Mission

The mission of Thermedical is to design, develop, manufacture, and sell thermal ablation systems to treat previously untreatable cancer and cardiac arrhythmias.  Our products will increase survival and improve quality of life for liver cancer patients and will be curative for Ventricular Tachycardia.  Our products will expand the addressable market for ablation therapy and we are positioned to capture the majority of the increased market.

Company

Thermedical is an early stage startup located in Somerville, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.  Thermedical is developing preclinical prototypes for Saline Enhanced Radio Frequency (SERF™) ablation system for liver cancer and for ventricular tachycardia (VT).  These projects are currently funded through Phase 2 National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovative Research (NIH SBIR) grants.  Thermedical plans to bring an RF ablation system to market in 2007 and and RF ablation system for the treatment of VT in 2010.

Management

Michael G. Curley, Ph.D., Founder and President: Dr. Curley is the lead inventor of the SERF Ablation System and will lead Thermedical’s introduction of this technology to the market.  Dr. Curley has had great success with starting businesses for the electrophysiology market.  He was Vice President of Acuson’s Interventional Devices Business Operations from 1997-2002 and led the successful development and introduction of the AcuNav™ Diagnostic Ultrasound Catheter to the electrophysiology and interventional cardiology markets.  Dr. Curley is one of the inventors of the AcuNav; he also wrote and carried out the business plan that Acuson used to develop this business.  He led the development of the clinical prototype, and developed much of the intellectual property that is now protecting this business.  He set and carried out the regulatory strategy for both domestic and European introduction of the AcuNav; he set and carried out the sales strategy and customer training strategy; he led the marketing introduction; and he was the key contact for the introductory Public Relations launch.  He brought this innovative product rapidly to market, and he managed the initial sales, bringing the business to profitability.  The sales of the AcuNav are strong, and it is setting the clinical standard for guiding ablation therapy for complex arrhythmias.  He has developed a strong reputation in the clinical community, and has developed strong ties to the industry leaders in electrophysiology.  Dr. Curley received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  His graduate research focused on hyperthermia therapy for cancer and on understanding biological heat transfer during therapy. 

Patrick S. Hamilton, Ph.D., V.P. Research & Development:  Dr. Hamilton is a co-inventor of the SERF Ablation System and will lead Thermedical’s technical development and implementation of the pre-clinical and clinical SERF Ablation System.  Dr. Hamilton has considerable experience designing and implementing hardware and software for diagnostic and therapeutic medical systems.  As a research engineer at the MIT Hyperthermia Lab, he designed and implemented the hardware and software for control of a high-powered, focused ultrasound system for hyperthermia treatment of tumors.  Dr. Hamilton has developed and implemented software for beat detection, beat classification, ECG data compression, and fibrillation detection.  Dr. Hamilton’s ECG analysis software is the basis for a number of commercial ECG analysis systems.  Dr. Hamilton previously founded PH Software to handle licensing and marketing of his ECG analysis and compression software, and he is the author of the predominant open source software for ECG analysis. Dr. Hamilton received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an M.S in Biomedical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin- Madison.