Based in Greenville, North Carolina, USA, Perfusio Corp is at the forefront of medical innovation. This commitment to improving lives has led to it being named in Business Worldwide Magazine’s list of Top 20 Most Innovative Companies to Watch, 2021.

The list is a celebration of disruptive organisations that are challenging the status quo in their respective fields. The companies listed cover a wide range of industries including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, banking, construction, energy and more. All are at the forefront of breakthrough technologies, innovation and modernized business structures, and all have a shared goal of developing revolutionary products and services that drive positive change.

Perfusio’s Certes™ technology is transforming surgical procedures in an area full of risks and challenges. During surgery, one of the most important things a surgeon needs to know is blood flow distribution and perfusion in tissue, but until recently, they’ve had to rely on making educated guesses and using good, old fashioned experience and knowledge. Now, thanks to Perfusio’s radical developments, they are now empowered to see beyond the human eye with leading edge visualisation and AI technology instead.

Founded by two highly regarded doctors, Bruce Ferguson, MD and Cheng Chen, Ph.D., the company is focused on creating technologies that genuinely improve – and can help save – people’s lives. The core area of specialism is on platforms that provide visualisation of actual dynamic blood flow distribution in real time. This innovative approach can help surgeons identify and fix problems, avoid potential complications and create an entirely new standard of care for patients.

The founders’ combined experience has enabled them to develop technologies that solve common surgical issues. Dr Ferguson is an internationally renowned cardiac surgeon and Dr Chen is a revered optical physicist, so both have a working understanding of how vital accurate visual information is for successful patient procedures. They knew that surgeons had historically had to depend on visual light views of anatomy, not physiology, leaving them with huge gaps in information. So, they set out to make a change.

Research shows that up to 15% of surgical procedures lead to complications, many of which are result of sub optimal blood flow that has (until now) been impossible to identify. The cost of these complications in the US alone amounts to more than $29 billion a year, so the development of Perfusio’s new Certes technology has significant economic benefits as well as the more obvious social and medical ones.

Other visualisation methods have been developed over recent years, but they also come with many downsides. The Certes™ solution is non-contact, non-invasive, has no need for dyes, contrast agents or ionizing radiation – which all mean less risk to the patient. It can also be used multiple times during an operation, to vastly improve surgical judgment and decision making.

In September 2021 the company reached an exciting milestone, having captured over 100 patient images in its first-in-person study into the Perfusio-ARMUS Cloud Repository. Perfusio’s multi-site study involves 25 physicians across nine surgical sub-specialties, delivering huge value to surgeons, healthcare providers and patients alike.