Overview

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation was created in 2006 to improve the lives of millions of people with serious medical disorders by accelerating the development and adoption of focused ultrasound.

Focused ultrasound is a noninvasive therapeutic technology that is transforming the treatment of many medical disorders. Every day without it translates into unnecessary death, disability, and suffering for countless individuals.

Unfortunately, the evolution of a new therapeutic medical device from concept to standard of care can take decades. The process is complicated and inefficient and requires the interaction of many organizations with differing agendas and timelines. There are also numerous technology, economic, regulatory and reimbursement obstacles to overcome.

Decades is too long for patients and their families to wait for medical breakthroughs. If we can accelerate the adoption of focused ultrasound, we can save lives.

The Foundation

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation is working to provide patients with this noninvasive, life-changing treatment option in the shortest time possible.

Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Foundation is a tax-exempt, high-performance, entrepreneurial service organization with a global reach. We seek to leverage our trusted third party position through contributing financial and human resources to foster collaboration, to build knowledge and to streamline the process and overcome barriers.

The Foundation is on the leading edge of the venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship movements and has become a model of how donor funding can be used to bridge the gap between laboratory research and widespread patient treatment.

In 2018, the Foundation was recognized as one of America’s 10 Best Medical Research Organizations by Charity Navigator. 

Vision & Mission

Our vision is that focused ultrasound will be used worldwide to improve the quality of life and longevity of millions of patients with serious medical conditions in the shortest time possible. In that aim, the Foundation’s mission is to accelerate the development of new applications of focused ultrasound and its widespread adoption as a standard of care.

Culture

The Foundation’s culture is centered on our key values:

Patient Centric
We are uncompromisingly, passionately, and obsessively committed to decreasing death, disability, and suffering for patients with serious medical disorders around the world.

Catalytic
We are a nimble organization that uses our reputation and contagious enthusiasm to instill similar energy in others to precipitate change.

Entrepreneurial
We believe that we can create a reality from an imagined future through human action in an environment where our accomplishments will exceed the resources available.

Pioneering
We relentlessly pursue excellence in all of our activities through hard work, risk-taking, and innovation.

Strategy

The Foundation has developed a multi-pronged strategy, amalgamating stakeholders into a cohesive ecosystem to accelerate progress:

  • Create knowledge – We organize, conduct, and fund research through our Research Program to provide evidence of safety, efficacy, and cost that can be used by patients, physicians, regulatory agencies, payers, industry, and others. We strive to make any intellectual property developed as a result of Foundation funding freely available to all parties.
  • Foster collaboration – We foster collaboration through a variety of meetings and workshops to rapidly achieve a critical mass of effort and knowledge
  • Establish standards – We help establish best practices and set standards for research, training, and patient care through our Centers of Excellence Program.
  • Overcome barriers – We partner with manufacturers and other organizations to overcome barriers and expedite progress through our Regulatory and Reimbursement Program.
  • Cultivation of the next generation – We provide educational opportunities for clinicians and scientists by supporting fellowships and internships through our Scholars Program.

Market Position

At this time, the Foundation has chosen to concentrate its activities on advancing those focused ultrasound therapies that address critical unmet clinical needs and are noninvasive and guided by either Magnetic Resonance (MR) or ultrasound (US) imaging.

Values

Patients, patients, patients. The litmus test for every action we take and every dollar we spend is, “Will it benefit patients?”

Saving time equals saving lives. We are highly impatient with an acute sense of urgency. Every day without focused ultrasound means unnecessary death, disability, and suffering for countless individuals.

We are data-driven, action- and results-oriented, and our impact is evidence-based, measurable, and verifiable.

We are entrepreneurial and employ a pioneering spirit to achieve extraordinary results through hard work, risk-taking, and innovation.

We promote communication, cooperation, collaboration, and healthy competition by aggressively breaking down “silos of secrecy.”

We are market-driven with a global perspective.

We are intentional about maintaining focus: prioritizing, simplifying, and concentrating on what’s important now.

We are fiercely protective of our reputation—our most important asset—as an authoritative, trusted, independent, and unbiased third party with uncompromising integrity rooted in transparency and accountability.

We meticulously steward the resources provided by our donors through parsimony and leverage.

We employ best practices adopted from high-performance organizations in the public and private sector.

Credo

The work we do at the Foundation is in a league of its own.

We believe that the highest purpose in life is to help other people.

The Foundation provides us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the lives of millions of people by serving as the catalyst to create a revolution in therapy.

Our mission is to accelerate the development and adoption of focused ultrasound as a mainstream standard of care. Through hard work, calculated risk-taking, and innovation, we are committed to ensuring that focused ultrasound is widely available in the shortest time possible.
Saving time = saving lives

With the privilege of decreasing death, disability, and suffering for countless people comes the daunting responsibility to get it right. Any errors in strategy or execution risk harm to patients by depriving them of the benefits of this game-changing technology.

Accordingly, we are hyper focused on activities that directly benefit patients and decrease time to adoption.