Elucent Medical is developing precise, real-time surgical navigation tools for small lesions, such as those found in breasts and lungs. Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer death in women and one of the most common sites for metastases while breast cancer has the highest treatment costs of any cancer.

The company’s SmartClip™ and EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system help locate the tumor margins through soft tissue, which doesn’t have anatomical landmarks to guide surgeons. The surgeons can then remove the tumor, biopsy it, and determine whether or not the tumor is cancerous. Through these devices, Elucent Medical aims to reduce costs, aid in tumor navigation and removal, and allow surgeons to preserve as much healthy tissue as possible.

CEO: Jason Pesterfield (formerly Laura King)

Headquarters: Eden Prairie, MN

Year Founded: 2013

Year Avestria First Invested: 2022 (Fund II)

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Recent Press:

April 10, 2024: In this press release, Elucent announced the successful closing of its $42.5M Series C funding round. The capital will go towards the further development and commercialization of Elucent’s existing EnVisio® and SmartClip® technologies and towards the development of future products that also aim to spar tissue during oncologic surgery. Vensana Capital and RC Capital led the round, and existing investors in Elucent also participated.

January 3, 2024: Elucent is partnering with Lovell® Government Services. Lovell® will serve as Elucent’s Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), helping to streamline the acquisition of Elucent’s EnVisio® Surgical Navigation System and SmartClip® technology in federal healthcare systems, such as the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the Military Health System (MHS), and the Indian Health Service (IHS).

August 23, 2023: This article in “The CEO Views” highlights Elucent so far - its origins, its products, and its future vision - and includes quotations from Jason Pesterfield, the company’s new CEO. In it, he shares his believes about the transformative power o Elucent’s products, including the SmartClip™ and EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system, for removing breast cancer tumors. Breast cancer is currently the second leading cause of death for women, one in eight women will receive a breast cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, and 25% of patients will receive a second surgery to remove a tumor after the first surgery didn’t have precise enough margins to remove the tumor completely.

June 29, 2023: Jason Pesterfield and Kirk Jacquay have been named the President and CEO and CFO of Elucent Medical, respectively. Both come from Optellum, Ltd., a start-up which is using AI and a single CT scan to predict lung cancer. Jason Pesterfield has over 25 years of experience in the med-tech field while Kirk Jacquay has spent 30 years in finance. Their appointments represent Elucent’s focus on building both its med-tech products and capabilities and investing in its growth.

June 28, 2023: The Fortuner Hub named Elucent Medical one of its 10 most influential companies of 2023. The article notes that the company stands out as a "pioneer in surgical navigation solutions”, that Elucent’s EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system is the first of its kind, and that the company has brought forth a key innovation in real-time surgical tool tracking through optical line-of-sight technology. In addition to Elucent’s technology, this award recognizes Elucent’s leadership and commitment to patient.

April 24, 2023: Elucent Medical is presenting at The American Society of Breast Surgeons’ (ASBrS) 24th Annual Meeting. This conference is for breast surgeons in order to meet, network, and share about the latest in breast cancer surgery. Elucent is presenting at booth 223 to demonstrate its EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system and its new SmartCal AI Technology.

April 13, 2023: Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital is the first hospital in the state of Minnesota to use Elucent’s EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation System and SmartClip™ technology. As Kristin Ritter, MD, a surgeon at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital, says in the article, Elucent’s technology allows the hospital to deliever “excellent patient outcomes”, both clinically and cosmetically, for breast cancer surgery patients.

April 3, 2023: This article was published in The Annals of Surgery Oncology and compares two breast-conserving surgery techniques. The first, wire localization, has been the standard of care since it was first developed over 50 years ago. However, the latest technique - wireless electromagnetic seed localization that is utilized by Elucent - shows fewer positive margins (cancer cells at the edge of the removed tissue that show that not all cancerous cells have been removed) and fewer re-excision rates (another surgery to remove the lingering cancer cells) than wire localization does. The print version of this article also appeared in the July issue of The Annals of Surgery Oncology

January 21, 2023: Elucent Medical is presenting at the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS)’s 59th Annual Meeting. The goal of this meeting is to bring together students, physicians, health professionals, and more for the latest in cardiothoracic surgery, which can include lung and heart surgery. Elucent is presenting at booth 1725.

May 12, 2021: UConn Health is the first hospital in the Northeast to start using Elucent’s SmartClip™ and EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system. Dr. Christina Stevenson, associate professor of surgery at UConn Health, and Dr. Dana Scott, assistant professor, department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at UConn Health are the two doctors currently using Elucent’s technologies. They decided to pursue Elucent because of the alleviated stress for patients who may have otherwise needed a wire inserted to locate the tumor, the lack of radiation involved, and the indefinite period of time that the SmartClip™ could remain embedded.

January 20, 2021: The first 20 use cases of Elucent’s SmartClip™ were performed at St. Mary’s hospital. St, Mary’s is just about a mile away from UW-Madison where three of Elucent’s four co-founders work. Dr. Lee Wilke is a professor of surgery at UW-Madison and the director of UW Health’s Breast Center, Fred Lee is a professor of imaging science, and Dan Van der Weide is an engineering professor. Together, they came up with Elucent Medical’s SmartClip™.

January 4, 2021: The Fox Chase Center is the first hospital in the Philadelphia to use Elucent’s SmartClip™ for breast surgery. Unlike current treatment options, the SmartClip™ can be placed in the breasts days - or even weeks - before the surgery, allowing patients and health workers some breathing room between the insertion of the clip and the actual surgery. With the SmartClip™ and EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system, doctors such as Fox Chase Center’s Dr. Andrea Porpiglia, a surgical oncologist and Dr. Richard Bleicher, leader of the breast cancer program, are able to save time, improve accuracy, and take less tissue from the patient.

January 17, 2020: Dr. Lee Wilke is a professor of surgery at UW-Madison and the director of UW Health’s Breast Center. she had the original idea for an improved localization system to mark and locate breast cancer biopsy sites. The current clips and wire methods that doctors use have been in place for the past 75 years. Her idea eventually turned into Elucent Medical, which is focused on improving the breast cancer biopsy experience for patients and health teams. But, as Dr. Wilke notes, the company is also looking at possibilities to expand into lungs and/or procedures on the head and neck.

November 18, 2019: For about 15 years, Laura King was part of General Electric, working her way up from a Senior Audit Manager to the President & CEO of Interventional Cardiology & Surgery of GE Healthcare. While she loved her time at GE, her passion was “real” - not incremental - revolutionary innovation: a path that lead her to a startup called NeuWave Medical, to the acqusition of that company, and, most recently, to Elucent Medical which she co-founded with some of her partners from NeuWave. In this interview, Laura King shares not only her background but her top three tips for entrepreneurs to help them and their companies be successful.

April 12, 2019: Elucent Medical received FDA clearance for its EnVisio™ Surgical Navigation system, which allows doctors to navigate the embedded SmartClip™. The SmartClip™ marks the tumor margins and provides the distance, depth, and direction information to an electronic pen-like device for surgeon to navigate to the clip - and, thus, the tumor. This goals of this system are to be cost-efficient, to be “intuitive, efficient, and precise” - in the words of Elucent co-founder Dr. Lee Wilke - and to improve clinical outcomes, starting with breast cancer tumor removal.

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