It’s an active time for technological innovations in health care, driven by advances in research alongside 
public policies that affect the business side. Changes in Medicare reimbursement are spurring providers to reduce patient visits and expensive interventions, and encouraging hospitals to adopt practices and
technologies that reduce those very activities.
Within that need for rapid cost and visit reductions exist huge opportunities for technologies that can help deliver those results. Health care is changing across the board, but when it comes to innovation, genomic medicine – especially in cancer care – is the topic du jour.
Sequencing of the human genome a decade ago created the potential for identifying health problems and for an unprecedented level of individualization in treatment. Researchers say they are moving toward treating not just a type of cancer, but your cancer. Now, even as the Obama administration upends health care delivery models, the president also recently announced a “Precision Medicine Initiative” that is sure to add plenty of fuel (read: money) to the fire.
Technologies that respond to both trends are being developed and brought to market in the Upstate through an active network of private companies, large health systems and university researchers. New software applications are continually being developed, but the hands-on technologies that make their way into our bodies are also developing, albeit on longer timelines.
This week, UBJ highlights some of the people and organizations making the biggest impact on health technology in the Upstate, adopting innovations and, in some cases, leading the way.
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Greenville Health System (GHS) will soon announce details about moving forward with a precision support tool for colon cancer, said Sam Konduros, executive director of the GHS Research Development Corporation. The technology would help physicians decide, for instance, whether a patient should begin chemotherapy, and which method in particular appears to be most likely to work. The tool has been developed and tested via a collaboration among the GHS Institute of Translational Oncology Research (ITOR) and three companies, including local biotech rock star Selah Genomics. Using Selah Genomics’ PrecisionPath technology and tumor samples generated at GHS, 
the collaborative can process genetic and clinical data from studies to look at factors in colon cancer progression.
Other collaborators are DecicionQ, an Arlington, Va.-based creator of unique algorithms and predictive models, and a multibillion-dollar “interest” that will have the first opportunity to license the technology but whose name could not be disclosed, said Larry Gluck, medical director of GHS’s cancer center.
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CreatiVasc Medical’s Hemoaccess Valve is one of just three technologies in the nation to be fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), giving it a speedier review and approval process. Steve Johnson, president, said that is because the device is relatively low-risk, yet can potentially have a major impact.
The company is developing an in-body device, through which patients are connected to dialysis machines, diverting blood for a few hours rather 
than 24 hours a day, as devices currently on the market do. That reduces
the risk of blood clotting at the site and other issues that lead to medical interventions. CreatiVasc is currently conducting its first round of human clinical trials, and is about to finish work on an upgrade that allows the device to be activated using magnetic force rather than a needle under a person’s skin. Sales are probably another year away.
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Norgenix, a subsidiary of the J M Smith Corporation, has developed a niche in developing, marketing and distributing medical devices and pharmaceutical therapies to address problems with female fertility. The company has brought over a number of products that were available in Europe and helped fund them through the FDA process, as well as supporting development of near-market technologies at smaller domestic companies. Clients mostly are physicians’ offices and hospitals.
Products include devices such as its OvuSense fertility monitor, 
which the company says can track ovulation with 99 percent accuracy, and eventually will allow users to monitor their fertility using a smartphone or other mobile device. A surgical instrument, the Fertiloscope, enables early diagnosis and immediate treatment of physical causes of female infertility for use in an office setting. In fact, emphasis on devices that can be used in-office by a single payer is deliberate, said COO and Senior Vice President Michael Rackley.
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Both Bon Secours St. Francis and Gibbs Cancer Center and Research Institute in Greer are using robotic radiation tools like TrueBeam and CyberKnife, new technologies that can reduce the negative impacts of radiation therapy. They allow practitioners to deliver higher doses of radiation to kill a tumor, while 
reducing radiation to healthy tissue. Adopting the technology from agile robotic arms used in automotive manufacturing, tools like CyberKnife target a precise spot and stick with it as a patient’s body moves due to breathing.
In the past, when there was a potential for radiation in the whole tissue, physicians had to move more slowly. The new technology integrates treatment with imaging, and allows for higher doses of radiation to be delivered for shorter periods of time.
