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Mumbai-based Raghuveer Surupa, founding father of Stemtech Medical Gadgets, created the Eva Scalp Cooling System to assist sufferers experiencing hair loss throughout chemotherapy. The system, designed to guard hair follicles, was showcased on Shark Tank India and obtained a Rs 30 lakh funding.
In India, it’s estimated that each ninth particular person might develop most cancers of their lifetime. With most cancers instances projected to rise to 15 lakh by 2025, sufferers usually hesitate to bear life-saving chemotherapy on account of issues about hair loss.
Chemotherapy, an important a part of most cancers remedy, not solely targets most cancers cells but additionally damages quickly dividing wholesome cells, together with hair follicles. Research point out that roughly 65 % of sufferers expertise vital hair thinning or loss on account of chemotherapy.
“This downside has been persistent for the reason that introduction of chemotherapy. There’s an immense stigma hooked up to hair loss and most cancers. If a girl goes bald out of the blue, then persons are fast to gossip about it. Apart from, there are such a lot of social or private obligations the place individuals want to retain hair — from retaining the situation non-public from society to wanting a way of normalcy for his or her household to call a couple of,” Raghuveer Surupa tells The Higher India.
“If a affected person has an upcoming wedding ceremony or massive occasion, then additionally they have an inclination to delay their chemotherapies. It’s unlucky that individuals delay life-saving remedy for the worry of hair loss,” he provides.
To sort out this unavoidable downside, Raghuveer has developed a novel scalp cooling system that alleviates the trauma of chemotherapy-induced hair loss. At the moment, his innovation ‘Eva Scalp Cooling System’ is put in in 18 hospitals throughout Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi. He says greater than 3,000 profitable classes have been carried out to this point.
We sat down with Raghuveer to grasp extra concerning the novel gadget and the way it can remedy certainly one of chemotherapy’s most difficult unwanted side effects.
Understanding the scalp cooling mechanism
An engineer by training, Raghuveer pursued his larger training on the Indian Institute of Administration, Ranchi. In 2013, he joined the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and later labored with Roche the place he was a launch lead for the breast most cancers drug in India.
Impressed by his work expertise in oncology, he based his personal startup ‘Dignite’ for most cancers care. Though it didn’t succeed, Raghuveer learnt concerning the urgency of dealing with the unwanted side effects of chemotherapies — hair loss.
“I remembered the expertise of my aunt when she was identified with ovarian most cancers. I noticed her dropping confidence and being unable to get by along with her life. That basically triggered me. I began searching for options and that’s once I got here throughout the scalp cooling technique,” shares the 34-year-old.
Speaking concerning the availability of scalp cooling gadgets, he says, “An organization had made silicon-based caps that are available three completely different sizes — small, medium, and enormous. The drawback of such caps is that they can’t match every kind of scalps completely, as scalps have a really sophisticated anatomical construction.”
“Chemotherapy destroys all fast-growing cells like cancerous tumours. Together with this, it additionally destroys fast-growing hair follicles as it may’t differentiate between wholesome and cancerous cells. So, if the cap doesn’t match correctly, then the complete scalp won’t be cooled, inflicting excessive probabilities of hair loss in that space. This destroys the primary function of the system,” he explains.
So, Raghuveer determined to design a cap that might accommodate all head sizes. In 2020, he launched his firm Stemtech Medical Gadgets and innovated ‘Eva Scalp Cooling System’ the place a common cap was designed to guard hair follicles from chemotherapy injury.
“Our design was impressed by a lotus or a crown. Identical to they are often totally closed, our cap is wrapped across the head of the affected person, and the cap will be adjusted utilizing the velcro as per the necessity,” he provides.
Raghuveer informs {that a} affected person must put on this cover half-hour earlier than the chemotherapy infusion, throughout chemotherapy infusion, and between half-hour and two hours post-chemotherapy. The gadget reduces the temperature of the scalp from 35 to 16 levels Celsius.
Whereas engaged on the gadget, Raghuveer additionally focussed on lowering the price of the gadget. “Our opponents cost about Rs 25 lakh for his or her gadget. We diminished the associated fee drastically in order that sufferers in creating nations might additionally afford this care. Hospitals should buy our gadget for anyplace between Rs 13 lakh and Rs 16 lakh relying on the variant of the gadget. The hospitals thereafter cost between Rs 1,500 and Rs 4,000 per affected person per session,” he informs.
Obtained Rs 30 lakh Funding in Shark Tank India
Raghuveer says his purpose is to make sure that sufferers can get by means of the remedy with out utilizing a wig or a shawl.
“Put up-chemotherapy, nearly all sufferers expertise full hair loss. Even when the affected person loses 30 or 40 % of the quantity of hair by way of density, they nonetheless can get by with their day-to-day life. So the purpose is to get to that time the place a affected person doesn’t depend on wigs or scarves to cowl their hair,” he shares, including, “Round 50 % of our sufferers have skilled optimistic outcomes with our gadget, and a few have even skilled a greater price of hair regrowth.”
Lately, Raghuveer’s startup featured in Shark Tank India Season 3 and bagged a deal of Rs 30 lakh. “It was nice to seem on Shark Tank. We obtained three sharks on board — Aman Gupta, Namita Thapper, and Ritesh Agarwal,” he says.
Greater than the deal itself, what excites Raghuveer is the success of the gadget. “4 years in the past, there was no clear answer obtainable to this downside. Now, I can see that sufferers have an answer in at the very least 18 installations,” he says with satisfaction.
“It’s not only a beauty gadget. A most cancers affected person already offers with a plethora of issues. Having the ability to take away one burden and add sure worth to a most cancers affected person’s life provides me an enormous sense of contentment. My position is small however the satisfaction that I get out of it’s immense,” he provides.
(Edited by Pranita Bhat. All pictures: Raghuveer Surupa)
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