Meet Endolumik

The idea behind Endolumik came to Dr. Nova Szoka as she performed hundreds of bariatric surgeries at West Virginia University hospital, and was looking for a way to increase bariatric success rates, while making her own procedures more efficient.

What Dr. Szoka created with co-founder and CEO Mara McFadden is Endolumik, a surgical device company founded in Morgantown, West Virginia. Together, they have developed a patented fluorescence-guided gastric calibration system (i.e. bougie) for use in gastrointestinal surgery.

Endolumik has grown to envision a new generation of surgical tools that use light and digital surgery techniques to enhance surgeon performance.

Leadership

Dr. Nova Szoka

Founder

Dr. Nova Szoka, MD, FACS, FASMBS is a high-volume Bariatric Surgeon at the West Virginia University Department of Surgery. She has performed over 1,000 bariatric operations at the WVU Bariatric Program, an accredited MBSAQIP Center of Excellence.

Mara McFadden

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Mara has a long track record of engineering, launching, and managing successful medical device products and business units. Throughout her career, she has worked for several notable companies including Johnson & Johnson and Philips Healthcare, in addition to accruing six years of startup experience.

Chris Vaught

Board Member

Former hospital CEO, entrepreneur and founder of six companies, including Vaught Inc., Pistachio, and NightWatch, which was acquired in 2023. Chris has been streamlining business operations for over two decades. Chris has built a reputation for his ability to improve processes and ensure regulatory compliance by responsibly deploying technology in new and innovative ways.

Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Matthew Kroh, MD, FACS, FASMBS, FASGE

Vice Chair of Innovation and Technology in the Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute at Cleveland Clinic

Dr. Kroh is the Section Head of Foregut Surgery and Surgical Endoscopy in the Department of General Surgery, and Professor of Surgery in the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He most recently served as Chair, Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, developing clinical, operational, educational, and research programs in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Raul Rosenthal MD, FASMBS

Attending Surgeon, Cleveland Clinic Florida

Dr. Raul Rosenthal is an industry leader, prolific author, medical researcher and attending surgeon at Cleveland Clinic Florida, where he has conducted well over 10,000 general surgery and bariatric procedures and trained more than 50 fellows in advanced gastrointestinal, minimally invasive and bariatric surgery.

In 2018, Dr. Rosenthal received the LEAD Award from the American Society of Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) Foundation. Also in 2018, his breakthrough research into the use of indocyanine green fluorescence imaging in laparoscopic cholecystectomy was featured during the American College of Surgeons annual Clinical Congress.

He is President of the International Society of Fluorescence Guided Surgery

Dr. Dan Azagury

Section Chief of Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at Stanford University

Dan Azagury is the Section chief of Minimally Invasive and Bariatric Surgery at Stanford University. He is a minimally invasive surgeon and a health technology innovator with an international background.

He is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and serves as Medical Director for the Stanford Bariatric and Metabolic Interdisciplinary clinic as well as fellowship director for Minimally Invasive and Bariatric surgery.

His research focuses on multidisciplinary approaches to improving bariatric surgery outcomes as well as medical device innovation. He holds three patents and has published over 75 scientific articles and book chapters.