Calimetrix was inspired by the founders’ colleagues, who used the team’s “homemade” phantoms and patented designs to create quantitative medical imaging test objects. These phantoms are crucial for the MRI clinical and research community, ensuring accurate results in imaging methods for disease diagnosis and clinical trials.
The founding team: Jean H. Brittain, PhD, is the former Senior Scientist and current Honorary Fellow in UW Radiology, and now has served as the CEO of Calimetrix for the past eight years. Scott B. Reeder, MD, PhD, is a professor and chair in UW Radiology and holds professorships in medical physics, BME, medicine, and emergency medicine. Diego Hernando, PhD, is an Associate Professor in UW Radiology and Medical Physics. At UW, Reeder leads a team developing novel MRI methods for abdominal and cardiovascular imaging, while Diego heads a research team focused on novel MRI methods in collaboration with clinicians and scientists. Brittain, Reeder, and Hernando came together in their research to design phantoms, objects that resemble natural human tissue for quantitative medical imaging tests. Their collaborators include several notable figures from UW: Alejandro Roldan-Alzate, PhD, Ke Li, PhD, Tim Szczykutowicz, PhD, Jitka Starekova, MD, Raphael Tadeu do Vale Souza, MD, Tim Hall, PhD, and Perry Pickhardt, MD.
Calimetrix has benefited significantly from the D2P Igniter Course and various SEED grants, facilitating their initial product prototype and further developments. Their focus now spans three market segments: academic and industrial researchers, companies conducting clinical trials with quantitative imaging, and the broader clinical imaging community. Driven by the goal of enhancing medical imaging’s clinical benefits, Calimetrix is dedicated to supporting the deployment of quantitative imaging and continually seeks to innovate and expand its market reach. We asked Jean Brittain, Scott Reeder, and Diego Hernando to discuss their start-up journey.
Where did the idea for your company come from initially?
Our research team at UW, which is focused on the development of quantitative imaging methods, occasionally developed and manufactured phantoms to validate the imaging methods we developed. Several factors contributed to the original idea:
- Our colleagues from other universities and from industry, increasingly asked to borrow or purchase our “home-made” phantoms
- We had patented one of our phantom designs through WARF
- We believed (and still believe) that providing highly controlled phantoms would be beneficial to the medical imaging community, and therefore mission aligned with our main academic goals
How has D2P helped you, and what have you learned?
D2P has helped us immensely. We learned a great deal by going through D2P Igniter in 2016, which led to the founding of Calimetrix and D2P funding to develop the initial prototype of our first product. In addition, we are grateful to have received two SEED grants. The first SEED grant resulted in preliminary results that we included in an application for a NIST Phase I SBIR that was awarded in 2024. The current SEED grant is funding the development of an additional new product that, if successful, will address a large new market for Calimetrix.
What other entrepreneurial resources/programs have guided you?
We have been fortunate to participate in and learn from the Lean Startup Course associated with the SBIR Advance Phase I program twice, first in 2018 and, more recently, in 2024. In addition, we learned a great deal from the programming associated with the two SBIR Advance Phase II awards received in 2019 and 2021.
What’s your current focus with the company?
We are interested in reaching three market segments: 1) academic and industrial researchers who are developing and evaluating new imaging methods, 2) the larger and growing group of companies conducting clinical trials that include quantitative imaging, and 3) the clinical imaging community, as quantitative imaging methods become increasingly widespread.
What are your hopes for the company moving forward?
We hope to contribute to medical imaging by helping to ensure that quantitative imaging methods are deployed to maximize clinical benefit to patients across academic and non-academic sites.
What drives you/why is this project important to you personally?
This project is highly complementary to our main academic mission, focused on the development and translation of novel imaging methods. Besides, running a startup company allows us to exercise creativity in completely new ways.
What advice would you give to other campus innovators who are just starting with exploring the potential of their ideas?
The entrepreneurial environment at UW is outstanding. If you are wondering about the potential commercial value of your idea, there are enormous resources (including D2P!) and wonderful people who can help you.
Is there an experience during the development of your project that surprised you or had a powerful impact on your direction? What did you learn, or how did it change your thinking?
Multiple times, customer discovery interviews have introduced us to entirely new markets for our products. (Lesson = you need to take the time to talk to a broad range of stakeholders in your industry.)
Importantly, our biggest seller is not the most sophisticated product, but rather the one for which there was a growing market at the time we started the company. (Lesson = you need to listen to the market.)
How do you balance the time you must spend on your project with other work and life responsibilities?
We were fortunate to hire great people, most of whom were UW graduates.
Campus is full of bright minds and amazing ideas, but people often do not self-identify as an entrepreneur. Do you connect with that term, and why or why not? Is there another term you’d use to describe what you’re doing with your project?
“Entrepreneur” is certainly not the first word we would use to describe ourselves. We were motivated to start Calimetrix to fill an important need in the field of quantitative imaging. To meet that need, we have developed (and continue to develop) entrepreneurial skills. It has been fun and interesting to look at the world from a new perspective!