Epiphan gets the medical picture
Company can diagnose astronaut in space
It’s not easy getting a doctor’s appointment — particularly if the patient is at a remote mountain accident scene or in orbit thousands of kilometres above the Earth.
But an Ottawa company has developed technology that quickly harnesses complex medical images and sends them to doctors far away.
Chief executive officer Mike Sandler and a telemedicine division of his Epiphan Systems have just been inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame at an annual ceremony in Colorado Springs. “They told us we were the first Canadians among the 70 or so who have received the award,” Sandler said proudly.
The award praised the company for finding a way to diagnose an injured astronaut in orbit.
Epiphan has quietly built a successful image-management business for a decade, selling technology called frame-grabbers to 10,000 customers in universities, hospitals, military, transportation, broadcast and other businesses around the world.
The company name is inspired by epiphany — a sudden revelation flowing from years of scientific or religious study. It’s hardly catchy — but “eureka” was claimed by the vacuum industry long ago.
The Epiphan revelation is aimed at the billions of images flowing from medical, computing and communication devices around the world.
“Before we developed the frame-grabber, recording was impossible,” Sandler said. “The images were gone forever.”
The company is growing rapidly, making the 2012 Deloitte Fast 50 list of promising Canadian companies with sales growth of 256 per cent over five years.
But it took rapidly declining U.S. government support for expensive space programs to thrust Epiphan into the headlines.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration went on the offensive in a bid for public and political support. At a U.S. congressional committee hearing last July, a top NASA scientist cited Epiphan as a prime example of how space technology is improving life on Earth.
Dr. Mason Peck told the committee that Epiphan technology means doctors don’t have to put accident victims through diagnosis when they finally reach a hospital. “We can accurately diagnose the condition in flight so we can have appropriate care ready.”
Induction into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, run by the industry advocate Space Foundation, raised Epiphan’s profile again. The other inductee this year is an Alabama company that makes a compact inflatable transmitter to identify the site of disasters at sea. Information Week and other U.S. media are starting to pick up the story of NASA-inspired products.
The Epiphan technology got its first high-profile exposure in space when U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao, the commander of a Space shuttle flight in 2004-05, administered ultrasound technology to a fellow astronaut from Russia and sent the images to earth.
Chiao, who spent 36 days in space over three missions, is now the Epiphan vice-president for aerospace in Houston and a frequent commentator on space issues.
Epiphan was originally enlisted by the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit to help U.S. Olympic sports teams manage injuries. Using Skype, the first images were sent from the training centre in Colorado to a doctor in Atlanta. The doctor instructed sports trainers on the scene where to place the ultrasound, watched the results and made the diagnosis.
Then the Johnson Space Centre in Florida joined the effort to develop a space application.
The collaboration shows how a small Ottawa company with a global reach can flourish in the fertile environment created by the end of U.S.-Russia Cold War.
Top Epiphan leaders Sandler and chief technology officer and founder Misha Jiline were born and educated in Russia — though they first met working at an Ottawa company.
The U.S. military as well as medical experts are important clients for company products. Epiphan has grown to a workforce of 41, including 22 in Ottawa, eight in Moscow and the rest in the U.S. It is recruiting for three more employees.
Sandler said sales will reach $10 million to $15 million this year — an increase of 50 per cent at the high end. Launched with just $650,000 in investments from friends and family in 2003, the company turned profitable after nine months. Consistent profits have allowed Epiphan to buy out many early investors who now own just seven per cent. Sandler owns more than half the company and Jiline has a big stake.
While many small, unprofitable technology companies are wooed today by private equity or big company buyouts, Sandler wants no part of the flood of low-interest capital sloshing around the world.
“My partner and I are happy doing what we know, working with our team building hardware and software. We don’t know how to go public. We are comfortable with the freedom. We like having full control. “
However, he is taking a Harvard University business program in addition to his management duties. “We might consider (going public) when we get to $50 million in sales. We don’t need to raise big money now in our situation.”
While sales are strong, the hard sell is not part of the success. “So many of our customers, like those doctors in Detroit, come to us seeking solutions to a problem,” Sandler said. “Google is my biggest salesman.”
He said customers have posted hundreds of case histories in a dozen languages on the Epiphan website on how they capture and manage images. He said new customers start a Google search for their problems and the case histories soon bring them to Epiphan.
“We have spent more than $1.2 million on Google but it is working for us 24-7.”
In medicine, which generates about 30 per cent of sales, the technology has moved beyond ultrasound to a wide range of medical instruments including pacemakers and defibrillators.
Epiphan licenses the technology through a Mediphan operation to equipment makers.
Mountainous countries like Brazil now install telemedicine gear in remote villages for just $2,000, helping residents and climbers who get into trouble even if the nearest hospital is far away.
Sandler has more than 17 years experience on the Ottawa technology scene at companies like Nortel, Gandalf and Milkyway. He was a vice-president of PointShot Wireless.
He and Jilin’s first venture was IPMeeting, an early conferencing play. It was bought by DWI in 2000 and eventually by IBM in 2005. Phatware of Washington state bought their next venture, CEMyNetwork, in 2003 to get a hand-held device that tracks spam and other traffic on wireless networks.
The chief financial officer is Jeff Kushner, who worked at SiGe until it was bought by Skyworks. Among the members of an Epiphan advisory board is Brian Hurley, a former Nortel executive who developed Liquid Computing and more recently Purple Forge, a wireless applications developer. A Detroit doctor who helped open the first doors to telemedicine is another adviser.
Epiphan, at 38th, was one of just four Ottawa companies to make the Deloitte Fast 50 list in 2012. The others were Solace Systems in 11th, BTI Systems in 28th and Optelian in 39th place.
One of Ottawa’s hottest companies is suddenly very cold. Shares of Fortinet, a budding network security giant, plunged 25 per cent after it warned that sales in the March-ending quarter fell $25 million short of forecasts. Investors fled and analysts with Wells Fargo and Needham cut their “buy” recommendations on the stock. Based in California, Fortinet does much of its product development in Vancouver and Ottawa. It blamed a weakening economy, saying some expected sales to U.S. Internet providers fell through late in the quarter. The stock first lost altitude a year ago when a weakening economy finally hit. It regained some ground but now is trading in the $18 range, far below the high of $28 a year ago. Fortinet is expected to report sales of just $135 million for the Marchending quarter — likely the lowest since last summer.
Wi-LAN, an Ottawa technology licensing company, welcomed a U.S. Federal Court decision in Texas that could lead to a “positive outcome” in a dispute with industry giants. It is suing Apple, Dell, Hewlett Packard and other companies for alleged infringement of patents. While the trial isn’t set to start until October, similar preliminary rulings in other cases have set the stage for settlement negotiations.
Select Software of Manotick is combining forces with BridgeWay Inc. of New York in a bid to increase sales to customers of Microsoft System Centre software. Former Silect chief executive Harold Dyck will be a vice-president and general manager of the BridgeWay operation here. No terms were disclosed.
EION Wireless of Ottawa said an undisclosed phone company in Jordan has just taken delivery of StarPlus wireless access gear and is expected to buy more in the next two years to support enterprise customers.
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a big scientific instruments company with 300 Ottawa employees, turned heads on Wall Street with a successful $13.6-billion bid for Life Technologies Corp. in a fight with some of the biggest private equity companies. The deal gives Thermo an equipment maker aimed at the genetic sequencing business of developing new drugs. J.P. Morgan helped finance the bid.