CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., June 8, 2015—RIVANNA, a commercial-stage medical device company that has developed a platform of technologies based on medical ultrasound, announced today that it has appointed Brendan Carvalho, M.D., as a clinical advisor.
Dr. Carvalho is the Chief of Obstetric Anesthesia and Associate MCL Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Stanford University Medical Center.
“Given that an epidural is the most commonly used method of pain relief for labor in the United States, and given that RIVANNA’s initial commercial application of its FDA-cleared Accuro™ platform is designed for guiding clinicians to a first-attempt success in administering spinal anesthesia into the epidural space, we believe that Dr. Carvalho epitomizes the ideal combination of clinical expertise and scholarly acumen to fortify our clinical advisory board,” said John A. Williams, President and CEO.
Dr. Carvalho has published extensively in the field of Obstetric Anesthesia with more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, editorials, reviews, book chapters, and commentaries, while winning a number of research awards including Best Research Paper at the Society of Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP), the Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association (OAA) and the Canadian Anesthesiologists Society (CSA) annual scientific meetings. He serves on a number of committees in SOAP, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), and Stanford Medical Center and Stanford University Medical School. Dr. Carvalho also serves on several journal editorial boards including International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia. He has won the Teacher of the Year award at SOAP and at Stanford University’s Departments of Anesthesia.
According to Mr. Williams, the Accuro platform has an addressable $1.1 billion U.S. market today. “In light of the significant unmet clinical need for automated image guidance in general, and the spinal anesthesia market in particular, we look forward to soon being able to fast-forward the U.S. commercialization of Accuro, especially with a strategic partner.”
Spinal anesthesia often fails due to reliance on “blind” needle guidance. There are 20+ million neuraxial anesthesia-related (epidurals and spinals) procedures per year in the US; 20% to 80% of all needle placement attempts fail, depending on operator skill, age, and patient obesity; obese and elderly are growing demographics.
About RIVANNA
Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, RIVANNA is a privately held medical technology company that is commercializing its initial product, Accuro, a
proprietary and versatile imaging product that is FDA 510(k)-cleared for spinal anesthesia guidance and a variety of additional imaging applications, such as diagnostic imaging of the cardiac and abdominal anatomies.
NOTE: RIVANNA’s Accuro product is the world’s first ultrasound system designed specifically for spinal anesthesia guidance.