Re-envisioning cornea transplants

Treyetech is a business-to-business venture providing new, disruptive technology to eye banks in order to service a growing DMEK market.

Our Venture

We have developed a novel device that eliminates the difficult aspects of the DMEK procedure for surgeons by modifying the surgical workflow and reallocating risk to skilled eye bank technicians. We have received overwhelming support from over 20 surveyed corneal surgeons and our business collaborators.

Clinical Problem

“If DMEK were easier, everyone would do it.”

― Dr. Katelyn Earls, Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute.

Over 3 million patients, representing 4% of Americans over the age 40, are at risk for developing severe eye pain and possible blindness due to diseased corneas.

There are two primary surgeries for treatment: DSAEK and DMEK.  DMEK outperforms DSAEK by nearly every post-operative metric, including shorter recovery times and better restoration of visual acuity, but surgeons are still hesitant to adopt DMEK over DSAEK.

This hesitancy stems from the higher difficulty of DMEK compared to its counterpart. Our goal is to make DMEK a standardized and accessible procedure by addressing the above issues.

 

 

Our Product

Currently, surgeons are left with the high risk and difficult steps of preparing and manipulating the DMEK graft. We solve this problem with an optimized service and innovative product.

 A New Workflow that offloads the risky steps of preparing the DMEK graft from surgeons to skilled eye-bank technicians.

A New Device designed to complement all of the aspects of our optimized workflow.

  1. An ergonomic handle allows the surgeon to effectively manipulate the device.
  2. An ovular tip reduces patient’s wound strain and maintains the tri-fold configuration.
  3. A watertight seal secures the graft during insertion.
  4. A spinal groove facilitates insertion and removal of the graft from the device.
  5. A tip perforation provides clearance for micro-forceps during the pull-through of the graft.

About Us

 We are a team of biomedical innovators who aim to bring the best surgical outcomes to those suffering from corneal diseases. Our advisory board has helped us tremendously in our endeavor to do so.

ADVISORY BOARD

Allen Eghrari, MD
Clinical Advisor & Vice President of Medical Affairs
Dr. Eghrari is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute. He provides us with valuable feedback to improve our device.  
Nicholas Durr, PhD
Bioengineering Advisor
Dr. Nicholas Durr, current undergraduate program director for the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, advises the manufacturing and testing of our device.. 
Robert Allen, PhD
Bioengineering Advisor
Dr. Robert Allen, former undergraduate program director for the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, has advised numerous successful medtech spinoffs.   
Chris Jeffers, PhD, JD
Business & Legal Advisor
Dr. Chris Jeffers is a member at Mintz Levin and adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins. He has helped us with legal and business aspects of the project.. 

Our Achievements

We have been met with overwhelming support from corneal surgeons, industry experts, and business leaders. Our team has received the following awards and grants:

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Recipients of the first and second stage E-team grant from VentureWell

Recipients of the Malinow Family Bridge Fund

Finalists in the Johns Hopkins University Business Plan Competition

Second place winners at the Texas Christian University’s Values and Ventures Competition

Members of the 2017-2018 Ralph O’Connor Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Fund cohort

Placed third in the NIBIB’s DEBUT competition

Second place winners of the 2018 CMU Venture Challenge

Winners of the Lemelson-MIT student award