Story behind medical device startup is personal for Flagstaff entrepreneur

Inspired by personal family hardship, bioscience entrepreneur Whitney Slightham tells the story of the founding of Ateleva from the Moonshot Flagstaff Campus.

Ateleva is developing a targeted lung therapy to help critical care patients wean off ventilators faster. The minimally invasive airway platform allows clinicians to reopen collapsed tissue while preserving the surrounding healthy lung and maintaining procedural visualization and access. The device company is also working to improve lung cancer biopsies.

Ateleva is just one example of the growing startup community in Flagstaff—a city dedicated to science with a long history of groundbreaking research and medical device companies. Entrepreneurs like Slightham are helping to elevate Arizona’s startup ecosystem, one of the five goals identified in Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap.