it's really nice to be here. It's very close to Italy, as you know. And, the atmosphere, the way of living is, quite similar and, except the food. So with food, we had to import.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:01:50]:
Joe, you you're not a fan of Weiswurst for breakfast?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:01:54]:
Not really. Maybe once a year, I have Weiswurst, but then I go back to my Italian dishes, gnocchi and tagliatelle. And, you know, we have we have good food. We have a big variety there. I have to
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:02:08]:
I have to admit that they both have a certain place in my life, but actually don't tell anybody, but I prefer Weisbrost for dinner.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:02:16]:
Okay. Don't tell anybody. This would be a crime in Bavaria, so don't do that.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:02:23]:
Exactly. Giuseppe, you are today here because we would talk about a serious topic, diagnosing tumors, speeding up this diagnostics. You are from a company called Vivascope. Can you tell us a little bit about this company and the history? Because when we talked before, you told me about a very, very interesting setup here. So you're not necessarily a Startupradio. You do your R and D in Rochester, upstate New York. You're headquartered in Munich, and you have production facilities in Europe and the US. So can you walk us a little bit through all that stuff?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:03:04]:
Yeah. So the whole story I mean, I'm I'm now 19 years with the company, quite a long of time. And but it started even before, and, it started with the in vivo application. So today, we will not hear a lot about in vivo diagnostic and ex vivo diagnostic. In vivo diagnostic was the first area of application, and, it's quite interesting how it started. They developed a product which was supposed to check the effect of hair removal, which is a pure aesthetic application. And, they wanted to see how good the quality is when you remove hair, how good the cloth cutter is. And then they realized, wow, we can see much more in the skin.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:03:47]:
We can see cells. We can see different layers in the skin. What can we do with this information? And then they started to investigate. And by now, we can use this in vivo technology, which had its origin in aesthetic to diagnose very accurate, skin diseases in vivo before cutting out anything. Okay. This is how it how it started. The other technology we're offering is ex vivo. This is I have to remove tissue.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:04:18]:
And, here, I want to have a very fast diagnosis. Yeah. This is a a bit the history.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:04:25]:
Yeah. We may get into the background because we're talking today about diagnosing, cancer, especially skin cancer. And, everybody who's thinking, fast diagnosis, you get a good diagnosis anyways. But, actually, guys, listen. When you get tissue removed, you want to have the results as fast as possible to know if it's in cancer or not. Right now, how long can it take to get the diagnosis?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:04:54]:
It takes, unfortunately, quite long. 10 days up to 3 weeks, and this is far too long. I'm not a doctor. I have a commercial background, but I was quite shocked when I started in this area to see how long it takes, to get a result. So today, I can order whatever I want digitally, on on on in the Internet. I can get it the next day. But if I want to know if I have a tumor or not, I need to wait Joe long time. And, then I started to try to understand why why is this.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:05:28]:
Well, what's the reason for that? On the other side, when we talk about skin cancer, so we're we're gonna talk about today about in vivo application means skin and all diseases around skin, and the ex vivo application with the other device, it's all type of tumors from prostate cancer to breast cancer, lung cancer, and so on. In the area of skin, there is a overexcision rate. Let's say there's a lot of biopsies done which are not necessary. So over 60% of this removal are done because there is a suspect. But, you know, skin, I can look with my eyes. I can use a lens, but I overstay at the surface. I see the top of the iceberg. I don't know what's below.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:06:17]:
What's happening? How big is the iceberg gonna crash or not? So the same for skin cancer. We have, the, difficulties to understand, or the dermatologists have the difficulty to understand what's happening below. Before risking to get a melanoma, they just remove it. But then after 2 weeks, you get the result was nothing, was a benign lesion. So in the in vivo area, we want to avoid that too much biopsies are taken, and benign lesion are sent to the laboratory. Yeah. This is the the the, aim for the in vivo. Ex vivo, we want to know immediately what is there.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:06:57]:
In the best case, this is our target, which we're managing, when the patient is there in the hospital. Yeah. That's very important.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:07:08]:
You you're talking about, unnecessary biopsies. We may tell our audience the doctor is not real really able to tell from just looking at it Yeah. If it's cancers or not. So that means there needs to be some tissue removed, sent into a certain laboratory, and then, really thoroughly cut under microscope, and they have to specialists to look at it. And I do believe that's the process when you guys come in. Right?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:07:40]:
Yeah. Exactly. So every tumor in the world needs to be, judged by this doctor called pathologist. The pathologist is the only 1 which can tell if a tumor is there, independent if it's skin or the other types of tumors. The process, the the the the base of his judgment is an image, and the image is now achieved by a process called histology. Unfortunately, this process called histology to get the image is today in 2024, a analog procedure. So tissue is removed. There are 3 types of of these procedures.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:08:26]:
So the most, common 1 was the paraffin section. I don't know how deep I should enter into these details. Paraffin section is 1 of these. It takes minimum 24 hours. Here, they take the tissue. They embed in paraffin. They cut it in slices, and then they put it into chemicals. And then 24 hours later, they have an image, which is on a glass slide, and the pathologist is looking at it.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:08:50]:
Since ever there was the wish to have a faster way of doing diagnosis, of doing histology, of getting these images. And in 1894, the so called frozen section was invented. Here, we have the advantage that it takes less time, but, the tissue is frozen, cut into slices, analog, and then put into chemicals. This freezing up the tissue creates some problems. It creates artifacts. And every time I cut something and I put into paraffin or frozen, I lose the tissue. I lose the probe, because it's dead. I cannot use it for further investigations.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:09:34]:
And, this is this is the problem of the current system. It's still made in a analog way. What we do is we do it digitally. In vivo, we image the skin in a digital way, and we see what's hap what's going on, if there's a need of excising or not. Ex vivo, we have a tissue which we just put on the machine. We scan it, and we get an image like that pathologist knows today. This kind of H and E like image, it's called. Big advantage, time.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:10:09]:
I preserve the tissue. I can act much faster than than with the analog system. And, we are talking here about minutes. So it's not a small change that you improve by a bit. It's from weeks to minutes, and that's that's a big big, improvement. The other problem we have today is that worldwide, we have 20, 000, 000 cases of cancer, which need to be diagnosed by whom? You learned the lesson?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:10:45]:
Pathologists.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:10:46]:
By the pathologists. So the the number of cases is increasing in a drastic way. We're expecting in 20, 40, 30, 000, 000. It's not saying me, it's the WHO saying this. And on this this number of pathologists which are able to make a diagnose, I would expect also a big increase. But here's the problem. Worldwide, we have 84, 000 pathologists covering 90% of the cancer cases. Yeah.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:11:20]:
This is a far too low number, and the tendency is decreased in number of pathologists and not increased in number of pathologists. It's a huge problem. Yeah. So when we have more and more cancer cases, less and less pathologists, who's gonna diagnose all these cases means if I'm lucky, I get my result after I don't know how many months. If I'm not lucky, I will die before I get my diagnosis. And here, we need to change things. We need to make the process much much more efficient. I cannot bake pathologist, but I can make this analog process in a digital way, cutting down the time, and reducing, or let's say reducing, the the the the time needed to get to the diagnose, to get to the image.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:12:15]:
Yeah. We we may add here that, of course, for everybody who had ever, a biopsy done and it was not, yet determined if it's cancer or not, this is quite a stressful time. But we should also emphasize that this could give you a weeks head start in the best case, to start your treatment, which may at the end have a decisive impact on your treatment. So that's where you guys are really coming in.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:12:42]:
It's amazing. It's amazing. Just to tell you a story, I was, last week in Rome, at our reference center on a campus, with a fantastic pathologist, Anna. She's a wonderful progressive doctor. And, I assisted to a procedure. So we had a patient, suspect of pancreas. You know, pancreas is very, very aggressive. We have a mortality of 95% in this area.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:13:10]:
He came in, Then professor used the endoscope. So he took anesthesia, of course, endoscopic examination. We took a biopsy, which are liquid biopsies in this case, not firm. And then immediately, they brought it to the machine. They scanned the probe. And within 3 minutes, we saw that, number 1, what they took out of the body is of good quality. That's also a challenge when I cannot see this immediately. And number 2, we saw that it's an aggressive tumor.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:13:48]:
Yeah. So very bad for the patient. Normally now, this probe would have gone to the laboratory. After 2 weeks, he would get his result, and then there's another process called molecular analysis in order to know what kind of treatment you need. It would have taken 4 weeks until he can start the treatment. On this day, I was quite flashed because I saw there's a aggressive tumor. She then took the probe and scraped a bit of the cells into another, container and put it in another device. And the molecular analysis was done within 3 hours.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:14:28]:
So within 1 day, he this patient got his analysis, aggressive type of pancreas tumor, and he got also the therapy he needs, the information that is needed to start the therapy. This is a revolution. This is a a change of paradigm. It's like when they invented the plane or the car. It's changing completely the workflow, cutting down the time from weeks, in this case, 4 weeks to 1 day. And for me, this is emotional. Yeah. This is very because everybody which has a case in the family, can can understand what the problem is.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:15:15]:
There are many people out there don't even know about this time needed to get the diagnosis. They trust the system. The system is relying on a analog system, but I don't wanna wait 10 days. Do you wanna wait 10 days if you have a suspect of pancreas or lung biopsy?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:15:34]:
Joe I wouldn't want to wait that long.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:15:36]:
Is this is this incredible that we we don't know, and, we realize once we are affected or once our beloved are affected or friends are affected, we realize, wow. And there is an urgency because the situation is not getting better. It's getting worse. So it's it's not saying us. The prediction of cancer is increasing in a drastic way, and the guys which can say tell you there's a cancer are decreasing. There are 40%, over 55 down the way of retirement. Yeah. The workload is increasingly high of the remaining people.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:16:18]:
And especially in Germany, I just, read yesterday, it's 1 pathologist per 48, 000 inhabitants, means the worst value in Europe, in Germany. I would expect not Germany. Yeah. So there's even worse situation in this country, but it's general. We have some differences, in in in the in the distribution, but in general, worldwide, we have a big problem. Yeah.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:16:50]:
I see. And when you've been talking about, this biopsy, by the way, liquid biopsy is just that you don't extract tissue, but liquids. So it's super rare to get.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:17:00]:
So today, there's the tendency, which is good, to be less and less invasive. So in the former times, they they took big chunks out of your body. They had a big I have big probe, yeah, big tissue in order to make the process. Today, when I have suspect of lung cancer or pancreas or, they try to go with a nice needle and take some sample, very little sample. Yeah. So imagine this system, this analog system, which was built based on big chunks, is now has to now to handle these small little samples, and this is quite impossible. There's no other, no other there's no way to do a fast diagnosis with this with this analog, technology. It takes time.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:17:52]:
It needs to go to the laboratory. The patient goes home, so there's a process. After 2 weeks, they find out, this Pepsi was not good. Please come back, which is the worst worst case. We have to do it again. Or, after 10 days, we we we did the the process, and you have, unfortunately, 2 more we need to treat you. Yeah. So for us, as we use it, like a scanner, it's very easy, yeah, to to, have liquid biopsies or small fragments of biopsies.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:18:24]:
So we see that in the market days or let's say in this area, there's a increasing number of small and liquid biopsies, which is good for us. But the more we have this minimal invasive biopsies, the more that the the current system is challenged. So we have the advantage of you put it on the scanner, you scan it, and then whatever it is, whatever size it is, we can see it immediately. So this is another big advantage. And, there's a funny story. How did we get there? How did Anna Glecienski get there? We went, for neurology congress in Rome, before COVID. And then, we did the congress. We all flew home, and then COVID started.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:19:09]:
And we had no access to this machine anymore. And Anna was in this hospital, and she also, at that same time, got a little sponge, a little matrix, in order to bind this little and liquid biopsies. So thanks to COVID, she had the time and to test this solution and to find out that there is a new way of Menninger fast evaluation, a digital way. So this is also some positive aspect of COVID. So this this this this 2 years where she had the machine, she managed to develop all this application, which is fantastic.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:19:44]:
Mhmm. When you've been talking about getting faster digitally, the first thing that came to mind, a, you got less and less pathologists, Mhmm. And everybody is talking about AI right now. I do totally understand that there are much higher levels of certainty, of trust, of, testing, processes that need to be done before you could even think about introducing, even an AI assisted diagnosis for pathologists here. My question would be, are you guys already working on stuff like that?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:20:20]:
Yeah. We need to. I mean, it's obvious. We will not change the number of pathologists so quickly, if it's not a political change or push. But even so, if somebody would decide today to invest in the promotion or, let's say, in the education of new pathologists, then, it would take years. We will need AI, because even we make the process fast and digital, there will there will be, we need to support the pathology in the daily work. Thanks to the to the fact that we do it digitally, we have now the possibility with the digital image to feed AI system. We did this, with the our partner university and professor Hartmann, from the LME in Munich, for BCCs.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:21:10]:
It's the most, current, skin cancer, the so called white skin cancer. The black skin cancer is called melanoma. And, she won with our device, with our with the software, the first prize, the German medical award. So it was a nice moment for us, but this is only the beginning. We have now also, developed together with another company, and I judging the samples. So I want to know if I take with my endoscope out of the body, the biopsy is good of quality or not. And here, AI can help us immediately to check the adequacy. Yeah.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:21:49]:
The next step would be to check adequacy and to make a kind of preliminary, preliminary, diagnosis to support the pathologist or to indicate where the area are. Yeah. You could see very nicely where are the cells which are important. Are they there? Are they enough? Joe when we talk about biopsy, it's important to have a good a adequate probe means enough cells that I can use to do all the consecutive examination. The first 1 is histology to understand Mhmm. I have tumor. I have no tumor. Is it aggressive or not? The second 1, which they adopt, is the immunohistochemistry to better understand the typology of the tumor.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:22:38]:
And the third 1 is the molecular analysis to know which therapy is fitting to you or to me, Giuseppe, or to my sister. So we are all different. So we need individual so called medicine. We need to have individual treatment. Yeah. Not everybody can use have the same treatment. It's impossible. It's not efficient.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:23:00]:
It can be good. It can be bad.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:23:02]:
Sufficient treatments the doctors are talking about, You have a certain molecular composition of tumor, and then they have treatments. They call it a key. It fits in lock, and then they can really efficiently treat it. That's what you're talking about individual medicine. Right?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:23:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. So we need for every individual, I'm receptive to type a. You're receptive to type b, because of the DNA, and then you need the drug for made for type a or made for type b. So what Anna told me was very interesting is today, when you do the normal way, you have a suspect of lung cancer, for example. You go, make the investigation, the imaging, then they take the biopsy, goes to laboratory, and, they see it's an aggressive tumor. They have to do a molecular analysis, and it takes 4 weeks, 4 to 5 weeks. So what do they do with the patient in between? They cannot wait 5 weeks doing nothing.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:24:03]:
They start a general treatment, which has a cost for the system. Imagine 1 month of treatment for lung cancer is €60, 000 in cost. So they just start a a general treatment to do something in the hope it's good until the specific result comes where they can use the the right drug. The problem is that you cannot stop after 4 weeks the general treatment. You need to finish the cycle, she explained to me. You have to finish until this is then ready, and you can then start, in some cases, after 6 weeks, the specific treatment, which is crazy. I mean, we we we we we lose time. We spent, resources on a on a drug which doesn't make sense, and then, we we put in danger the the life of the patient.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:24:59]:
She said some patient cannot wait all this time, and they just die. It sounds terrible. Yeah. I I say this, but if you think about your relatives, to say he died because it took too long to get the diagnosis. How crazy is that? This is really something very serious. Independent that you're working in this field, but it's just crazy to say he died without knowing what he had or he died because it took too long to get the diagnosis. So there's a urgent need because of many reasons to improve the system, to digitalize the system, to have digital images which can be seen, remotely, and not on-site. There are some countries where the pathologist is driving by car.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:25:48]:
By car, he's driving to a clinic to assist during a surgery process. How crazy. Why? It's I I don't have to say it's it's nonsense. Yeah. So it's a waste of resources which we don't have.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:26:04]:
Mhmm. You guys are really making effort to shorten the diagnosis and Yeah. Establish even a better diagnosis with helping with remote. So my understanding is in the future, there will be options where are you guys currently available? Where are you guys currently available? Because as we already said, you have, the headquarter in Munich. You have the r and d in upstate New York at the Great Lakes. Have you been there?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:26:42]:
Oh, yeah. Fantastic place. Socks? Fantastic. Fantastic.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:26:46]:
Socks? I
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:26:47]:
In the wintertime, wintertime is quite tough, in Rochester. I think due to the climate changes, also a bit changed there. But I remember flying, to Rochester, from Newark, by this little propeller plane, and, a stormy stormy night, and I see only the runway from the you know, the the cockpit was open. The door was open. You could see the snow and the plane, and it was, like, doing like this. And in the last minute, doing like this, you know, was crazy. But summertime, Finger Lakes, wineries, really fantastic. 1 time, I had the luck to fly via Toronto.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:27:26]:
I took the car, and I passed Niagara Falls, and then I drove on to, to Rochester. So beautiful beautiful area. Especially the Finger Lakes is fantastic. I love it. I love it very much. This is a a nice nice area.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:27:43]:
I I would assume you guys are, Vivascopes currently available in Europe, meaning the European Union and the United States, anywhere else?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:27:53]:
We just started in India. It was, an idea which came into my mind. Why not India? It's 1, 400, 000, 000 people. And we hired, Indian colleagues, which we appreciate very much, and we did our first demo tour. And, after the first demo tour, the this I think the Indians are really amazing. Yeah. They they got so excited, so progressive doctors, and they have a big problem. They have even higher, workload than we have.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:28:22]:
And it immediately ordered 4 devices Joe as as after 1 month. So this is for me, it's, wow. They are fast. They're clever. We need to learn a bit of the speed and dynamic of Indian people. In Europe, we we are, we have 50 centers by now. The latest 1 is is is really make me happy. It's a pediatric center in Ancona.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:28:50]:
Means for babies and children because, I didn't also not know that, some sometimes when you have this this disease is called, you need to do a kind of, surgery, and the babies are put under anesthesia for quite long time. So we could reduce the the time for anesthesia, by 2 hours, which is immense. So, this this makes a big difference, for the baby cells. So I think this is a fantastic, application, and I just got the news that the first oral, lecture was accepted to the World Congress for pediatric oncology. I think we all we all wanted our babies. Our children are feeling well and and that they get the best treatment. Yeah. We have 50 centers throughout Europe.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:29:39]:
We have, roughly 5 now in US. US is quite tough with the regulation. You need to prove by big studies, that you are allowed to do this. So we have MD Anderson, Memorial Saint Catherine, New York, with fantastic, scientists and doctors, professor Krishnamoorthy, Savitri. She's a pathologist, very, very progressive, pathologist. So it's it's nice to see how these these pathologists are pushing the technology. So it's nice because pathologists are used to this analog process, but they saw and they understood that this is a help for them. It's a relief.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:30:26]:
They can sit at big monitors. They can judge the sample from the office or from home, and it's not a threat. We're just changing the way of doing histology. We do it digital. And funny enough, when I started my first job at the Japanese company at that time, we were the first introducing the digital camera. So before we used the the camera with the film, so we made pictures. We took the film out. We sent it to laboratory.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:30:54]:
We waited to get the results. And now it's basically the same also in this field, in a much more important field, the, pathology, histopathology, Joe know, the diagnosis, area. So it's nice it's nice to have this this kind of repeating of the history in a higher level, let's say.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:31:17]:
I see. Are you guys looking currently for somebody to join your journey? So are you looking for talented people?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:31:25]:
We're looking. It's getting more and more important. We need of course, it's kind of challenging. You need to know a lot. As as I mentioned, I I studied, MBA, but, I had to learn a lot about skin tumors, what is a melanoma, what is a basal cell carcinoma, actinic keratosis, inflammatory diseases, what is the prostate cancer, Why they take 18 biopsies out of your prostate to know if you have prostate cancer? Breast, breast core biopsy, fine needle biopsy, fine needle aspiration, lung. How do they do this? So it's a lot. It's a it's really a lot to learn, but it's a fantastic way to combine, your job with something really makes makes sense, which which helps, in in a tremendous way. It helps to improve and to get fast results, and it helps not it helps you.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:32:20]:
It helps me, when I when I'm affected. Yeah. And the probability to get the cancer is unfortunately increasing. So we have to think about, if it happens, where do I go? Do I go to a center offering old type, or do I go to a center offering this digital new, a progressive approach? Yeah. And, on 1 side, we're looking for talented people. Of course, we are we are a middle sized company. We are not, we are not Siemens. We are not General Electric, so it takes more time, takes more resources.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:32:56]:
And let's say we we need to then to just, just do it all by ourselves. Thanks god. We won many grants last year, which allow us or supports us. But, you know, medicine is a very slow moving, object. Yeah. To change things takes long time.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:33:20]:
Yeah. I I do understand that some of it is just to reduce the risk of, of potential, misdiagnosis. Joe you guys are also open to talk to new investors?
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:33:33]:
Of course. Always. I mean, I was I am a firm believer of, collaborations in terms of combining different technologies together, in terms of bringing people with knowledge, insight, in terms of bringing resources to speed up the process because, as I mentioned, it's a urgent urgent problem. And the more power we have to change things, the more, let's say, the more we have the chance to also save people. Here, we're talking about people's life. Yeah. That's that's definitely, an issue. And we now have a lot of big companies lock locking at the door.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:34:16]:
I'm quite happy, and I'm looking forward to these new collaborations. But our doors are open for more.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:34:27]:
Giuseppe, it was really great having you as guest. You could totally tell you are an Italian.
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:34:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:34:36]:
When when I do have a guest who who has really an interesting and important topic and can talk a lot about it, we're now running almost at 35 minutes recording time here. So Oh
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:34:46]:
my god.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger [00:34:47]:
To say thank you!
Giuseppe Solomita | Director Vivascope [00:34:52]:
I hope I hope, it was a bit interesting. I tend to, not stop. I was warned. Please stop. So thank you so much. It was great to talk about, this problem and possible solutions!
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