ClearDrum Team

Professor Marcus Atlas

Inventor (Founding Director, Ear Science Institute Australia)

Professor Atlas has dedicated his career to helping people with ear and hearing disorders as a distinguished surgeon-scientist.

As the Chair of Translational Ear Science at Curtin University, Emeritus Professor UWA and Head of a team of internationally renowned tympanic membrane biology and regeneration applied science researchers, Professor Atlas has an international reputation in ear and skull base surgery.

Read More

Philip Canner

Chief Executive Officer

Philip has over seventeen years’ experience in medical device development leadership, engineering, product development and management consultancy, and extensive experience in the development of surgical products for global markets. A mechanical engineer by training, he was a consultant at the leading MedTech development company Team Consulting in Cambridge (UK), before moving to Australia where he was the Head of Device Development at AuroScience Pty Ltd and the CEO of Cambridge Healthcare Innovations.  Philip joined the ClearDrum team in 2023.

Filippo Valente

Chief Technology Officer

Dr Filippo Valente is a biomedical scientist specialising in the research, development and commercialization of medical devices, including drug delivery systems and polymer-based surgical implants.  He obtained is PhD from the University of Padua (Italy) and the KTH University (Sweden) with a thesis on the development and biocompatibility of lipid nanoparticles for the delivery of drugs in the inner ear.  Dr Valente has worked on the development of the ClearDrum device since 2017.

Tom Deering

Company Secretary (CFO, Ear Science Institute)

Tom Deering is a Certified Practicing Accountant and a Governance Professional with over 30 years of experience in accounting, finance and governance roles, gained through senior and executive positions, including CFO of Toyota WA and financial controller of Gull Petroleum.

Carel Smit

IP Attorney & Commercialisation Advisory

Carel Smit is the founder and managing director of Biophile. ​A Cambridge-educated life sciences patent attorney and medtech entrepreneur with masters degrees in genetics, law, and management, he has more than 20 years of experience in bioscience IP, innovation, and commercialisation in Australia and abroad.

Over ten years of research and development to treat tympanic membrane perforation

The History of the ClearDrum Product

2012

Professor Marcus Atlas began the collaboration with Deakin University Future Fibres Hub to create an innovative silk material for the treatment of chronic middle ear perforation.

2013

Silk scaffolds are successfully used to repair tympanic membranes in an animal model (Shen Y et al.,2013).

2016

A silk material formulation is created to support long-term implants (Allardyce BJ, et al 2016).

2017

The ClearDrum project is awarded US$2.75 million from the Wellcome Trust (UK) to support the translation.

2017

ClearDrum silk scaffold outperformed the current gold standard treatment tympanic membrane repair in in vitro model (Allardyce BJ et al 2017).

2019

Commenced working with our US manufacturer.

2020

The ClearDrum project was awarded US$705,000 from the Australian Government through the BioMed Tech Horizon Program (MTP Connect) to begin its commercialisation.

2023

ClearDrum Pty Ltd was established.