Steam therapy aimed at lung disease

What: Uptake Medical, Seattle

Who: Robert Barry, 46, founder and CEO

Mission: Developed a technology called bronchoscopic thermal vapor ablation that delivers steam heat to the lungs of emphysema patients to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life.

Employees: 15

Financials: Founded in 2004, Uptake Medical is in clinical trial of its product. It does not as yet have revenues. The company did receive an additional $13 million in investment capital last year.

Starting from scratch: Barry said Uptake Medical was founded the old-fashioned way. "I had an idea," he said. Barry's idea was for a minimally invasive treatment for emphysema patients. His answer was to deliver heat to the lungs to reduce the effects of scarring resulting from the disease.

Finding the answer: The first job was to figure out the best way to provide the required heat. After exploring various methods for several months, Barry said, "it became very clear that by far the simplest and most effective way to deliver energy to the lung region was to use steam."

Trial by trial: After developing equipment for delivering the steam, said Barry, there was quite a bit of work in determining the safe and effective dose in animals. "We actually took the next two years to do just that," he said. "Then once we had a good handle on how much energy we needed to create the kind of scarring reduction that we wanted, we were then ready for human studies." Clinical trials on human patients began in 2007 and are still under way.

Prognosis: Assuming clinical trials continue to progress satisfactorily, Barry expects that the company will be able to bring the treatment to market in 2011.

— Patrick Marshall