Berkeley Start-upsFumigation May Cure Toenail Fungus
by Tamra Teig
Note: Nothing you see in this blog (now or ever) should be construed as investment advice.
How do you get funding for a medical device start-up that has not been approved by the FDA? If you are founder Jeffrey Roe, you cure yourself first (because that is legal) and document it in pictures.
Over 38 million Americans suffer from ugly toenail fungus. (Fancy name: Onychomycosis). Consumers spend over $3 billion dollars every year in failed attempts to kill the fungus. The unguents, ointments and laser therapies on the market don’t work, and oral antibiotics pose a risk of liver damage, as well as being fairly ineffective.
What is someone with a penchant for flip-flops to do?
Enter Device Farm. Their patent-pending technology is similar to the way you would fumigate a house, using a plasma gas that penetrates the nail and kills the fungus. Other external delivery systems can’t get at the problem.
Jeffrey Roe, Device Farm founder and CEO, served as his own guinea pig, curing his rather severe case in just three treatments over seven months, with a rudimentary prototype, (involving a man’s slipper with the toes cut out and a plastic dome) and sharing his before and after results at a recent Berkeley event. Gross, but compelling.
With grants from two serious organizations, the National Health Institute and the National Science Foundation, there just might be something to this treatment.
Berkeley Connection: Jeffrey Roe, co-founder and CEO, has a PhD from Berkeley/UCSF in Bioengineering and 20 years biotech experience with Roche, J&J and five start-ups.
Disclosure: Scott Adams attended the start-up pitch event and expressed interest in investing but has not done so at the time of this writing.
Device Farm Website
