Founding of Company

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About us: Founding of Company

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Tangent Medical, founded in 2009, is a spin-out of the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center (MIC). The MIC fosters innovations in health technology by educating and assisting fellowship participants in turning their ideas into commercial products.

Adrienne Harris, M.S., Elyse Kemmerer, Ph.D., Merrell Sami M.D. and Steve White, Ph.D. were the first team to take part in a fellowship at the MIC. During the year-long process, the multi-disciplinary team spent months in the clinical setting observing and interviewing clinicians to get first-hand exposure into both the challenges, and realities, of the health care system.

In many new product development initiatives, researcher bias and lack of in-depth clinical immersion, lead to development of products with minimal clinical impact or value. During the MIC fellowship, the team was exposed to a three-phase curriculum that provided extensive knowledge of the innovation process, employed an in-depth clinical immersion to identify unmet needs, and facilitated the identification of product concepts that had potential for true value in the marketplace.

By the completion of the MIC fellowship, the co-founders had identified several novel product concepts and validated commercial viability. They co-founded Tangent Medical Technologies, Inc. in 2009 and began development on the NovaCath™ Integrated IV Catheter system. The NovaCath Integrated IV Catheter system is expected to be commercially available in 2012.

Adrienne Harris

Co-Founder and Director of Product Development

While working on her graduate degree, Adrienne Harris facilitated the design and prototype of a novel spinal trauma stabilization device for use in emergency pre-hospitalization settings for a prominent medical device manufacturer and developed a rotometric device to monitor Parkinsonian rat behavior.

During an internship at MC3, Michigan Critical Care Consulting, she worked on validation activities for an artificial lung device, which would serve as a bridge to lung transplantation or lung recovery. After MC3, Adrienne completed a co-op at Toyota Technical Center, where her work focused on meta-material test development, ultrasonic proximity sensing for pedestrian detection, and biosensor research specific to in-vehicle eye motion monitoring systems.

Adrienne is co-inventor of the NovaCath™ Integrated IV Catheter System. She received her BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan and was a member of the inaugural fellowship team at the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center.

Elyse Kemmerer, Ph.D.

Co-Founder and Director of Marketing

Elyse Kemmerer is a marketing professional with a biomedical research background. Previously she was a consultant for Ann Arbor SPARK, an economic development organization, where she executed pivotal market research for emerging life science and medical device companies. Prior to that, she was a Senior Analyst/Intellectual Property Researcher at Arbor Strategy Group (ASG), now the Strategic Innovation branch of GfK, the fourth largest market research company in the world. At ASG she led an interdisciplinary team and developed a novel data mining tool to predict future innovations.

While pursuing her PhD, Elyse worked to develop biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease. During a postdoctoral fellowship in the Psychiatry department at the University of Michigan she performed research on the interactions between nutrition and mental health.

Elyse is co-inventor of the NovaCath Integrated IV Catheter System and the author of several peer-reviewed publications. She received her BS in Behavioral Neuroscience from Lehigh University, her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan, and was a member of the inaugural fellowship team at the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center.

 

Steve White, Ph.D.

Co-Founder and Director of R&D

Steve White studied heat transfer and fluid dynamics of advanced thermal management systems while working on his graduate degrees at the University of Michigan. During this time he was an invited visiting scholar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, General Motors, and Ford Motor Company where he worked on advanced fuel cells and hybrid vehicles, thermal properties of nanofluids and advanced machining processes for new thermal spray coatings, respectively.

During his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan, Steve transitioned his focus to medical device design, and developed and prototyped an ambidextrous needle driver for surgical applications, an ergonomic lift for the operating room and a dental-pain-testing device.

Steve is co-inventor of the NovaCath Integrated IV Catheter System and the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications. He received his BSE, MSE, and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and was a member of the inaugural fellowship team at the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center.