Delphinus moves to Ann Arbor, invests $6.4M, to create 107 jobs

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 | Source: Concentrate

Delphinus Medical Solutions continues its rapid march from research spin-off to high-powered start-up. Last we heard, it had collected $8 million in venture capital earlier this year. Within the last week, it scored six-figures' worth of state tax credits, enabling it to invest $6.4 million and create 107 jobs over the next five years.

"We plan on hiring between 10-20 people in the first year," says Bill Greenway, CEO of Delphinus Medical Solutions.

The Michigan Economic Development Corp has agreed to grant the Karmanos Cancer Institute spin-off a five-year tax credit worth $779,118 to move to the Michigan Life Science & Innovation Center in Plymouth. That gave the Ann Arbor SPARK-run wet lab incubator the edge over competing sites in Boston and Chicago.

Delphinus Medical Solutions' principal product is SoftVue, an alternative to mammography for breast cancer detection, risk evaluation, and treatment monitoring. SoftVue can effectively differentiate benign from malignant masses in breasts, helping eliminate false positives and reducing unnecessary biopsies. It can also accurately measure breast density, a known risk factor for developing breast cancer, as well as detect many early stages of cancer in women with dense breast tissue, which is often not picked up by mammography.

SoftVue works by surrounding a breast submerged in warm water with an ultrasound ring that captures detailed, three-dimensional images with sound waves. The results are similar to an MRI, but the procedure takes only a few minutes and costs much less. The procedure was the inspiration for the company's name, which is Latin for dolphins.

"Because our system uses sound waves and happens in water we thought it was a neat name," Greenway says.

Source: Bill Greenway, CEO of Delphinus Medical Technologies
Writer: Jon Zemke