ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Averto Medical derisks colorectal surgery with its minimally invasive ColoSeal system.
Before starting Averto Medical, known until recently as Savage Medical, and serving as chief operating officer, Dean Hu met co-founder and CEO Kenton Fong through the Stanford Biodesign program while Fong was completing his surgical residency. Out of the program, Hu and Fong founded Spiracur, a wound healing company, and raised more than $50 million to commercialize the product. Spiracur eventually sold in 2015 to Acelity, which was in turn acquired by 3M in 2019. The co-founders went their separate ways, Fong back to surgery and Hu into entrepreneurship working with The Vertical Group. After helping take dialysis tech firm Outset Medical public in 2020, Hu reconnected with Fong as well as Jeffrey Etter and Grace Carlson, Averto’s vice presidents of engineering and of regulatory and clinical affairs, respectively, to form a new venture based on bowel protection.
