Rick Altinger, MAUI Imaging - Ultrasound to Image Multiple Tissue Types | LSI USA '24

Rick Altinger  0:05  
Matt, thanks. I'm thrilled to be here. So Maui is a ultrasound based imaging system that is unique in many ways. First and foremost, it can see through and around bone and other barriers, which no other ultrasound can come close to doing. The probe looks like this. Looks like a standard ultrasound, a little larger than typically, and then the processing unit is shown over here. It's about the size of a toolbox. We send out energy and receive about the same amount of energy that typical ultrasound does, but the similarities stop there. We require a significant more processing power to do what we do, and it wasn't possible until some of the fastest GPUs started becoming available. Just a few years ago. Our GPUs are available, though they're not the ones that are in data centers. So what really differentiates us, though, is what we can do with it. And if you want to know more about the physics, there's over 100 patents I can talk to you about that later. It's the differentiating use cases and the market size that I want to focus on so we can image it around bone. So what? Well, that opens up a whole series of opportunities for us with use with specific use cases that no one else can do. And I'm going to show you a few of those, and then it also creates an AI opportunity. So we're collecting about 1000 times more raw data than a typical ultrasound, so we can drive both remote analysis of that and AI in order to create brand new images an unlimited number of slices more attuned to CT. So we've got two beachheads that we'll start with. We'll ultimately be all things to all people in ultrasound, but we need two places to start, and the trauma space and interventional radiology are the two places we're going to start. We already have an initial $4 million contract in trauma after only being FDA cleared for a few months. So in trauma, there's three specific sort of top tier areas that are most important. First is imaging into the cranial vault. Second, we can image into lung. Third is long bones. So in the cranial area, if you place the boat the probe basically here, over the temporal bone, you can see tissue. There's no comparative image for traditional ultrasound that I can show you, because they're going to see just one or two centimeters deep, and then it's going to be blacked out after that. If we literally zoom in, in this next image, you are seeing more the full cranial vault here, and so we're seeing the left hemisphere, the right hemisphere, you're seeing the midline there, or the phylix Cerebri, and if there were a midline shift, so if there were a lesion or hematoma creating pressure, this, which is a very emergent, urgent issue, we're told we would See it. We're about to start a clinical study, funded clinical study by the US military at University of Maryland, where we'll be able to prove this. We have a high degree of confidence, but even just being able to image and see a hematoma is a significant step for us. So this is not someone something anyone else can do. Another use case is over the sternum. So today, when you place a endotracheal tube, you need to make sure that it doesn't go too deep. You need to make sure it's in the right place. And so the vast majority of them require that you do a x ray after the fact to confirm placement, and you the vast majority, and we're done without any guidance as you're placing it. So in our case, we can see the trachea, and we can see the Carina, where it branches into the left and right bronchus here, and your target is to put it just before you get to that Y junction. So again, something no one else can even come close to. There are numerous other trauma related use cases that we could talk about, placing catheters behind the stomach, a roboa catheter, for example, we're not masked out by food in the stomach, for example. Another example, then, is in interventional radiology. So today, there's a very high volume of procedures for biopsies and ablations associated with the liver and kidney, for example. And some of them can be done under traditional ultrasound, but in a significant percentage of them on the order of. 20 to 25% the lesion, or target, is behind a rib. So on the left side, you see the Fuji ultrasound system, and you see the traditional rib saddle. For those of you familiar with ultrasound, if the lesion is in that zone, you've got a challenge, you've got a problem, you cannot see it. And so what happens? There has to be a CT machine next to the interventional radiology suite that they can wheel that into place fiducials. Oftentimes it's two to three times back and forth to get these snapshots the intervention with us. You can see the rib there in that image. We're not shadowed out. You can do it without the without the CT required. So for the radiologist, this is important for a number of reasons. The first reason is important to them, the second reason and the third reason are all the same. It saves them time on the order of 40 minutes. Yes, it's also important to reduce the amount of radiation that they and their colleagues are getting associated with going in and out of the CT. Yes, it's also important to them that there's less radiation for the patient, but number one is saving them time. The last one that's important to them, the least important thing for them, is the fact that you don't need that CT machine dedicated for the interventional radiology suite that CT machine could be getting scheduled with much higher dollar procedures and study. So a significant advantage there. Here is actual live cine clip of us after the biopsy, seeing the gel from injected. Again, no rib shadow, and we don't get the same sparkle effect. We're also it's better. We're better at seeing the instrument. So because of the concave nature of the probe, and this is one of the things that's patented with us, is we send in these off axis pings that allow us to better visualize, and you don't have to have that special technique to get it just aligned in plane. So huge market opportunity. Yes, we can go after all the stuff that ultrasound does about almost $9 billion but then probably more exciting is taking some of the CT and Mr and X ray procedures and bringing them to ultrasound. Also bringing AI. AI hasn't really penetrated the ultrasound space. Very much. Less than 10% of the AI modules are in ultrasound because there's just not that much data, and we can help change that significantly. I'm thrilled to finally, we're at the stage where we can say, not only do we have differentiated clinical use cases, we have a technology that is FDA cleared, that is at a cost of goods sold, where we can make very good margins, but we also have pipeline and contracts so we can start to forecast revenue in a repeatable way. Of course, we've got a product roadmap that I think will differentiate us further, but right now, we have a product that is sellable. From a team perspective, I have a number of exits in both the healthcare IT side as well as in the medical device side. Dave Speck, the founder comes out of the Air Force Academy, was in the Air Force, trained and then went into management consulting, and is an excellent leader. He's also very much a visionary in medical imaging and understands and can advocate for the physics associated with this, and I think is a great overall leader. The others there are also very helpful. I'll focus on Saeed, because he's an old timer in the ultrasound industry. I hope he'll forgive me for saying that, but he originally felt like this was not doable, and then we showed him some images, and it's the images that really made him interested. And yes, we can miniaturize this further, like some others have done, and make it even more portable, but it's more about the clinical differentiation that makes us unique. So we're looking to raise money both for a commercial full equity round on the order of 10 to $15 million but we also have an open convertible note that is available. Thank you for your time. Applause.