Hartford Business Journal

6 Hartford Business Journal • June 29, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com O ver the past 13 years, two longtime friends and a small team based in Rocky Hill have broken their way into the global energy sector, developing acoustic and fiber-optic sensors and software that have enabled more efficient production in mile-deep oil and gas wells as well as improved monitoring of electric grid cables. Now Trevor MacDougall and Paul E. Sanders — serial entrepreneurs who have founded two companies and successfully sold one to a Canadian energy firm in 2012 for a hefty but undisclosed sum — are pivoting their fiber-optic sensor technology platform to improve a lung cancer treatment called photodynamic therapy, or PDT. Their latest company, Lumeda — backed by an initial $1-million investment from Connecticut In- novations and Branford-based Cycle Venture Partners — is hoping to get U.S. Food & Drug Administration ap- proval within the next two years for an optical device that automates the targeting and dosage of laser light to the site of a newly removed thoracic tumor. That light interacts with a drug called Photofrin that's injected into the patient ahead of surgery and ultimately kills cancerous cells. The hope is that improving on PDT delivered during lung tumor removal surgery will improve out- comes for patients and significantly reduce both costs and the amount of time the normally manual process takes in the operating room. Lumeda represents a major pivot for MacDougall and Sanders — who have worked together for more than 30 years — and their three-person scientific and technical team, which operates out of a 5,000-square-foot lab and office space tucked away in Rocky Hill Industrial Park. Like their predecessor companies, Lumeda will be heavily focused on en- gineering, photonics and fiber optics, but it's targeting the medical-device market rather than the energy sector, where MacDougall, 58, and Sanders, 62, have devel- oped decades worth of contacts and expertise. "It's a good fit for our photonics technology," said MacDougall, who has a master's de- gree in electrical engineering from the University of Bridgeport. "It's going to require some new inno- vations for us." Longtime collaborators Sanders and MacDougall have a long history together across mul- tiple companies and roles. "Paul and I have been working to- gether since 1986," MacDougall said. "He's known me longer than some of my kids have." The two first crossed paths working at 3M in West Haven. In the mid-1990s, they switched jobs together and went to Wallingford-based CiDRA's optical sensing division, where they became steeped in monitoring technology for oil wells, and first crossed paths with Alan Kersey, a CiDRA executive and entrepreneur who nearly 20 years later would help seed Lumeda as a partner with Branford venture capital firm Cycle Ven- ture Partners. In 2001, Hous- ton, Texas-based Weatherford International acquired the CiDRA unit for $125 million. By 2006, MacDougall and Sanders sensed an opportunity to launch their own company, and with the help of an in- vestment from Canada-based Alberta Green Ventures, they began develop- ing fiber-optic sensing systems for high-temperature, high-pressure wells and started a company called Qorex. The fiber-optic sensors were in- stalled down the entire length of two- kilometer well holes, providing data Laser Focused Rocky Hill photonics team shifts entrepreneurial focus, setting sights on cancer treatment A small team of longtime collaborators has just launched its third photonics company out of a Rocky Hill lab they've used for more than a dozen years. (Left to right) Co-founder Paul Sanders, principal scientist Yi Yang, and co-founder Trevor MacDougall. Not pictured are technical staffers Frank Birritta and Scott Nelson. "The opportunity to bet on yourself and a trusted team has got to be one of the most exhilarating feelings I have experienced." Trevor MacDougall , Co-founder, Lumeda PHOTO | MIKE MARCHAND

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