Cameron Piron had planned to become a doctor or a medical researcher until his final year of completing a master's degree in medical biophysics at the University of Toronto. That's when he had his eureka moment.
Mr. Piron, president of Toronto-based Sentinelle Medical Inc., a medical devices company, had been working on finding ways to adapt magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology for use in early breast cancer detection. Traditional MRI machines are designed for neurological imaging of the head and the spine, he explains. Even as new applications for the scanning technology started to emerge, the basic design of the MRI machine and the location of the magnet remained the same. "We were really trying to conform the patient to the magnet," he says.
Mr. Piron and his colleagues at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, a teaching hospital affiliated with U of T, built a prototype that went on to become the Vanguard system, a breast MRI table that is Sentinelle's core technology.
Mr. Piron gave up his plans for a medical career and along with his colleagues, Chris Luginbuhl and Gal Sela, co-founded Sentinelle in 2004. The company has since sold more than 200 units to hospitals and imaging clinics in Canada and the United States. It also acquired regulatory approval to sell its product worldwide and plans to start selling into new markets this year.
Breast MRIs are used to screen women with a high risk of developing breast cancer, and the standard screening technology is the less costly mammogram, a breast X-ray. But, Mr. Piron says, he can see the day approaching when MRIs will become the standard for breast cancer screening.
He was rewarded for his achievements last year when he won the 2008 Premier's Catalyst Award for Best Young Innovator of the Year in Ontario.
Mr. Piron was born in Summerside, PEI, and raised in Waterloo, Ont. He graduated in 1998 from the University of Waterloo with a degree in systems design engineering. He gained some early exposure to the medical devices field while completing his master's degree by working for his father, who also owns a medical-devices company, Pinel Medical Inc. The experience he says, taught him the basics of manufacturing, sales and service and that it's possible to successfully design and manufacture products in Canada. Without that exposure, Sentinelle wouldn't exist today, he says.
Today Sentinelle employs 105 people and continues to grow. Mr. Piron hopes to expand the use of Sentinelle's technology beyond breast cancer detection.
"We see a role for [the technology] in improving how we perform surgery on breast cancer patients," he says.
And he sees a possibility for expanding its use in the detection and treatment of prostate cancer.
