Care should never
cost the caregiver.

VitaPixel is built around the belief that physicians should not have to choose between their career and their health. Here is why we started, and the people building the company.

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Frontal cervical spine X-ray showing two implants.

It started with
a surgeon’s neck.

For two decades, Dr. Christopher Riemann, a leading retinal surgeon, helped bring heads-up, screen-based visualization into mainstream ophthalmic surgery. Yet one everyday tool never changed. The slit lamp, much the same since the 1950s, still forced him and his colleagues into the same hunched posture, exam after exam, year after year.

For years he absorbed the neck pain as the cost of the work. Then it caught up with him. A C-spine injury put his career in doubt and left him facing a question he never expected: whether he could keep practicing at all.

What followed was months of pain, hard clinics, and long days of rehabilitation. Surgery finally brought relief and he returned to practice. But the road back had been long enough that he could not let the question go.

As he recovered, he talked with colleagues and realized he was far from alone. Even physicians in their late twenties were reporting the same pain. So he and his co-founders set out on a simple conviction: no doctor should have to choose between their health and their career. Great care begins with a caregiver who can sustain it, and VitaPixel is built around that belief.

“I have spent my career craning forward to look through slit lamp oculars, and my neck has kept the score. I’m so proud of the VitaPixel team! This is the first time I have seen an instrument built around the physician instead of the other way around, and it was designed with the patient in mind too.”Dr. Christopher Riemann, Founder & CMO
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The VitaPixel team

Dr. Christopher Riemann
Dr. Christopher Riemann
Founder & CMO

A leading retinal surgeon with more than 30 years at the slit lamp, Dr. Riemann was first to bring 3D screen-based visualization to the retinal operating room. He is a professor at the University of Cincinnati, holds leadership positions at the Cincinnati Eye Institute and EyeCare Partners, is a coauthor of over 90 peer reviewed scientific publications, has lectured extensively with over 600 presentations around the globe, has received multiple academic awards from professional societies, has trained countless medical students and ophthalmology residents and over 30 vitreoretinal fellows, sits on several med-tech startup Boards of Directors, and holds three issued U.S. patents.

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Tom Meyer
Tom Meyer
Founder & COO

Tom leads VitaPixel’s mechanical engineering. He brings 15 years in medical device development, two Class II devices taken through FDA clearance, and hands-on participation in more than 500 ophthalmic surgical procedures through clinical training. A founding engineer at Orbit Biomedical, he pairs regulatory-track discipline with direct OR experience.

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Austin John
Austin John
Founder & CTO

Austin developed the foundational technology for VitaPixel as his senior design project at Drexel University, where it took first place at the engineering showcase. He co-founded VitaPixel at 23 and has since led all technology development, advancing the platform from an initial academic proof of concept to a clinical imaging system. As CTO, he continues to guide the company’s technical direction.

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Advisors

Guidance from people who have built medical devices and brought them to market.

Ben Ko, advisor
Ben Ko

Ben Ko is CEO of Kaleidoscope Innovation, a human-centered design consultancy whose work spans Nike, Target, and Johnson & Johnson. A 2025 Cincinnati Business Courier C-Suite Award winner, he champions deep customer empathy as a competitive advantage.

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Mike Keane, advisor
Mike Keane

Mike Keane founded Orbit Biomedical and served as Chief Technology Officer of Gyroscope Therapeutics, an ophthalmic surgical and gene-therapy company acquired by Novartis. His career spans medical device innovation at Johnson & Johnson and multiple ophthalmic technology ventures.

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Ron Gilliland, advisor
Ron Gilliland

Ron Gilliland is President and CEO of VEO Ophthalmics, a Cincinnati-based ophthalmic surgical technology company with an FDA-cleared device portfolio, and has previously held CEO roles at OCULUS Surgical and senior commercial leadership at Alcon.

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