A Singaporean doctor has created a handheld device to fix a condition called glue ear and has won a Cartier Women’s Initiative award for it
For Singaporean doctor Lynne Lim, who placed first in the science and technology pioneer category of the 2024 Cartier Women’s Initiative awards, the path to becoming an impact entrepreneur began in 2009. That year, Lim was on a humanitarian mission in Cambodia when she had to turn away hundreds of children who had travelled across mountains to see her.
Why were they there? They all had a condition called glue ear (also known as otitis media with effusion), in which fluid builds up in the middle part of the ear canal, and Lim lacked the equipment to perform the ear tube surgery they needed.
“I couldn’t help because I had no operating theatre, no surgical microscope, no general anaesthesia – because with seven instruments in the ear, the kid will move,” she explains.
“I was actually really distressed to have to turn them all away. I came back to Singapore, and I kept thinking about this.”
After seeing her daughter get her ears pierced with a piercing gun, Lim had an “aha” moment, and began working with an engineer at the National University of Singapore to develop a prototype for a handheld device that would provide a solution to glue ear.
More than a decade later, and Lim is the chief executive officer of Nousq, a medical solutions company that has developed Clikx, the world’s first handheld robotic device for ear tube surgery that can be used without microscopes or general anaesthesia.
Doctors can insert the device into the ear canal and its proximity indicator will show how far it is away from the ear drum. Then, with the click of a blue button, Clikx can perform the surgery needed.
“It’s quite amazing because in that one second, the whole technology works. [It takes] away seven instruments. I do not even need the surgical microscope,” Lim says.
The prevalence of glue ear is especially high in children because the ear tube is not fully developed, and the condition can affect their hearing, she explains. Adults can also get glue ear from allergies, sinusitis, pressure changes from flying and diving, nose cancer and radiotherapy.
It is a condition people around the world experience – but it took time for her to convince surgeons and doctors of her product’s value, Lim says.
The device, which has already gone through 3D modelling and a series of animal and human clinical trials, is set to go through United States Food and Drug Administration trials next year; if successful, Lim will then apply for regulatory approval and bring it to market.
Until 2021, Lim funded her research through competitive grants, including those from Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research and the National Research Foundation Singapore. In all she received S$5 million (US$3.7 million). When the money began to run out, she set up Nousq to bring in investors.
“For start-ups, it’s very tough, because to get to all this, you need money,” she says. “In the past year, it’s [been] very difficult because the whole investment climate was really down.”
In search of solutions, Lim applied to the Cartier Women’s Initiative after coming across the programme online.
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