Pulmonx

The last 40 years have brought no major technological advances to intubation, the process of placing a tube in the trachea of a person with a medical need to secure an airway, says Peter Soltesz, a co-founder of Palo Alto, CA-based Pulmonxand its COO. Some 58 million intubations are performed annually worldwide, he says. Normally, the procedure is done quickly, without any complication. However, in many cases, the medical staffer performing an intubation cannot see what he or she is doing, and must proceed guided only by feel and sense of timing. The inability to visualize the anatomy can cause problems: tubes can, for instance, be misplaced in the esophagus or mainstem bronchus, which can lead to morbidity or death if undetected. Trouble happens, Soltesz says, in up to 10% of the emergency intubations performed outside of the hospital in the US each year. Even in calmer operating-room settings, where highly-experienced anesthesiologists typically perform the procedure, intubation can still cause problems 3-5% of the time—if, for instance, a patient turns out to have unusual anatomy. Intubation and tube positioning in infants and neonates are often difficult, simply because their airways are so small.

Pulmonx founders Rod Perkins, Peter Soltesz and Robert Kotmel figured the difficulties of intubation added up to a business opportunity,...