Mumbai-based Raghuveer Surupa, founding father of Stemtech Medical Gadgets, created the Eva Scalp Cooling System to assist sufferers experiencing hair loss throughout chemotherapy. The system, designed to guard hair follicles, was showcased on Shark Tank India and obtained a Rs 30 lakh funding.

In India, it’s estimated that each ninth individual might develop most cancers of their lifetime. With most cancers circumstances projected to rise to 15 lakh by 2025, sufferers typically hesitate to bear life-saving chemotherapy attributable to issues about hair loss.

Chemotherapy, a necessary a part of most cancers therapy, not solely targets most cancers cells but in addition damages quickly dividing wholesome cells, together with hair follicles. Research point out that roughly 65 % of sufferers expertise vital hair thinning or loss because of chemotherapy.

“This downside has been persistent because the creation of chemotherapy. There’s an immense stigma connected to hair loss and most cancers. If a girl goes bald abruptly, then persons are fast to gossip about it. Apart from, there are such a lot of social or private obligations the place individuals want to retain hair — from protecting the situation non-public from society to wanting a way of normalcy for his or her household to call a couple of,” Raghuveer Surupa tells The Higher India.

“If a affected person has an upcoming marriage ceremony or huge occasion, then additionally they have a tendency to delay their chemotherapies. It’s unlucky that folks delay life-saving therapy for the worry of hair loss,” he provides.

To sort out this unavoidable downside, Raghuveer has developed a singular scalp cooling system that alleviates the trauma of chemotherapy-induced hair loss. At present, his innovation ‘Eva Scalp Cooling System’ is put in in 18 hospitals throughout Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi. He says greater than 3,000 profitable periods have been performed up to now.

We sat down with Raghuveer to grasp extra concerning the novel machine and the way it can clear up certainly one of chemotherapy’s most difficult negative effects.

Understanding the scalp cooling mechanism

An engineer by training, Raghuveer pursued his greater training on the Indian Institute of Administration, Ranchi. In 2013, he joined the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and later labored with Roche the place he was a launch lead for the breast most cancers drug in India.

Impressed by his work expertise in oncology, he based his personal startup ‘Dignite’ for most cancers care. Though it didn’t succeed, Raghuveer learnt concerning the urgency of dealing with the negative effects of chemotherapies — hair loss.

“I remembered the expertise of my aunt when she was identified with ovarian most cancers. I noticed her shedding confidence and being unable to get by together with her life. That basically triggered me. I began searching for options and that’s after I got here throughout the scalp cooling technique,” shares the 34-year-old.

Speaking concerning the availability of scalp cooling units, he says, “An organization had made silicon-based caps that are available three totally different sizes — small, medium, and huge. The drawback of such caps is that they can not match every kind of scalps completely, as scalps have a really difficult anatomical construction.”

“Chemotherapy destroys all fast-growing cells like cancerous tumours. Together with this, it additionally destroys fast-growing hair follicles as it may possibly’t differentiate between wholesome and cancerous cells. So, if the cap doesn’t match correctly, then all the scalp won’t be cooled, inflicting excessive possibilities of hair loss in that space. This destroys the principle goal of the system,” he explains.

So, Raghuveer determined to design a cap that might accommodate all head sizes. In 2020, he launched his firm Stemtech Medical Gadgets and innovated ‘Eva Scalp Cooling System’ the place a common cap was designed to guard hair follicles from chemotherapy harm.

“Our design was impressed by a lotus or a crown. Identical to they are often completely closed, our cap is wrapped across the head of the affected person, and the cap will be adjusted utilizing the velcro as per the necessity,” he provides.

Raghuveer informs {that a} affected person must put on this cover half-hour earlier than the chemotherapy infusion, throughout chemotherapy infusion, and between half-hour and two hours post-chemotherapy. The machine reduces the temperature of the scalp from 35 to 16 levels Celsius.

Whereas engaged on the machine, Raghuveer additionally focussed on lowering the price of the machine. “Our rivals cost about Rs 25 lakh for his or her machine. We decreased the fee drastically in order that sufferers in creating nations might additionally afford this care. Hospitals should purchase our machine for anyplace between Rs 13 lakh and Rs 16 lakh relying on the variant of the machine. The hospitals thereafter cost between Rs 1,500 and Rs 4,000 per affected person per session,” he informs.

Acquired Rs 30 lakh Funding in Shark Tank India

Raghuveer says his aim is to make sure that sufferers can get by way of the remedy with out utilizing a wig or a shawl.

“Put up-chemotherapy, nearly all sufferers expertise full hair loss. Even when the affected person loses 30 or 40 % of the quantity of hair by way of density, they nonetheless can get by with their day-to-day life. So the aim is to get to that time the place a affected person doesn’t depend on wigs or scarves to cowl their hair,” he shares, including, “Round 50 % of our sufferers have skilled optimistic outcomes with our machine, and a few have even skilled a greater charge of hair regrowth.”

Lately, Raghuveer’s startup featured in Shark Tank India Season 3 and bagged a deal of Rs 30 lakh. “It was nice to look on Shark Tank. We received three sharks on board — Aman Gupta, Namita Thapper, and Ritesh Agarwal,” he says.

Greater than the deal itself, what excites Raghuveer is the success of the machine. “4 years in the past, there was no clear resolution accessible to this downside. Now, I can see that sufferers have an answer in at the least 18 installations,” he says with pleasure.

“It’s not only a beauty machine. A most cancers affected person already offers with a plethora of issues. Having the ability to take away one burden and add sure worth to a most cancers affected person’s life provides me an enormous sense of contentment. My position is small however the satisfaction that I get out of it’s immense,” he provides.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat. All images: Raghuveer Surupa)