By Danielle Grady
The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Meet Maggie Galloway, the founder of “Inscope Medical Solutions.” Inscope is a medical device company that develops special laryngoscopes, a piece of equipment that clears a patients’ airway for a breathing tube during surgeries and other situations when a ventilator is needed.
JEFFERSONVILLE
Maggie Galloway has been feeling good since the company she helped found, Inscope Medical Solutions, located its headquarters to downtown Jeffersonville, Indiana in December.
“We’ve really enjoyed being a part of the Southern Indiana community and have felt very welcome here,” Galloway said.
How could she not be happy? Not even a month ago, Inscope received a $100,000 prize package from the Venture Club of Indiana for winning its Innovation Showcase Pitch Competition. The windfall was just the most recent for Inscope in a long series of competition wins and other funding announcements — one of which caused the company to locate to Jeffersonville.
Inscope is a medical device company that develops special laryngoscopes, a piece of equipment that clears a patients’ airway for a breathing tube during surgeries and other situations when a ventilator is needed.
Inscope’s laryngoscopes are different than most. The company’s original product uses suction to rid the area around a patient’s vocal chords of bodily fluids to better maintain a clear view of their airway.
Inscope is also working on a WI-FI direct-enabled video laryngoscope, which has suction capabilities, but will also stream video from the device to a tablet and help medical facilities integrate video into their procedures more cost effectively than they could with traditional video laryngoscopes.
Inscope, which was created by University of Louisville MBA students Galloway, Adam Casson and Dr. Mary Nan Mallory, has received hundreds of thousands in funding since forming in 2014, including $100,000 from the Community Foundation of Louisville’s Vogt Awards, a $75,000 prize package from the Global Venture Labs Investment Competition and another $100,000 package from the University of Louisville’s Brown Forman Cardinal Challenge competition.
In 2016, Inscope was among 11 companies chosen to participate in the Techstars Healthcare Accelerator, a “highly-competitive” national program for startups, which provided the company with even more funding, as well as mentorship and clinical resources
There are several reasons why Galloway believes that Inscope is a good company to invest in — first being its “life-saving” product.
“When our device is in hospitals around the country we’re going to be improving the lives of patients and physicians,” she said.
Inscope’s laryngoscope is also assigned the lowest class of FDA regulations, she said, meaning it’s cheap and quick to introduce to the market.
Ken Miller, one of the founders of inX3, the Indiana event at which Inscope won a $100,000 package this year, said that the startup has many strengths.
“So many times a company will be very good with a business model, but not necessarily good at communicating their value,” he said.
Inscope’s business model, as well as its founders’ speaking skills and product are all impressive, Miller said.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the state of Indiana.
Elevate Ventures, which manages the state’s business investments, invested $250,000 in Inscope through its Indiana Angel Network Fund, which includes federal funding money, as well as contributions from individual and institutional investors, said Holly Gillham, a spokesperson for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.
Inscope is also a part of Elevate Ventures’ Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program, which provided the company with business referrals and technical assistance.
Elevate Ventures’ support was the reason Inscope moved from Kentucky to Indiana, Galloway said.
Companies like Inscope make the state a leader in innovation, Gillham said.
The startup fits right into Indiana’s seemingly booming life sciences industry. The Hoosier state exports nearly $10 billion in life science products, making it the second largest exporter of such products in the United States, according to BioCrossroads. More than 1,600 life science companies operate in Indiana, supporting more than 56,000 Hoosier jobs with average wages of nearly $99,000 annually.
Inscope currently employs only three people, one of whom is Galloway, but she expects the company to grow.
Inscope’s first device is set to become commercially available this fall, with its video laryngoscopes scheduled to be available in 2018. The company plans to hire engineers and sales representatives as it grows, according to a news release.
Inscope has already chosen Key Electronics, another Jeffersonville company, as the manufacturer of its video laryngoscopes. The company’s suction only products are still going to be created in Louisville at Occam Design.
