A Baltimore City resident since 1997, Tim Askew, an entrepreneur formerly with USALCO, was between jobs in 2003 when he invested in a budding, cancer-fighting treatment called cryospray ablation — the use of liquid nitrogen to safely destroy cancerous and pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus.
Forming CSA Medical Inc. from his partnership with process owners Frank Majerowciz and Lloyd Shue, Askew quickly raised $12 million in venture capital and took the company’s product through clinical, regulatory and business development steps.
He now is chief executive officer and chairman of the privately owned, Baltimore City startup that has placed its life-saving cancer treatment system at top U.S. medical centers and that has grown from seven employees in 2007 to 32 today.
What exactly is cryospray ablation?
A secret that dermatologists have kept for 50 years, liquid nitrogen is used to destroy all sorts of tissue. What we did is figure out a way to get it safely inside the body, and get at tissues that other mechanisms have a very hard time destroying — or if they do destroy them, create a lot of collateral damage.
We trick the liquid nitrogen into not boiling [because of the temperature differential between the ultracold liquid and the body], and then we deliver it through a tube inserted into an endoscope. The liquid nitrogen flows out onto the targeted tissue and freezes it. The patients largely feel no pain, whereas with burning or cutting there’s a tremendous amount of pain and a lot of collateral damage.
And there is no collateral damage with cryospray ablation therapy?
It appears now through thousands of cases that when the liquid nitrogen destroys bad tissue, it comes back good. And when it destroys good tissue, it also comes back good. That’s the really cool thing.
How available is this treatment?
The device was [Food and Drug Administration]-certified for sale in the United States in 2005. It’s now out [at the University of Maryland, Franklin Square Hospital, Boston University Medical Center, Columbia University Medical Center and elsewhere] and being used daily to destroy unwanted tissue in the [gastrointestinal] tract and now in the chest and lungs. And there are some other target areas we’re working on as well.
What other areas?
We’re looking at OB-GYN applications, head and neck applications and five other application areas, where currently there are no good therapeutic applications.
Are there any philosophical or religious motivations for your involvement in this field?
Absolutely. I’m a Christian and a member of Grace Fellowship Church in Timonium, and felt called to this work from Day One. I believe that it’s our obligation to make these medical technologies available.
It’s not well known, but we have a device at a little missionary hospital in Kenya, Africa, called Tenwek Hospital, which is facing an esophageal cancer [outbreak]. They are the sixth place in the world to have our technology, and I’m pleased to be able to support something that has a humanitarian benefit, versus just an economic benefit.
How does the current credit crunch affect your business?
We operate without any commercial credit, through funds invested by private stockholders. We also sell the device, so we generate cash from the sales. We happen to have a very compelling medical technology, so we’ve never had any problem raising money growing the company.
And the market response has been good?
The response has been overwhelming.
