Collaborative Effort Across Academic Lines Results in the Launch of New Company and the Advancement of Cardiac MRI

EXCMR Leverages Academic Collaboration and Support of Ohio’s Third Frontier to Become Outstanding Startup Business of 2008

How does an idea go from a senior design engineering project to being named the winner of TechColumbus’ Innovation Award for Outstanding Startup Business in just three short years?  It happens through the collaboration of an interdisciplinary team of experts and innovators and through the support of the State of Ohio’s Third Frontier program and its partner organizations.  Such is the story of EXCMR, developers of the first MRI-compatible treadmill. 

Advances in cardiovascular imaging have contributed to significant developments in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S.  And yet, these technological advances have, until now, been hampered by a basic principle of physics -- magnetism. 

Common tests for diagnosing heart disease often combine either an exercise- or drug-induced stress test with some type of imaging technology.  Experts agree that exercise-induced stress tests are more effective than their pharmacological counterparts. 

In the case of exercise-induced stress tests, patients walk on a treadmill until they reach their peak stress level.  Then doctors obtain images of the heart using ultrasound or other techniques such as nuclear scans.  While widely used, these imaging methods do not offer the level of clarity that today’s high resolution MRIs can.   It was not possible to conduct an optimally effective treadmill exercise stress test in combination with MRI, until a collaborative group of cardiologists, biomedical and mechanical engineers from OSU came together with a solution.

The challenge was in having a metal-laden treadmill in the same room with an MRI machine which contains powerful magnets. 

The quest for an MRI-compatible treadmill began in 2005 when Orlando “Lon” Simonetti joined OSU’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital as an associate professor of internal medicine and radiology.  Simonetti was recruited to OSU through support from the Cardiovascular Bioengineering Enterprise, an initiative dedicated to establishing the state’s preeminence in cardiovascular technology and funded by Ohio’s Third Frontier program.

Simonetti, who directs Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance research at OSU, reached out to the university’s College of Engineering, seeking design solutions for an MRI-compatible exercise device from mechanical engineering undergraduate students.   Eric Foster, then a senior in the program, began working on the project. 

Several types of exercise equipment were considered and Foster says initially his design was for a stationery bike which was subsequently abandoned in favor of the treadmill since this piece of equipment is the gold standard used in exercise stress tests. 

Upon graduating, Foster continued to work on his master’s degree and chose as his thesis project the further development of the MRI-compatible exercise device.  The project brought together an interdisciplinary team of cardiologists, mechanical engineers, biomedical engineers and even one member from OSU’s agricultural community.  Team leaders included Simonetti, Foster, Dr. Subha Raman, clinical director of Cardiac MRI and CT at OSU and John Arnold, a professor of engineering in OSU’s College of Food, Agricultural and Biological Sciences.  Arnold brought to the team expertise in the use of fluid power systems, which he gained through years of practical experience in the development of large earth moving equipment. 

Together the team created an MRI-compatible treadmill made of aluminum and other non-ferromagnetic materials powered by a hydraulic motor that could be placed in the same room with an MRI machine and capable of providing MRI images within 60 seconds of the patient stepping off the treadmill.  This allows clinicians to view in real-time the clearest images of a heart beating at peak stress levels. 

And so the engineering and technology phases were deemed successful.  Now what? 

As part of his master’s program, Foster enrolled in a class in entrepreneurism at OSU’s Fisher College of Business. 

“I was curious,” says Foster.  “I wanted to know what we could do with this technology.” 

Foster says to develop a certain level of skills and to get feedback on their idea, the team entered its company, by then known as EXCMR, into Fisher’s annual Deloitte Business Plan Competition. The company won second place honors and received both cash and services awards to help them take their idea to the next level of commercialization.

“The business plan competition forced us to define what this company would be,” says Foster.  “It forced us to focus on what elements it would take to enable us to launch as a real company.”  

Next the company and the university’s Office of Technology Licensing and Commercialization began work on patenting the university-developed intellectual property and qualifying EXCMR as a University Technology Commercialization Company. 

In the meantime, EXCMR received funding through the TechColumbus’ TechGenesis program for market validation and prototype design. 

And recently, the company received $156,000 from the Third Frontier’s Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center to build and test the treadmill at the OSU Medical Center and to begin initial marketing of the product to other research centers.  Simonetti says there have already been numerous inquiries from other institutions interested in adopting the MRI-compatible treadmill. 

Foster has become the first employee of EXCMR. With his master’s degree in engineering and his practical experience, Foster could have been recruited to a wide variety of companies.  But he chose to stay with EXCMR and be part of an exciting, thriving biomedical enterprise in Central Ohio. 

“If not for the continuation of this project, there was really nothing holding me here,” he says.  “I just like working in a startup environment and I can’t imagine any other location offering the same opportunities and support that we’ve gotten from Ohio and its program partners.”  

Simonetti projects that by next year, the company will have created several new jobs in Central Ohio.  He says that the treadmills will be assembled here and that every effort is being made to build the treadmills out of parts manufactured in Ohio.  He says they’ve already found suppliers within the state for the rollers and other treadmill components.

“EXCMR is a perfect example of how effective these Third Frontier programs can be when they are orchestrated and coordinated to the advancement of innovative new technologies,” says Burton Page, TechColumbus’ senior director of technology commercialization.