|
Award Description |
Research Methodology |
Measurement Criteria
|
|
Frost & Sullivan’s Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award is given to a small, emerging technology company with a vision that has enabled it to not only have nurtured the development of a key technology, but one that has also allowed it to grow despite the inherent odds confronting small companies. This Award signifies the company's identification of a unique or bold product or service solution with significant market potential and successfully meeting the challenges that are associated with bringing it to market. |
To choose the Award recipient, Frost & Sullivan’s analyst team tracks technology and market developments with a set of predetermined qualitative and quantitative measurements. The selection process includes primary participant interviews and/or interviews with end users, distributors, and suppliers as well as extensive primary and secondary research via the bottom-up approach. In order to select the Award recipient, the analyst team quantifies several measurements for each entrepreneurial company paying close attention to the success of the combined operation and benchmarks these participants to their competitors to arrive at a final ranking. This also involves benchmarking the award recipient’s strategy for growth against established players’ strategies. The analysts then choose the best performing, most innovative, high growth potential company for the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award. |
The recipient chosen for the Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award excels in one or more of the following criteria. The analyst teams may apply weights to each criterion as appropriate for the industry, company size, or market condition.
· Product or technology novelty · Technological innovation within the industry · Time-to-market · Market penetration vs. potential · Strategy execution as defined in the business model · Increased name/brand recognition · Uniqueness of corporate culture |
2005 Ocular Diagnostic Devices
Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award
Award Recipient: AMA Optics, Inc.
Frost & Sullivan’s 2005 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award in the field of ocular diagnostic devices goes to AMA Optics, Inc. of Miami Beach, Florida. Founded by Dr. Albert J. Hofeldt, an ophthalmologist who earlier trained and practiced at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, and worked as a clinical professor at Columbia University, AMA Optics was established just three years ago. The firm has developed the Retinal Acuity Meter, or RAM®, which helps clinicians distinguish between vision loss due to cataract or other opacity problems, and retinal diseases.
As a practicing ophthalmologist, Dr. Hofeldt was aware that there was no consistently accurate method to determine the vision potential of the eye when a patient presented with a cataract and vision loss. By examining the eye, the function of the retina cannot be accurately determined and the amount of vision loss due to cataract cannot be judged by the appearance of the cataract. The available potential vision testers, the interferometers and the potential acuity meter, or PAM, were unsatisfactory, because the interferometers were unreliable in eyes with macular diseases, and the PAM gave inconsistent results and was unreliable in eyes that had vision loss from glaucoma. The ophthalmologist discovered that patients with cataract could read well when viewing intensely illuminated material through a pinhole. So Dr. Hofeldt designed a hand-held battery powered potential vision tester that is accurate, easy to use, and can take an exam of each eye in under one minute.
In AMA’s procedure, a pinhole aperture and a lens that focuses at 16 inches is placed over one eye while the opposite eye is occluded. The RAM is held at measured 16 inches (accurately measured by a recoiling cord) and the patient reads familiar letters in the brightly illuminated window of the RAM. The letter size is progressively reduced until the best acuity is achieved and the result is the potential retinal acuity. The instrument supports cataract and posterior capsular surgery by identifying what portion of the vision loss is due to cataract and what portion is due to retinal disease. It gives the patient a sampling of the clarity of vision they can expect from surgery and establishes realistic expectations.
Typically, potential vision is not tested before performing cataract surgery. Prior to the RAM, research studies were not convincing that potential vision testing with interferometers and PAM could identify patients that would have a poor visual outcome. The RAM, however, was found to consistently predict good and poor outcomes including accurately predicting visual acuity in eyes with glaucoma. This capability can prevent the wrong operation from being performed, as was illustrated by the published case of Dr. Michael J. Weiss of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. A diabetic patient developed vision loss in his only eye. The patient was diagnosed as having a cataract and a retinal membrane. After careful examination, two expert cataract surgeons concluded that the cataract was not the cause of the vision loss. Just prior to retinal surgery, the potential acuity was measured with the RAM and a good potential of 20/30 was found. This meant that the retina was functioning properly, but contrary to the opinion of the cataract experts, the cataract was the problem. Dr. Weiss performed cataract surgery and not retinal surgery. The patient achieved the predicted visual result of 20/30.
AMA Optics’ technology thus assists both
patient and physician to better make life-
altering ophthalmic choices. The company’s entrepreneurial culture
distinguishes the company from larger peers and is what has kept its scientists
on the cutting edge of research and innovation. Because of such achievements,
Frost & Sullivan has recognized AMA Optics Inc. with the 2005
Ocular Diagnostic Devices
Entrepreneurial Company of the Year Award.
|
 |