ZetrOZ Inc. is in Trumbull, strategically on the Interstate 95 medical corridor between New York City and Boston. Its enemy is pain and wearable ultrasound is its ammo.
George Lewis Jr. is the founder and serves as the company”™s chief scientific and technology officer. He completed his doctorate in biomedical engineering with dual minors in neurobiology and mechanical engineering at Cornell University. In a statement, the company said, “Dr. Lewis has achieved significant milestones in ultrasound technology and has a maintained a reputation for excellence and innovation in the field.”
Bryant Guffey is the CEO who co-founded the company while pursuing his MBA at Cornell. Guffey and Lewis together began to design and streamline some of the earliest design prototypes in wearable ultrasound.
JoAnne Guarino is chief operating officer. Her business background couples with a clinical certification in mind-body medicine from Harvard Medical School. Joe Turgeon also works in operations, an arena where he previously shepherded five medical-product startups; his undergraduate degree is in manufacturing engineering.
Sabrina Lewis, ZetrOZ”™s regulatory manager, also possesses a master”™s degree from Cornell, which she followed with 10 years in the scientific, quality assurance and regulatory spheres.
The team responded to questions about its “sam” product for the FCBJ:
Describe “sam” and how it works. Is sam the only product you make?
“The ”˜sam”™ product (samrecover.com) is ZetrOZ”™s first medical device offering, released in early 2014. The sam device provides ”˜sustained acoustic medicine”™ for up to four hours per treatment and is designed to treat musculoskeletal conditions in humans such as muscle and joint pain. It increases local circulation in injured tissues to enhance the body”™s natural rehabilitation process. The sam device plays an integral role in a ”˜pre-hab and rehab”™ regimen, enabling faster and longer lasting recovery.
“Ultrasound therapy is a mechanical wave therapy shown to reduce pain, treat muscle spasms and joint contracture and increase circulation. Unlike other therapies, ultrasound causes physical movement within the body, massaging the internal tissue and creating heat.
“The device has been clinically tested for conditions including, osteoarthritis, tendinopathy and trapezius myalgia.
“ZetrOZ has a second product called UltrOZ (ultroz.com), the first long-duration miniaturized wearable ultrasound device for the veterinary equine market, providing treatment for common musculoskeletal conditions in horses.”
George, was there a light-bulb moment about a wearable ultrasound device? Does it incorporate technology previously unavailable in a new way?
“The wearable ultrasound device was invented in the ”˜home lab”™ office of my apartment, while I was a graduate student at Cornell. In the process of tinkering with the efficient transducers, electronics and power sources I was designing, I built the first multihour therapeutic ultrasound device that was about the size of an iPod. I was so excited that I put the device in a jewellery box and ran downstairs to show my girlfriend at the time (now my wife, Sabrina Lewis). ”˜The smallest ultrasound device in the world,”™ I proclaimed. Sabrina, having just had ankle surgery, understood the need and desire for convenient ultrasound. My thoughts immediately went to the idea of, ”˜What if this was portable and wearable? It could prove effective for musculoskeletal pains and injuries.”™ This is where my initial concept stemmed from.”
Can you explain the science behind the device?
“The sam device sustains ultrasound therapy for multiple hours on a daily basis to musculoskeletal tissues eliciting thermal and mechanical effects on tissue, which accelerates biological processes, which leads to faster regeneration of vital tissues.
“Specifically, ultrasound is associated with increased migration of fibroblasts, as well as an increase in collagen production, which is the basis for the new extracellular matrix which replaces necrotic/injured tissue. The sustained ultrasound stimulation (which is very important) sustains the increased bulk transport kinetics of nutrients and cellular waste products by convective transfer of interstitial fluids.”
Are there other products on the market like it? If so, what makes yours stand out?
“Ultrasound has been used for physiotherapy and pain management for 70 years; however, the daily long-duration therapeutic ultrasound treatment is novel and unprecedented. Specifically, because sam provides ultrasonic energy directed into the body for up to four hours, this elicits mechanical responses of the tissue and movement of the surrounding interstitial fluids.”
There are at least two other not-quite-similar devises on the market, but said Lewis, “Sam is the only FDA-cleared device for continuous, four-hour ultrasound treatment for deep tissue therapy and delivers a sustained 1.3 watts of ultrasound power and over 18,000 joules of energy per four-hour treatment. This makes it the most effective system in its class.”
