July 31, 2026 • 61 mins
A “zero calcium score” sounds like a clean bill of health, but JD Enright learnt the hard way that it can still hide dangerous coronary artery disease. After five years of high-end executive screening and a mountain of reassuring results, one focused consultation using advanced imaging showed stage two cardiovascular disease and a heavy burden of soft plaque, the kind most associated with plaque rupture and sudden heart attack or stroke. That moment became the spark for Clear Cardio’s mission: move cardiology from reacting to symptoms to preventing the event in the first place.
We unpack what breaks in the traditional pathway when you feel fine: why ECGs and treadmill stress tests often miss the real problem, why calcium scoring can be falsely comforting, and how plaque actually builds inside the artery wall. JD explains plaque rupture in clear, practical terms, then walks through how a cardiac CT angiogram (CCTA) paired with AI plaque analysis can map plaque type, quantify burden, and show exactly where risk sits, giving patients a way to track progress rather than guess.
The conversation also gets honest about incentives. Insurance often covers late-stage procedures but not early prevention, which makes education and direct-to-consumer access essential. We talk about resistance from parts of the system that profit from interventional volume, why Clear Cardio stays tightly focused on one problem, and how YouTube and content-led marketing are driving patient demand. If you care about preventive cardiology, heart attack prevention, stroke prevention, and the future of AI in healthcare, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. What would it take for prevention to become the default?
Guest Biography
JD Enright is the CEO and Co-Founder of ClearCardio, a preventative cardiology organisation dedicated to identifying and reducing cardiovascular risk before symptoms develop.
With a background spanning engineering, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, strategic acquisitions and technology commercialisation, JD has led global business growth initiatives across multiple industries before founding ClearCardio alongside preventative cardiologist Dr John Osborne.
Following his own unexpected diagnosis of significant coronary artery disease despite extensive executive health screening, JD set out to build a business that combines advanced coronary CT angiography (CCTA), AI-powered plaque analysis and personalised prevention strategies to help patients detect and manage cardiovascular disease earlier.
Today, he leads ClearCardio's mission to transform cardiovascular care through innovation, education and proactive prevention.
Links
- Website: https://www.clearcardio.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdenright/
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About the podcast
Voices in Health and Wellness features conversations at the intersection of medicine, lifestyle, and human potential, with clinicians, scientists, and thinkers shaping the future of care.
About Dr Andrew Greenland
UK-based medical doctor and founder of Greenland Medical, specialising in Integrative and Functional Medicine. Trained in both conventional and root-cause approaches, Andrew helps people optimise health, performance, and longevity, with a focus on cognitive resilience and healthy ageing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:00):
So, welcome to another episode of Voices in
Health and Women, the podcastwhere we explore the people, the
ideas, and the innovationsshaping the future of
healthcare.
Today I'm joined by JD Enright,CEO and co-founder of Clear
Commodio, a company challengingthe traditional reactive model
of cardiology to advancedimaging, artificial
intelligence, and a strong focuson prevention.
So, in this conversation, we'regoing to explore the business of
(00:22):
building a preventativehealthcare company, the
challenges of changingestablished clinical thinking,
the role of AMA in commodityhealthcare, and the lessons JD
has learnt from growing aspecialist healthcare business.
So, first of all, JD, welcome tothe show.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
Thank you, Dr.
Greenland.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:38):
I appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here.
So, for those that don't knowyou, would you mind just sort of
giving us a little bit ofbackground about yourself and
kind of tell us how you ended upin healthcare?
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
Sure.
It wasn't a direct line, that'sfor sure.
And I probably speak for a lotof people who end up here.
(01:13):
And you know, during that time,I saw a lot of care that went
into the guys and girls at theacademy when you're out on
ships.
And I said to myself, you know,there's a big opportunity here
(01:35):
for health care specificallyaround that space, right?
So then I went to work for USgovernment.
I worked for the US governmentfor about 10 years.
And mostly that time wasoverseas.
Um, and during that timeoverseas, um, I noted that the
healthcare situation, at leastin the uh areas in the regions
(01:56):
that I was located, um, wasseriously lacking.
Um and compared to the US, youknow, I didn't really appreciate
what we had in the US.
Um, and um after I left um UncleSam working for the government,
um, I got into I went back toschool, um, went to uh Cornell
(02:18):
and um got a degree in in um inbusiness, um, and then on to
Wharton for finance.
Um and during that time I wasworking for various companies,
one of which uh was apharmaceutical company called
Astra.
Um before it was AstraZeneca,now it's AstraZeneca, um, and
that was in Massachusetts.
And that's was, and I was in anengineering role, uh project
(02:41):
management engineering role.
Um, and that's what gave me myreal first exposure to
healthcare on the, I'd say onthe drug manufacturing
development side, um, to reallysee what goes into you know
early stage, mid-stage, and evenlate stage drug development, um,
which in many cases, if we'retalking about and you know,
(03:02):
clericardio is specifically umon the cardiovascular side, but
you see that like statins andmedications and things, and the
significant amount of effortthat goes into money, time,
resources that goes intodeveloping these new generation
drugs.
Um, so so that was really myreal first step into healthcare
(03:24):
was really on the on the drugmanufacturing side with
companies like uh Genentech andum Wanza out of Switzerland and
so on.
Um, and that gave me a goodsense and appreciation for the
tremendous amount of effort thatgoes into developing these
medications.
Um, and so uh during that periodof time, um I worked my way up
(03:46):
the ladder.
So I started off as a projectengineer um looking at uh
developing um processes to allowthose drugs to be manufactured
from early stage clinicaltrials, you know, even toxel
levels.
So you use a small bench toptype manufacturing, um, all the
way up to you know, with with uhGenentech 30,000 liter stir tank
(04:09):
reactors, um, making a perceptinand things like that, right?
So for cancer treatments.
And so I started off doing thedesigning engineering stuff and
then slowly worked into thebusiness side of things.
Um, and then ultimately my lastjob in that space was I was head
(04:29):
of global strategic growthinvestments.
So I was uh out there acquiringcompanies on behalf of Lonza.
So I was based out ofSwitzerland for a number of
years, um, in VISHP and inBasel, which is where their
headquarters is located.
Um, and I was uh responsible foridentifying novel companies that
(04:50):
were emerging out, had greattechnology, good IP, um, and
specifically in the virusellinggene therapy space, um,
including things like CRISPR andand and you know, transfection,
gene editing, things like that.
Um, and um ultimately acquired anumber of companies in that
role, brought me to Texasbecause we acquired a very large
(05:14):
company um and built out theworld's largest uh viral cell
and gene therapy uhmanufacturing facility at the
time.
Um and um and that's whatbrought me to Texas.
And um it was during that time,right after I left Lanza and
started my own company um calledTMG Core, Texas Machine Group
(05:35):
Core.
Um, and that was based inDallas, Texas.
Um and the reason why I steppedout of Lanza and into that, you
know, going to start my owncompany kind of thing, um, was I
saw the importance of technologyin the development of these
novel medications.
(05:56):
One of the drugs that we workedon um at Lonza, which really
took root in my soul, howimportant that is, um, was a
drug.
We we worked with a companycalled uh Bluebird Bioscience
out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
And with our help, they receivedFDA approval for the world's
(06:19):
first curative medicine foradrenal liquid dystrophy.
Adrenalucystrophy is arelatively rare disease, but it
still affects roughly 15 to20,000 young girls and boys,
mainly boys, um, and it's andit's basically a death sentence.
Um, it's demyelinizationeffectively and in the brain,
(06:41):
and um it it causes death.
And so that us building thatfacility, uh investing in that
technology uh to be able toproduce that drug product
safely, effectively, um, at acost that was reasonable, right?
And in a time frame that, youknow, we you know that would
(07:04):
facilitate preventing from youknow all of these children from
dying effectively from thedisease, um, required a bunch of
technology.
And I saw how important thatwas, and and it was through
technology uh and applying thattechnology, the development of
and the implementation of thattechnology that I saw um save
(07:25):
lives.
Like truly, I could see I metthe patients, the children,
their parents, they would comeinto the facility um and tell us
their stories.
And so it was really that thatembedded itself and I saw how
important it was.
So I left Lanza after I hadbuilt that out.
I felt I had accomplished that,and I decided to start a company
(07:47):
that focused it focused just onthe technology side.
Had very little to do withhealthcare at all, other than to
say the it was high performancecomputing, next generation
immersion cooling in dielectricfluids.
So we could get extremelypowerful computing because most
technology requires, especiallynowadays, real high performance
(08:09):
computing um capabilities.
And the limitation is somethingcalled Moore's Law.
Moore's Law is like it's youknow, as your as your computing
power uh expands or increases,the amount of heat load through
the electrical demand increases.
And at some point, you justcan't cool it.
You can get smaller chips thathave more power capability, but
(08:32):
they also demand, they alsoirradiate more heat, and you've
got to dissipate that heat, orthey fail.
And so we were able to overcomeor extend Moore's Law by
developing something calledtwo-phase and single-phase
immersion cooling, where wewould take the the chips um and
(08:53):
the boards, and we developed themost advanced computing in the
world at the time, um, andimmerse them in these fluids and
cool them and get a lot more uhcomputing out of them in a much
smaller space, something thesize of uh of a um you know, of
a cabinet, you know, like ayou'd have in your office, could
(09:15):
be a hundred kilowatts, whichwas unheard of.
Um, and it was portable um andself-sustainable.
So that was you know really mystep into technology during that
period of time.
Um, and feel free to interruptat any moment.
If you have any questions,please just jump in and I can
elaborate on any of that.
Um, but uh I've been known to bea little long-winded, but I'm
(09:39):
very passionate about uh aboutwhat I've done in the past you
know and what people I'm workingwith are doing.
Um so it was during that time umas the CEO of the company um
that my shareholders required meto have um something called key
man insurance.
Um for those of you who don'tknow, key man insurance is when
(10:00):
you're an executive in acompany, whether it's publicly
traded or privately held, umoftentimes um the shareholders
um board of directors willrequire the CEO or other members
who are critical, chiefscientists, things like that, to
have something called key maninsurance.
(10:21):
So they'll open up a lifeinsurance policy on the on that
executive or that individual.
And uh in case something happensto them, um they can then the
company isn't in such afinancial or um leadership um I
guess position where where youcouldn't replace that person.
(10:44):
And so they could go out andhire a new CEO, bring in a new,
you know, and that's expensive,that's an expensive process.
So so um the insurance companyrequired me to to um to go to um
a clinic um every quarter, sofour times a year.
Um, it was one of the number oneclinics in the country that I
(11:05):
would go to, private clinic.
Um, very expensive, cost about$15,000 every time I went.
I'd get there at six in themorning, I would leave at six at
night, I'd wear my tracksuit,um, and they'd run me through
the gamut.
It was like, you know, theAmerican Ninja with that show
where you're just like from oneto the next, like literally room
to room to room to room.
Uh I'd have like a little snackin between after I'd bet faster
(11:26):
for the blood work, but I'd gothrough this whole regiment of
everything you can imagine.
And I'd walk out at the end ofthe day with a big binder um and
a consultation with the doctorbecause they do everything real
time.
So I get all the results thesame day, which I thought was
remarkable.
I'm like, this is the greatestthing since sliced bread.
I mean, like everybody should beable to do this.
Um, what I didn't know is thatthat big binder that they gave
(11:48):
me was in it at the time for me,was like, you know,
hieroglyphics.
And you know, I would say, Howam I?
And they'd say, Well, yourcholesterol is a little high,
but you have a zero calciumscore.
Uh, you ran on the treadmill for20 minutes.
That was pretty impressive.
Um, we didn't see any problemswith your ECG.
Um, you don't have any skincancers, and the list goes on.
(12:09):
And I'd say, Well, do is thereanything I need to do?
Like, well, you're you know,you're in your late 40s, early
50s at the time.
Um, you know, just watch whatyou eat and uh, you know, that
kind of thing.
And then they would stampapproved, and the insurance life
insurance would company wouldget the then everything was
good, and I'm covered.
It was a hundred and fiftymillion dollar life insurance
policy.
(12:29):
Right, so pretty substantial.
Um, and I did that for fiveyears, four times a year, uh
five time times five years.
So think about the costassociated with that.
But they kept telling me, yeah,everything okay, cholesterol is
a little higher this time, oryou know, but I was I was not I
was asymptomatic, I had nosymptoms, I wasn't feeling bad
(12:50):
or anything.
But I was in the middle oftaking the company public at the
time.
This was in 2022, and um themarket crashed at the time.
I mean, when you're taking acompany public, um, you know,
that's there's a lot going onthere.
There's a lot of stress andpressure in my cortisol levels,
I'm sure, went through the roof.
(13:10):
You know, uh, I'm working 18hours a day, working seven days
a week.
In fact, for the first two yearsof me building that company, um,
I lived in my office.
I physically lived in my office.
I had a bunk bed in my over mydesk, um, and I put a shower in.
I was at an 11-acre campus thatwe built out, 150,000 square
(13:32):
foot facility.
So I had a substantial sizeoffice, but still, I lived in my
office.
I drove home on the weekendswhen I could to see my children
and my wife of 30 years.
Um, but that's what I did.
I was that dedicated, as did mychief techno technology officer.
He lived in there right in theoffice right next to me.
Um, so we became very goodfriends over the years, as you
(13:54):
can imagine.
Um, but so during that period oftime, you know, I I was I, you
know, especially in 2022, wewere getting ready to announce,
you know, our you know, we'regoing public.
We were unwritten by Guggenheimand Credit Suisse and and all of
that.
So we were it was a big deal.
It was going to be a very bigIPO on a stacks.
And then the market crashed, ifyou remember.
(14:14):
The world ended in June, um,like about a week before we were
scheduled to announce, and allof a sudden, you know, Silicon
Valley Bank went out ofbusiness.
Uh, credit suites got broken upinto little bits and pieces.
Um, everybody kind of just thewhole world sucked.
Um, and so we collectivelydecided that we're not going to
(14:36):
do this today.
We're gonna step, you know, holdback on the IPO.
However, that kicked off aseries of of events where I
decided collectively with theboard we were going to go to
private say.
We had shareholders who wantedto exit.
Uh, they had been in thebusiness for a while, they're a
little older, um, looking forsome liquidity.
(14:56):
So we decided to go down andexit and we started negotiating
with a company.
Now everybody knows it's public.
It was Modine.
It was a very big deal at thetime, probably one of the
largest private deals out there.
Um, so I was living in aircraft,hotels, boardrooms, surrounded
by lawyers, eating way too much,you know, restaurant food,
(15:18):
certainly drinking way too muchwine and whiskey, uh, and
probably too many cigars.
Um, but that's what you do, likewhen you're in the middle of a
deal.
It took us nine months.
During that period of time, Igained 15 pounds.
I started, I grew a beard sothat no one would see the fat
under my neck.
Um, I wasn't feeling too hotbecause I wasn't sleeping very
(15:40):
well, because I was havingdinners with lawyers and and you
know, negotiating deals and sodrinking a little too late and
not getting enough sleep.
And it just kind of accumulated,it did accumulate over time.
And and so I went to my nextdoor neighbors.
I'm about eight months, ninemonths into this into this
transaction, very largetransaction.
(16:02):
Um, and my next door neighbor isan interventional cardiologist.
Um, his name is, and this iscoming full circle here, his
name uh is uh Dr.
Rajul Kazori.
Um, and he's the guy that nobodywants to see, right?
He's the one that you're having,you're very symptomatic.
Um, you or you had a heartattack or stroke, or you're in
the middle of having a targettake or stroke, even worse, and
(16:24):
he's the catheter guy.
He's gonna go in there, he'sgonna put the stints and the
balloons and stuff like that.
Um, and his colleagues do thebypass surgeries, the
revascularization, and thingslike that.
Um, but I went over to his houseuh with a bottle of wine in my
hand, um, and he goes, JD, youlook like hell.
Like what happened to you?
I haven't seen you in a while.
He goes, You don't look good.
(16:44):
And and and when a when a whenan interventional cardiologist
tells you you don't look good,you need to do something about
that, right?
So he said, I want to introduceyou to a gentleman.
His name is Dr.
John Osborne.
And Dr.
John Osborne um took me the nextday.
I literally went in the nextday, literally in the back door
of the hospital where he was,you know, doing his thing.
(17:08):
Um, and within an hour, okay,now think about the context
here.
Five years, fifteen thousanddollars a shot times four times
five, right?
You're talking about a half amillion dollars, five years
going to the what's consideredthe number one clinic in Texas
for sure, one of the top in thecountry, um, private.
(17:29):
Uh and he tells me in one hourwhat they couldn't tell me in
five years, and that is I hadstage two um disease.
And by stage two, a lot ofpeople don't know that we can
actually stage disease now, uhcardiovascular disease, like
oncology has been doing foryears, staging cancers, um,
(17:51):
level of disease.
Uh, so stage two, I had 260millimeters of soft plaque.
A reason why I had a zerocalcium score because none of my
plaque was calcified.
So we know that calcium scoresreally don't mean anything other
than if it's positive that youhave the disease, it doesn't
mean how much you do and whereit is and how active it is and
(18:11):
how much plaque you have.
We all we know all this now.
I certainly know it all now.
But I had 200 and plusmillimeters of saw plaque in my
LAD, um, which you know, we alot of people call it the
widowmaker, um, all right there.
So I was at a substantial riskof a heart attack and stroke due
to plaque rupture.
Um, a lot of people don'trealize that plaque rupture is
(18:33):
you know what causes most heartattacks is strokes.
It's not uh and I put a wholevideo out about what that is.
So in one hour, he told me whatthey couldn't tell me in five
years, uh, half a milliondollars later, and and that made
me really upset.
Um, I got upset for a number ofreasons.
Um, I got upset because I spent,or the company had spent half a
(18:59):
million dollars going to thisclinic.
I had spent five years goingevery quarter running on
treadmills with masks on and ECGleads and having fingers up my
butt and you know, all of thatstuff that they do, right?
Um, and me thinking that I'mgreat, okay, it's worth the
money.
Um, only to find out in one hourthat they did nothing for me.
(19:21):
Zero.
Right?
Uh they tried to put me on astatin at one point, and I said,
Well, how do you know if it'sworking?
Well, your cholesterol camedown.
Well, what does that mean?
Like, is my is that cholesterolbad?
Like, like, help me understandthat.
And it just went around incircles.
So I got upset at that.
I got upset that I was at risk.
I've worked my whole life reallyhard educating myself, building
(19:46):
businesses, um, creating wealthfor other people, myself
included.
Um, I have two children, um, sonand daughter, uh, and an adopted
daughter as well.
Um, and you know, only to findout that I was at a risk of a
heart attack and stroke anddropped dead, because we know
now, statistically, you know,half the population over the age
(20:06):
of 40 or 45 uh will have sometype of event, heart attack or
stroke, and half of them willtheir first symptom is death.
Right.
So that's scary.
And then I got into the pointwhere I was upset that why isn't
everybody doing this?
Why isn't this the state?
Why isn't this the you knowstandard of care?
(20:29):
It's been around for a longtime, like you know, CTs, CCTAs,
things like that now have beenaround for a long time, imaging.
Now, the the FDA approved AItools that we use have not.
That's relatively new, so Iunderstand that.
Um, but it's a game changer,it's an absolute game changer.
(20:49):
So I said to myself, you know,I'm gonna get through the sale
of this business, TMG Corp, andthen I'm going to do something
about it.
I'm gonna put my time, mywealth, my my business acumen,
and I'm not a physician, I'm nota doctor.
Um, I'm just a I'm I'm I'm apatient of clear cardio.
I am I am a I'm a businessman,so I know how to build
(21:10):
businesses and make profitablebusinesses.
So I'm gonna take that acumenand I'm gonna put it together
towards towards this particularissue, and that's cardiovascular
disease, which causes you knowheart attacks and strokes.
Um and that was the genesis,that was the you know, the
ideation of clear cardio was uhso I got through the sale of the
(21:32):
company and then met with Dr.
Osborne.
Dr.
Osborne was had a small Regisoffice, um about the size of my
wife's shoe closet.
Um because he's such a kind man,he's such a philanthropist, he
wants to save the whole world.
I mean, he's a Harvard trainedguy.
(21:52):
I mean, he's I mean he shouldyou should have him on at some
point, but he's a remarkableman.
And but he's he's Just not goodat business, he admits that, and
so he's been trafficked hiswhole life.
Um, and I call it that.
I mean, I really just put thattag on there.
He's been trafficked, you know.
And and so, you know, he had asmall little registration office
(22:13):
with all he has so many degreesand licenses, it took up every
inch of the walls in his littletiny office.
And I said, We gotta get you outof here.
We've got to wrap a businessaround what you've been doing
and telling people we should bedoing for the last 20 something
years.
Um, you know, and because hestopped doing heart
catheterizations 20 years ago,um, and only uses imaging now.
(22:37):
And now with the AI tools, it'seven better.
He's developed this incredibleprogram, uh, which I follow.
Uh, right now, by the way, uh, Ihave no more soft plaque.
I went from no calcified, nocalcium, no calcified plaque, so
zero calcium score, which forall indications would tell me
I'm in perfect shape um becauseI looked good.
Uh, but to see having 260millimeters of soft plaque, now
(23:02):
I've got um all of that iscalcified.
So I have effectively a zerorisk of of plaque rupture.
Um so no more heart deck orstroke risk.
So I'll probably die of cancer.
Let's let's hope not.
But that's statisticallyspeaking, that's that's the
case.
Um, but knock on wood.
(23:23):
But um, so so we know I know theprogram works because I'm living
proof.
Um, and so we did we we adoptedthat program that he's developed
um using some medications ifit's necessary, uh, have
significant disease, and that'swhat we do.
Um, and also diet, exercise, allof the things you know you and I
chatted about before we startedthis podcast was you know,
(23:45):
roughly, you know, about thefunctional side of things and
the importance of that, youknow, getting your visceral fat
down, all that.
So that was the genesis of uh ofpericardio, and that was um
almost three years ago.
Um, now we started uh I see TMGCore sold in December 2023.
(24:05):
So we are now you know comingaround to almost four years, I
guess.
Um but um that was the ideation.
Dr Andrew Greenland (24:12):
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing thatbackstory.
It really provides context foreverything that you're doing and
your sort of personal experienceof how you've ended up in this
situation and the directionyou've taken with the business.
So I suppose your experience isquite unique in the sense of
probably nobody else is going tohave the level of health
screening that you had, youknow, with that company that
were paying all this money everyyear.
(24:32):
But what's fundamentally brokenabout traditional cardiovascular
care that you know the averageperson experiences um in the US?
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
Well, that's a great question.
Um I can tell you, I I wasfortunate because I could pay, I
could afford, and the companywas paying as well for the
private care.
Um, most people can't.
And so what happens is they endup um what I call in the you
know, kind of like the circle ofdeath, right?
(25:03):
So um health care in America isfundamentally broken.
Um it is quite good once you getthe care.
The doctors and nurses and nursepractitioners and the folks that
are giving the care areoutstanding.
Um, I think it's one of the bestsystems in the world, at least
(25:24):
from a training perspective.
However, to get to the thoseexperts, that's where it's all
broken and whether or not youcan actually get them.
Um, and so, you know, today, ifif you're my age and you're not
symptomatic, or let's just say,you know, I'm 58, okay.
Um, let's just say you're inyour 40s, late 30s, early 40s,
(25:47):
and you're non-symptomatic,okay, because a lot of people in
their late 30s and 40s and 50sdie of heart attacks and
strokes, men and women alike.
Um, and why do they do?
A lot of times because they'reasymptomatic and they have a
plaque rupture.
They didn't know they hadsignificant plaque.
Um, they didn't know what plaquerupture was.
Um, and I've actually got modelsand things like that that show
(26:08):
how it works, and prettyinteresting.
I've got some videos out thereto show how it works.
So educating people.
But a lot of people are noteducated because there's not a
lot of information out thereabout that.
Um, so so you either have to besymptomatic, okay, which means
you have late stage disease, youknow, 70% blockage or more
stenosis, you know, thenarrowing down of the artery
(26:29):
going from something like this,which is a normal artery and you
know, wide open flow, nostenosis, no ischemia, things
like that, to something thatlooks like this, right?
Which is, you know, this isabout 70 to 80 percent blocked,
right?
So reduction in flow.
So this is significant stenosisoutside in the wall of the
artery here, that's where the uhplaque builds up.
(26:50):
So plaque doesn't build up.
A lot of people think plaquebuilds up on the inside and
sticks to the wall of the arteryhere on that one cell membrane.
There's a little membrane on theinside of your of your artery
here, which kind of protects youknow that.
And it's when you're born, it'slike a slip and slide, right?
From the 80s, you know how it'slike it's like Teflon.
Everything that flows throughthe blood, everything that's in
(27:11):
the blood, the oxygen and andand cholesterol and all of that
stuff, it's just flowing throughand nothing adheres to that
line, that thin lining.
As you age, um, you know, uhhardening of the arteries or
lifestyle or genetics, geneticsplays a big role.
Or as you age, uh, you know, yougain visceral fat, fatty liver,
(27:31):
uh diabetes, um, you know, allof the high blood pressure, you
know, hardening of the arteries,things like that, that lining
becomes damaged and it becomesmore like velcro instead of
Teflon.
And what happens is thatcholesterol in particular
adheres to a certain area in thein the artery.
And then what it does is it getsabsorbed into the wall of the
(27:52):
artery.
It doesn't stay on the on thealigning here, it gets pulled
into the artery wall, like that,right?
So even if you put a camera likea heart catheterization down the
center, you wouldn't see plaque.
You're not going to see plaqueand what kind of plaque it is.
So heart catheterizations fromunderstanding the level and and
and the type of disease youhave, um, is useless.
(28:15):
It doesn't tell you what type ofplaque you have, doesn't tell
you where the plaque is, uh, andand how much of it is.
And we know that you know thesoft plaque.
So if you see the color codinghere, the blue is the calcified
plaque, um, the yellow, and wecolor coded specifically so you
can identify it here.
Um, but the blue is calcifiedplaque.
We don't care about that becauseit doesn't rupture, it's stable
(28:37):
plaque, so that's old plaquethat's turned hard.
Um, and then the soft plaque,what we call the medium density,
high lipid, think of lipids asfats, like butter, right?
That's the yellow stuff.
And then in here, the little redstuff, that's the low density,
what we call the lava, uh, lowdensity, high lipid plaque.
So these two plaques, theseyellows and reds, these are the
real dangerous stuff.
(28:58):
That's the stuff that rupturesthrough the lining.
And it's when it ruptures, whichcauses you know 85 to 90 percent
of all heart attacks, you know,uh, versus, you know, that's the
plumbing issue versus theelectrical issue, which is the,
you know, if you've got AFib orsomething like that.
But in this case, we're talkingabout plaque rupture, that
ruptures into the blood flow,and then your body responds in
(29:19):
minutes to seconds, causes theclot, and it's the clot that
blocks off the blood flow, whichstops oxygen to the brain or to
the organs and the heart, andthat's what kills you.
So, this is what it normallylooks like.
This is this, and so you can seehow it expands out.
So this is your normal outsidediameter.
Then it as that as thatcholesterol gets absorbed, looks
(29:39):
as it gets absorbed into thearterial wall, it starts
expanding outwards first,pushing that artery so it
expands like this.
And while it's through that, atthe same time, it's pushing down
on that, on on the uh on the uhinterior on the lumen here, and
it causes what we call stenosis,and that's you know, cause
symptoms, you know, shortness ofbreath and high blood pressure
(30:01):
and all those types of things,right?
So normal, not normal.
This is so so you know what wedo is we we identify that right
off the bat.
Like, do you have it or not?
So the problem is 90% of thecardiologists out there are not
preventive cardiologists,probably more than that.
Um, they're not trained tocommunicate that to patients.
(30:24):
Um, their go-to is especially aninterventional cardiologist,
their go-to is stents andballoons.
And in some cases, if it's ifyou're serious enough,
revascularization, you know,effectively a um, you know,
bypass surgery.
And and there's a lot of moneyin that, right?
Um, and but oftentimes you'renot getting to see a doctor to
(30:45):
even determine if you have thedisease unless you're
symptomatic, because you'redepending on your insurance
company to pay for everything,the doctor's visits and things
like that, because they're notcheap.
Um, and it can take asignificant amount of time
because doctors, right now, youyou know, they're two, three
months out.
So you got chain pet uh pain inchest.
Okay.
(31:05):
Then you go to see your regulardoctor or you go to the
emergency room, and they theymight brush you in to do an
emergency heart catheterization,right?
Which is invasive, can cause,can cause heart attacks or
strokes, can cause infections,and you may not, it may not, it
may and so, and then if they doput a stint or balloon in there,
all they're doing is addressingthe symptom, right?
(31:28):
Because stints and balloonsdon't actually address the
underlying disease, right?
They don't stop heart attacksand strokes.
It's that's not their job.
Their job is to open up, youknow, push against the arterial
wall here and open up so thatyou can get more blood flow to
so you're not symptomaticanymore, right?
And so so you get uh so, butit's not addressing the disease
(31:50):
which is out here in thearterial wall, which you can
still rupture right through thearound and uh stint.
So it's just to resolvesymptoms.
So the biggest challenge I seeright now, what's broken, is
first of all, people gettinghaving the education and doctors
educating the patients, whetheryou're a generalist or a
(32:10):
cardiologist, it's the thedependence on your uh healthcare
insurance to allow you to haveyour insurance cover you to go
see a cardiologist, right?
And then what happens?
Okay, so if you think about thecircle of death that I talked
about, you got to have asymptom, okay, or you're maybe
(32:33):
you're doing, if you're lucky, alot of guys and girls don't.
There they go in and they get acheckup and they fail a checkup.
Their ECG is weird.
By the way, ECGs are forelectrical issues, they have
nothing to do with plaque.
So uh that's useless when itcomes to 90% of the hard tax and
strokes.
Um, so but it's you it's usefulfor other things.
(32:54):
Um, they put you on a treadmill.
You have to fail a stress test,right?
Um, in order to actually go onto be referred to a
cardiologist, an expert.
Um, and we know that stresstests um have false positives
and false negatives.
So if you fail a regular stresstest, then they put you and they
do a nuclear stress test.
(33:14):
Um, they'll look at your calciumscore, which only shows you if
you have old plaque, say if youyou have active plaque.
And then if you fail all those,then they'll say, okay, now the
insurance company will pay fordoing a heart catheter.
By the way, a heartcatheterization again only
treats the symptoms, it doesn'ttreat the underlying disease.
(33:35):
Um, and you can do everythingthat I just talked about by
doing a CCTA, cardiac CTangiogram, which will show you
definitively if you have thedisease.
Then you layer on the AI on topof that, uh, which analyzes you
know 20,000 pixels of you knowof imaging on the CCTA.
(33:55):
The CCTAs that we use today inthe CT um machines, uh, we're
using state of the art.
So it's 620 slices for those ofyou who don't know what that is.
Uh a 620 slice machine um is themost advanced in the world, it's
AI enhanced, and it's the amountof uh of pictures it takes um of
(34:17):
your heart and your system.
We can do it from your carotidall the way to your belly
button, and we can see withextraordinary detail um what's
going on.
We create a three-dimensionalmodel um of almost a perfect uh
three-dimensional model of yourexact physiology, your heart,
your kidneys, your livers, youreverything, bones, structures,
(34:38):
flesh.
Um, and then we can actually flydown your arteries and all of
that.
We can do all of that, and thenwe layer on the AI tools, the
plaque analysis tools, whichthen takes a look at that that
plaque um and categorizes aplaque, quantifies it.
So, what kind of plaque it is,how much it is, and where it is,
and then we we tell you whatlevel of disease you have, and
(35:01):
then we know how to treat youexactly, how to convert that
soft plaque into hard plaque.
So we know all of that now.
So that circle, so most peoplenever get there.
Most people, half of all peoplewho have a heart attack or
stroke, roughly half die, theirfirst symptom.
Um, the other half survive.
(35:24):
The ones who survive after theyhave a stroke, significant can
be significant brain damage, um,you know, a lot of recovery, a
lot of costs associated withthat.
The others are now gettingstints and balloons, or worst
case scenario, they'rerevasculalization or or they're
having um bypass, you know,bypass surgeries.
But that's too late.
(35:44):
Like that's way too late.
We know now if you're pre, ifyou're if you're proactive, then
you can help prevent some ofthose heart attacks and strokes,
a significant portion of them,and actually start reversing the
disease, slowing down theplaque, soft plaque formation,
slowing down the the um, and andspeeding up the calcification
(36:06):
process, which is stable plaque,calcified plaque, uh, and then
and then ideally eliminating uhor or significantly reducing the
amount of new plaque formationthat's created.
And that's the goal.
Dr Andrew Greenland (36:21):
So why is prevention such a difficult
conversation?
I know you kind of earlieralluded to the fact that you
know you have to have a symptomto get seen by the right people.
But in terms of patients, how doyou persuade someone who feels
well that they needinvestigating?
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
It's not easy.
Um, it's and it's and all a lotof it just believe it or not,
unfortunately, it's even todaybecause it isn't widely known,
um, you know, and insurance forthe most part won't cover
prevention, um, which is a majorproblem in this country.
Again, circle of death, right?
Um, they just don't they don'tvalue it.
(36:55):
I think that is going to change.
That is going to change.
It is my life's mission, it isDr.
Osborne's mission, it is all thestaff here at Clear Cardio and
others out there.
There's others out there, uhpreventive cardiologists who are
out there and care about this.
But um, you know, they justwon't cover preventive.
And so the conversation we'rehaving with patients is because
(37:19):
we don't take insurance.
We can't.
There is no insurance to takebecause they'll they reject it
every time.
We tried in the beginning, andit was just futile.
So the conversation is um um,okay, you're over you're over
45, you're 50.
Most of our patients are over40.
Um, not all of them, but most ofthem.
(37:40):
Um, and for some reason that'swhen the light goes off and
you're like, oh, wait, you know,I need to do something.
Um, or they've had or they'rehaving symptoms, but
non-symptomatic people, um, oncethey find us, they're usually
the people that are worriedwell, the ones that are doing
the research are out therelooking on the internet, um, but
they're still asking thequestions.
(38:00):
Uh, or if I'm having aconversation at dinner uh or in
an elevator, someone will say,What do you do?
Oh, I've been cocaine.
What is that?
Oh, why do I care?
But what's plaque?
Is that in your teeth?
I mean, like, no, it's notplaque in your teeth, it's the
number one cause of heartattacks and strokes.
Um, so I always say this haveyou had a colonoscopy?
(38:21):
Most of them over the age of 50in their 40s and 50s will say
yes.
I'm like, okay, why did you dothat?
Well, because they told me Ishould.
Why?
Well, because I don't want toget colon cancer, right?
Polyps, like a lot of people arevery educated about colon
cancer.
I said, okay, that's great.
I said it's important tocontinue to do that.
Um, however, you know, cancer ingeneral, um, compared to heart
(38:46):
disease, heart attacks andstrokes, uh, makes up a much
smaller segment of mortality.
Uh, and in fact, roughly 2% ofcancers uh are associated with
colon cancer.
Um and and and even fewer, youknow, go on to pass away as a
result.
However, it doesn't mean youdon't do it, right?
(39:07):
Just because statistically it'slower, because nobody wants
colon cancer.
But you do it anyways.
Okay, great.
Now take that and apply that tothe number one cause of death on
the planet.
The number one cause, heartattacks and strokes.
And most of them, 85 to 90percent, are due to plaque
rupture.
(39:27):
Don't you think it makes sensethat we would have a preventive
program to go in there todetermine whether or not you
have the disease?
And if so, what to what level?
And unlike uh unlikecolonoscopies, where you can go
in and remove the polyp andvoila, no more cancer or no more
potential cancer, right?
Um, and so come back in threeyears.
You can't do that withcardiovascular disease.
(39:50):
Um, what you can do, however, ittakes longer, is treat it, slow
it down significantly, or evenstop it and allow that soft
plaque, the dangerous plaquethat can rupture, to stabilize
and convert to calcifide plaque.
That takes time, effort, and youhave to understand the type of
plaque you have, where it is.
And then your physiology isuniquely yours, and therefore
(40:13):
you may have a disposition,genetic disposition in your
family, right?
So we take family in account,you we do blood tests um to
determine whether or not youhave a genetic disposition for
you know um converting umcholesterol into plaque, you
know, through the arterial walland all of that.
So we look at all that, right?
So wouldn't you say that's evenequally as important, or maybe
(40:38):
even more important,statistically speaking?
And the answer is always yes.
Absolutely.
I didn't know any of that.
They're like, of course it is,yes, okay, great.
Do you take insurance?
Nope.
Uh, we don't take it.
We unfortunately your insurancecompany won't cover it unless
you have your symptomatic.
And we can't tell you to saythat you're symptomatic, right?
(41:00):
And so, and most people aren't.
And so, you know, they eitherhave to lie to their general
practitioner and say, I haveheart pain or I have something,
right?
Um, in order to go see acardiologist, but then they're
gonna they're gonna end up witha cardiologist who's ideally, or
not ideally, who is most likelya cardiologist who is not doing
(41:23):
the advanced systems that we'redoing, doesn't understand yet
what's available to them.
And their first diagnosis islet's get you on a treadmill,
let's do a stress test, let's doyour calcium score, CAC score,
let's, and then let's get you into do a heart catheterization.
Right?
That's their path.
That's the path they've beenfollowing forever.
So the conversation to yourquestion is it's a challenging
(41:48):
one.
It's one of education.
Um, and it's just telling themwhat's available to them.
And then, if assuming they canget out of their mindset that
the insurance companies havetheir best interests at heart
and that they're going to coverthem, and then they have to come
out of pocket for it, right?
We've worked really hard to getthe prices and pricing down as
low as we can get it and stillbe in business because we can't
(42:10):
run a business.
And this will go towards thepart of this podcast where we
talk about how important thebusiness is in order to sustain
the technology to be able to getthis to the masses.
Um, but uh, you know, they theyhave to prioritize where they
spend their money.
I mean, people walk around witha$2,000 phone, okay?
(42:31):
Our program isn't much more thanthat, maybe a little bit more,
right?
Yeah.
But it's a phone, right?
The phone's important, butphone's not going to save your
life.
unknown (42:41):
Okay.
Dr Andrew Greenland (42:42):
So I guess you what you do at Claire
Cardio, you're you'rechallenging healthcare, you're
challenging the status quo,you're asking healthcare to
think differently.
What sort of resistance have youhad?
And how do you respond whenpeople challenge what you do?
SPEAKER_01 (42:54):
That's a great question.
You got some great questions.
Um you know, a lot of timeswe'll we'll put in the effort.
Um we don't get a lot ofchallenging from from potential
patients or patients.
Once patients see it, you know,I'm a believer that when you
(43:15):
hear the truth, you know thetruth.
Like when you hear it, you go,uh, yep, that that makes, yep,
that's true.
Um, and you can't argue withfacts and truth.
And and that's what we do.
We we bombard people with factsand truth.
We prove we we prove it to you,right?
We're not just, you know, it'snot just, hey, let's take some
medications and trust me.
(43:36):
Uh, we can show you, because wecan we can do these things, you
know, again.
And then we show you the imageshere's where your plaque was,
here's where it is today, youknow, da da da.
And we monitor you as we goforward.
So it's a proof program, um,proving that that we're we're
treating the disease.
Um but when we're talking toinsurance companies uh uh on a
(43:58):
day to day basis, um Um whichisn't something that most of my
team does because again we don'tinterfa interface with the
insurance companies.
Um but when I'm havingconversations at uh events or um
you know, when I'm doing apodcast, things like that, the
(44:18):
it's all about again, justtalking about the facts and and
and the underlying uh like howdoes this benefit you?
You know, my father used to tellme you'll never be successful in
business unless the ecosystemthat is that you require to be
to have that business besuccessful, your suppliers, your
(44:38):
things like that, unless theysee a vested interest and they
in in in what you're doing.
And so, you know, there's wetake that approach.
I take that approach.
I say, okay, how do they how canthey benefit from what we're
doing?
Um, lowering healthcare costs,right?
Um in the case of lifeinsurance, for example, that's
(45:00):
an insurance, right?
It's not medical insurance, butit's life insurance.
They are starting to wake up.
We're doing, we're having a lotof dialogues with some of the
biggest life insurance companiesout there.
And we're able to extend thelife in many cases, or at least
we're working towards extendingthe life of their policy
holders.
Um, and we can also provide themwith um with information um that
(45:25):
helps them make better decisionson underwriting.
Um, so they see the value there.
And and most of these lifeinsurance companies have a
division that does healthcare aswell.
Uh, and so we're we're we'rehoping and praying, I hate that
soft language, but that thatsomehow translates over across
(45:46):
the aisle in the offices, in thebuildings that they have and
saying, hey, no, there's realvalue in what they're doing.
Let's start covering some ofthis stuff.
Because the minute they startcovering some of this pre
preventive um medicine, what wedo, then we will start taking
insurance 100%.
Um, they're just not there yet.
But um, but as far as talking topatients, they when they hear
(46:06):
it, they go, Oh, I get it.
It's just an education process.
But when it comes to now,private equity firms, completely
different issue.
Private equity firms orinvestors um in companies that
do interventional cardiology donot like us at all because that
is their bread and butter.
They get$20,000 to$30,000 perheart calf.
(46:28):
They get, you know, three tofour hundred thousand dollars
for revascularization for openheart surgeries, stints and
balloons, add, you know, onto aif you do a heart cath and you
add a couple of stints, youknow, now you're talking about
close to 70 to 80,000,$90,000,right?
And then they're doing, youknow, one heart cath doctor, one
(46:49):
interventional cardiologist, isrequired if they're under the
private equity you know umbrellaof companies, a group, as it
were, or even a hospital group,um, they're required to do you
know as many as they can do aday.
So they're referring people tothe cath lab.
Well, you got a little thing.
Oh, it's I might as well just doa heart cat.
(47:09):
Might as well just do a heartcat.
And then if they see a 70%blockage, which they could be
asymptomatic, they could have noproblems, no, it could be all
calcified, there's no risk ofrupture, but they'll put a heart
cat, um, they'll put a stint orballoon in there, and then
they're on blood thinners for ayear and they're higher risk of
bleeding, it can cause a heartinfections, things like that.
(47:31):
But they're doing it becauseit's a business.
Unfortunately, it's a businessfor them.
Um, and so they don't like us.
So we're not having muchconversation with those folks.
Dr Andrew Greenland (47:44):
Got it.
Um, so turning now to more thesort of business side of the
operation at CleoCardio, and onething I really admire is it's um
Cleo Cardio has really stayedincredibly focused.
You know, rather than trying tobecome everything to everyone,
you've built the business aroundsolving one problem
exceptionally well.
What's your kind of philosophybehind that and in terms of you
know that decision and also howit's affected your growth?
SPEAKER_01 (48:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So, again, another goodquestion.
Um, and a fundamental question,um, and it's something that I've
I've learned over the years umby making mistakes, is that
you've got to specialize, you'vegot to be focused.
So, you know, when I firsteffectively stumbled onto Dr.
(48:26):
Osborne, and then I realizedthat you know, there was a huge
opportunity to save a lot oflives, myself included.
Um I said, okay, look, what arewe what are we going to do here?
Like, do we want to beeverything for everybody?
Like, like, because Dr.
Osborne has, he's an internist,he's a lipidologist, he's a PhD,
he's a this, like he's all ofthose things.
(48:47):
You know, do we want to?
I want to do this to help savelives.
Do we want to do you know, otherthings, pain management?
Do we want to do well?
And the answer was absolutelynot.
Because I learned over the yearsthat you know, find one thing
that you're really good at andown it and be the best in the
market at that.
Let everybody else who let themweren't worried about that other
(49:07):
stuff.
Um, so I said, you know, what isthis issue?
It's plaque.
Okay, what causes most heartattack?
Plaque.
So we don't we don't treatpeople per se, we we refer them
out if they have AFib and theyneed pacemakers and they need
all of those types of things.
That's not what we do.
That's a smaller percentage, orif five to ten percent.
(49:28):
And so we to people, there'sexperts out there, that's what
they do.
But I recognize that because nowwe can narrow down um our
ecosystem, it makes it simpler.
Our suppliers, our partners, thepeople that we depend on and
will depend on us um to besuccessful.
Um, and and we can we cannegotiate better because that's
(49:51):
what we do, um, and get thepricing down so we can make it
more available to more people.
Um so specialization iscritical.
I think you see that in law in alot of you know, in a lot of um
um industries or or um you knowthings that people do to make
(50:11):
money these days, right?
So doctors specialize.
Um, and a business should be nodifferent.
Um, because the minute you startto try to be everything for
everybody, you do nothing reallywell.
Um, and so we want to do this,we want to be the best in the
world at it and give the bestcare.
Dr Andrew Greenland (50:29):
So we'll also talk about um education and
marketing because that's a keypart of what you do.
And I think your colleaguementioned that around 95% of
your patients come throughYouTube, which is quite
remarkable.
Um, so how did that happen?
And what's your kind of take oneducation in terms of advancing
the business?
SPEAKER_01 (50:45):
Well, I didn't know it was 95%.
So you're talking you'rereferring to Sherry Thacker, who
is she's remarkable.
She's she is such a rock star,she's such a powerful lady, um,
and she's so engaged in clearcardio.
It's like her, she's made thisher life mission, and she's been
a health advocate her wholelife, written books.
Um, but I didn't realize it was95%.
(51:07):
I I knew it was, I know we didwe have an affiliate program,
which is really exciting, whereanybody, and we a lot of our
patients have become affiliatesum who make referrals and then
we give them discounts, or youknow, we we we give them um
incentives to bring patientsbecause we want to save lives.
Um we we do get some doctorreferrals as well.
(51:28):
Um we're a member of the privatephysician alliance.
Um so you know, I think we'rethe only preventive cardiology
program within that nationalprogram, which is scary that
we're the only ones doing this.
Um, but uh, but yes, you two.
One of the things that I I rightfrom the onset, um, especially
when I engaged, one of thereasons why I engaged with
(51:50):
Sherry three years ago now, um,because she's really good at
that stuff.
That she likes that's hermainstay.
Um, and so I knew right up frontthat our strategy was direct to
consumer.
I knew what that meant becauseI've done this before, um, which
means we have to be really,really good at social media.
(52:10):
We have to be really good.
Um, in fact, I invested in builtout and hired staff.
We have our own podcast studioum in our headquarters, which is
in Carrollton, Texas.
Um, and it's right next to theVIP lounge where we bring our
patients.
Um, and um, so we do podcastsall the time.
(52:30):
We do patients.
So I knew it was important toget on all social media outlets,
um, Instagram, things like that,and then put a message out there
because I also knew that goingdirect to consumer in this case,
because we don't have a lot ofdoctors who know what we're
doing, understand what we'redoing, or care what we're doing,
(52:52):
because they're not educated onit.
And they're they're so busy andso overworked, and they're
especially in the cardiovascularspace, they're doing balloon
stints, bypass surgeries, all ofthose things, you know, running
on treadmills, all that stuff,that they don't have time
necessarily to be, you know,thinking about and referring
patients to us.
Um, so I knew we were gonna haveto educate people directly.
(53:15):
That's a lot of work, that takesa lot of money.
Um, you know, when you'rebreaking ice for the first time,
and you're the one breaking theice, you know, people behind you
can just follow you, right?
It makes it easier.
They're not having to go upagainst the ice.
We're going up against the ice.
And so um what makes that easieris is is the educational
(53:36):
process.
So I knew that was reallyimportant in the beginning, um,
which is why we developed uh weuse so we use AI, and I know
everybody's using that termthese days, right?
Um, but it's it's relevant inthis case, so I'll I'll bring it
up.
Not only do we use AI on thediagnosis, on the medical side
of the business, which iscritical, and it's
game-changing.
It is really game-changing, andit's going to change the
(53:57):
industry forever.
Um, and we I could talk forhours about that, but we also
use AI on the front end of thebusiness, which is the funnel.
And we develop these incrediblemachine learning tools, um, AI
tools, um, and funnels.
Uh, we use programs like Go HighLevel to develop all of this to
allow for um automation um andto learn from itself to get
(54:23):
better.
Because the better we off we areat that, the more lives we can
save.
Um, and and in order to savelives, we've got to educate
people, we've got to get topeople, we've got to educate
them, we've got to build trust,uh, authority in the market, and
then enough, and then provide,make it easy for them to pick up
the phone, right?
Uh or get on the computer andset up.
(54:45):
We've got to make it easy forthem.
And you know, we take that veryseriously.
It is our mission.
You know, we say your heart isour mission, it is absolutely
critical.
So if we fail at that, we failat our business, not just from a
monetary perspective, right?
That's that's the effect.
The money comes when you do agood job of taking care of the
patient, of educating thepatient and taking care of the
(55:06):
patient and and and showingthem, proving to them that what
we're doing is is improvingtheir lives.
Okay.
Then the money will come becausepeople will see the value.
So I knew it from the beginning.
Sherry's the one that reallydoes all the education on that
side of things.
I just support her, but that wascritical, knowing right up front
that we needed to communicatedirectly to the to the to the
(55:28):
potential patients um until weget to the point, and forever,
but until we get to the pointwhere we have enough traction
where patients are actuallyadvocating on our behalf, which
is what's happening now throughthe affiliate program and so on.
Dr Andrew Greenland (55:41):
So turning to the future, where would you
like to be in you know 12months' time with clear cardio?
Any plans on the horizon?
Where are you looking to kind ofum go with the business and the
clinic?
SPEAKER_01 (55:54):
On a beach in Cabo with a hundred of my patients
and my entire staff celebratingour our our you know, our
10,000th patient.
Right?
Because you've got to celebrate,you know, um, otherwise you just
like hit your head against thewall because it's hard.
This is a hard business to bein.
You know, um, it's a hardbusiness.
(56:16):
Uh, you've got doctors you'redealing with, you've got you've
got um malpractices insurance,you've got lawyers up the yin
yang protection, and you've gotyou're dealing with people that
are sick or worried well, um,and you you know, you know,
they're trusting you, so you'vegot to be responsive.
You've got call centers, you'vegot AI, you've got medications,
(56:38):
and you're dealing with, I mean,there's so it's such a complex
business.
Um, that you've got to, you'vegot to, you know, celebrate the
wins.
So one year from now, I'd liketo be celebrating, you know, um
10,000 patients have gonethrough the clear cardio program
or are going through the clearcardio program.
I'd like to be celebrating ournext office opening.
(57:00):
We have an office.
Um, we have three offices now,one in Miami Beach, one in uh
Manhattan on Park Avenue.
Um, one our headquarters inDallas and Carrollton.
Uh, we're opening one up inScottsdale by the end of
September.
Um, so we'll have fourlocations.
My goal is and within 12 monthsto be uh in California, two
(57:20):
locations in California, anotherlocation to be determined.
So I'd like to have seven oreight locations by the end of
next year.
That'll allow us to be able tomeet, you know, those see as
many patients as we can.
Um, because you have to dial youknow your ad spend on the social
media stuff.
You got to dial it right so youdon't sell yourself out of
business.
Because the minute you yourquality of service drops, well
(57:44):
then, you know, one bad reviewand and and trustpilot, like you
know, we have five star, we havehundreds of patients and
hundreds of of reviews on trustpilot, all five star.
You have one one star, and itdrops you down to like 4.8.
I think we're at a 4.8 becauseearlier on, I think we one
patient was having some issues,internal family issues, and took
(58:08):
it out on us.
It happens.
Um, but you know, all of thosethings that matter.
But in 12 months, I want to bein in additional locations so
that we can cover more people,more patients, and support them.
I want to be celebrating thosenew patients.
Um, and uh, you know, obviouslyI would like I want I want um I
(58:31):
would I I think I'm this I'm thelarge I'm the sole investor in
the company, so I put a lot ofput millions of dollars into
this business to get it to whereit is today.
I'm gonna continue to put moneyinto it um as we expand, right?
And the money that we do make,we reinvest back into the
business, uh, and ideally to getcosts down as much as we can.
(58:52):
But that's where I'd like to bein 12 months, celebrating
somewhere with with patients andstaff on on the advancement of
pericardio in the United States.
Dr Andrew Greenland (59:02):
Amazing.
Finally, if we were having thisconversation in 10 years from
now, what would you hope hadchanged?
SPEAKER_01 (59:10):
Yes, so I'm we are gonna get there.
So um it's I want preventivecardiology, I want prevention
and awareness.
It the number one killer of allhuman beings on the earth.
I want it to be an everydayconversation about plaque.
(59:33):
I the same way you talk aboutthe colonoscopy and and making
sure that people aren'tcontracting and dying from colon
cancer.
I want I or for breast cancerfor that.
I mean, there's so muchadvocation for breast cancer,
and I I there should be, um,because it's it's it's a
devastating disease and itaffects a lot of women and men,
(59:55):
by the way, men die about breastcancer too.
Um however, it is a segment ofcancer.
Um and we we will we will in 10years have that level of
education, awareness, proactiveapproach towards the number one
(01:00:17):
killer of all people on theplanet today, right today.
Um, and and I want to see thatnumber decrease.
Dr Andrew Greenland (01:00:26):
What a great point to end on.
What a fantastic mission.
JD, it's been an enormouspleasure.
Thank you so much.
What I love about today'sconversation is that although
we've talked about technologyand AI, the underlying message
is really about changinghealthcare from reacting to
disease to preventing italtogether.
So thank you very much forsharing not only the vision
behind ClearCommodio, but alsothe realities of building and
leading a healthcare companythat's really challenging
(01:00:48):
existing thinking.
I think um listeners,clinicians, health and
entrepreneurs are going to takea great deal away from this um
session.
So thank you very much forjoining me.
It's been absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:59):
It is my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
So, welcome to another episode of Voices in
Health and Women, the podcastwhere we explore the people, the
ideas, and the innovationsshaping the future of
healthcare.
Today I'm joined by JD Enright,CEO and co-founder of Clear
Commodio, a company challengingthe traditional reactive model
of cardiology to advancedimaging, artificial
intelligence, and a strong focuson prevention.
So, in this conversation, we'regoing to explore the business of
(00:22):
building a preventativehealthcare company, the
challenges of changingestablished clinical thinking,
the role of AMA in commodityhealthcare, and the lessons JD
has learnt from growing aspecialist healthcare business.
So, first of all, JD, welcome tothe show.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
SPEAKER_01 (00:37):
Thank you, Dr.
Greenland.
Dr Andrew Greenland (00:38):
I appreciate it.
I'm glad to be here.
So, for those that don't knowyou, would you mind just sort of
giving us a little bit ofbackground about yourself and
kind of tell us how you ended upin healthcare?
SPEAKER_01 (00:48):
Sure.
It wasn't a direct line, that'sfor sure.
And I probably speak for a lotof people who end up here.
(01:13):
And you know, during that time,I saw a lot of care that went
into the guys and girls at theacademy when you're out on
ships.
And I said to myself, you know,there's a big opportunity here
(01:35):
for health care specificallyaround that space, right?
So then I went to work for USgovernment.
I worked for the US governmentfor about 10 years.
And mostly that time wasoverseas.
Um, and during that timeoverseas, um, I noted that the
healthcare situation, at leastin the uh areas in the regions
(01:56):
that I was located, um, wasseriously lacking.
Um and compared to the US, youknow, I didn't really appreciate
what we had in the US.
Um, and um after I left um UncleSam working for the government,
um, I got into I went back toschool, um, went to uh Cornell
(02:18):
and um got a degree in in um inbusiness, um, and then on to
Wharton for finance.
Um and during that time I wasworking for various companies,
one of which uh was apharmaceutical company called
Astra.
Um before it was AstraZeneca,now it's AstraZeneca, um, and
that was in Massachusetts.
And that's was, and I was in anengineering role, uh project
(02:41):
management engineering role.
Um, and that's what gave me myreal first exposure to
healthcare on the, I'd say onthe drug manufacturing
development side, um, to reallysee what goes into you know
early stage, mid-stage, and evenlate stage drug development, um,
which in many cases, if we'retalking about and you know,
(03:02):
clericardio is specifically umon the cardiovascular side, but
you see that like statins andmedications and things, and the
significant amount of effortthat goes into money, time,
resources that goes intodeveloping these new generation
drugs.
Um, so so that was really myreal first step into healthcare
(03:24):
was really on the on the drugmanufacturing side with
companies like uh Genentech andum Wanza out of Switzerland and
so on.
Um, and that gave me a goodsense and appreciation for the
tremendous amount of effort thatgoes into developing these
medications.
Um, and so uh during that periodof time, um I worked my way up
(03:46):
the ladder.
So I started off as a projectengineer um looking at uh
developing um processes to allowthose drugs to be manufactured
from early stage clinicaltrials, you know, even toxel
levels.
So you use a small bench toptype manufacturing, um, all the
way up to you know, with with uhGenentech 30,000 liter stir tank
(04:09):
reactors, um, making a perceptinand things like that, right?
So for cancer treatments.
And so I started off doing thedesigning engineering stuff and
then slowly worked into thebusiness side of things.
Um, and then ultimately my lastjob in that space was I was head
(04:29):
of global strategic growthinvestments.
So I was uh out there acquiringcompanies on behalf of Lonza.
So I was based out ofSwitzerland for a number of
years, um, in VISHP and inBasel, which is where their
headquarters is located.
Um, and I was uh responsible foridentifying novel companies that
(04:50):
were emerging out, had greattechnology, good IP, um, and
specifically in the virusellinggene therapy space, um,
including things like CRISPR andand and you know, transfection,
gene editing, things like that.
Um, and um ultimately acquired anumber of companies in that
role, brought me to Texasbecause we acquired a very large
(05:14):
company um and built out theworld's largest uh viral cell
and gene therapy uhmanufacturing facility at the
time.
Um and um and that's whatbrought me to Texas.
And um it was during that time,right after I left Lanza and
started my own company um calledTMG Core, Texas Machine Group
(05:35):
Core.
Um, and that was based inDallas, Texas.
Um and the reason why I steppedout of Lanza and into that, you
know, going to start my owncompany kind of thing, um, was I
saw the importance of technologyin the development of these
novel medications.
(05:56):
One of the drugs that we workedon um at Lonza, which really
took root in my soul, howimportant that is, um, was a
drug.
We we worked with a companycalled uh Bluebird Bioscience
out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
And with our help, they receivedFDA approval for the world's
(06:19):
first curative medicine foradrenal liquid dystrophy.
Adrenalucystrophy is arelatively rare disease, but it
still affects roughly 15 to20,000 young girls and boys,
mainly boys, um, and it's andit's basically a death sentence.
Um, it's demyelinizationeffectively and in the brain,
(06:41):
and um it it causes death.
And so that us building thatfacility, uh investing in that
technology uh to be able toproduce that drug product
safely, effectively, um, at acost that was reasonable, right?
And in a time frame that, youknow, we you know that would
(07:04):
facilitate preventing from youknow all of these children from
dying effectively from thedisease, um, required a bunch of
technology.
And I saw how important thatwas, and and it was through
technology uh and applying thattechnology, the development of
and the implementation of thattechnology that I saw um save
(07:25):
lives.
Like truly, I could see I metthe patients, the children,
their parents, they would comeinto the facility um and tell us
their stories.
And so it was really that thatembedded itself and I saw how
important it was.
So I left Lanza after I hadbuilt that out.
I felt I had accomplished that,and I decided to start a company
(07:47):
that focused it focused just onthe technology side.
Had very little to do withhealthcare at all, other than to
say the it was high performancecomputing, next generation
immersion cooling in dielectricfluids.
So we could get extremelypowerful computing because most
technology requires, especiallynowadays, real high performance
(08:09):
computing um capabilities.
And the limitation is somethingcalled Moore's Law.
Moore's Law is like it's youknow, as your as your computing
power uh expands or increases,the amount of heat load through
the electrical demand increases.
And at some point, you justcan't cool it.
You can get smaller chips thathave more power capability, but
(08:32):
they also demand, they alsoirradiate more heat, and you've
got to dissipate that heat, orthey fail.
And so we were able to overcomeor extend Moore's Law by
developing something calledtwo-phase and single-phase
immersion cooling, where wewould take the the chips um and
(08:53):
the boards, and we developed themost advanced computing in the
world at the time, um, andimmerse them in these fluids and
cool them and get a lot more uhcomputing out of them in a much
smaller space, something thesize of uh of a um you know, of
a cabinet, you know, like ayou'd have in your office, could
(09:15):
be a hundred kilowatts, whichwas unheard of.
Um, and it was portable um andself-sustainable.
So that was you know really mystep into technology during that
period of time.
Um, and feel free to interruptat any moment.
If you have any questions,please just jump in and I can
elaborate on any of that.
Um, but uh I've been known to bea little long-winded, but I'm
(09:39):
very passionate about uh aboutwhat I've done in the past you
know and what people I'm workingwith are doing.
Um so it was during that time umas the CEO of the company um
that my shareholders required meto have um something called key
man insurance.
Um for those of you who don'tknow, key man insurance is when
(10:00):
you're an executive in acompany, whether it's publicly
traded or privately held, umoftentimes um the shareholders
um board of directors willrequire the CEO or other members
who are critical, chiefscientists, things like that, to
have something called key maninsurance.
(10:21):
So they'll open up a lifeinsurance policy on the on that
executive or that individual.
And uh in case something happensto them, um they can then the
company isn't in such afinancial or um leadership um I
guess position where where youcouldn't replace that person.
(10:44):
And so they could go out andhire a new CEO, bring in a new,
you know, and that's expensive,that's an expensive process.
So so um the insurance companyrequired me to to um to go to um
a clinic um every quarter, sofour times a year.
Um, it was one of the number oneclinics in the country that I
(11:05):
would go to, private clinic.
Um, very expensive, cost about$15,000 every time I went.
I'd get there at six in themorning, I would leave at six at
night, I'd wear my tracksuit,um, and they'd run me through
the gamut.
It was like, you know, theAmerican Ninja with that show
where you're just like from oneto the next, like literally room
to room to room to room.
Uh I'd have like a little snackin between after I'd bet faster
(11:26):
for the blood work, but I'd gothrough this whole regiment of
everything you can imagine.
And I'd walk out at the end ofthe day with a big binder um and
a consultation with the doctorbecause they do everything real
time.
So I get all the results thesame day, which I thought was
remarkable.
I'm like, this is the greatestthing since sliced bread.
I mean, like everybody should beable to do this.
Um, what I didn't know is thatthat big binder that they gave
(11:48):
me was in it at the time for me,was like, you know,
hieroglyphics.
And you know, I would say, Howam I?
And they'd say, Well, yourcholesterol is a little high,
but you have a zero calciumscore.
Uh, you ran on the treadmill for20 minutes.
That was pretty impressive.
Um, we didn't see any problemswith your ECG.
Um, you don't have any skincancers, and the list goes on.
(12:09):
And I'd say, Well, do is thereanything I need to do?
Like, well, you're you know,you're in your late 40s, early
50s at the time.
Um, you know, just watch whatyou eat and uh, you know, that
kind of thing.
And then they would stampapproved, and the insurance life
insurance would company wouldget the then everything was
good, and I'm covered.
It was a hundred and fiftymillion dollar life insurance
policy.
(12:29):
Right, so pretty substantial.
Um, and I did that for fiveyears, four times a year, uh
five time times five years.
So think about the costassociated with that.
But they kept telling me, yeah,everything okay, cholesterol is
a little higher this time, oryou know, but I was I was not I
was asymptomatic, I had nosymptoms, I wasn't feeling bad
(12:50):
or anything.
But I was in the middle oftaking the company public at the
time.
This was in 2022, and um themarket crashed at the time.
I mean, when you're taking acompany public, um, you know,
that's there's a lot going onthere.
There's a lot of stress andpressure in my cortisol levels,
I'm sure, went through the roof.
(13:10):
You know, uh, I'm working 18hours a day, working seven days
a week.
In fact, for the first two yearsof me building that company, um,
I lived in my office.
I physically lived in my office.
I had a bunk bed in my over mydesk, um, and I put a shower in.
I was at an 11-acre campus thatwe built out, 150,000 square
(13:32):
foot facility.
So I had a substantial sizeoffice, but still, I lived in my
office.
I drove home on the weekendswhen I could to see my children
and my wife of 30 years.
Um, but that's what I did.
I was that dedicated, as did mychief techno technology officer.
He lived in there right in theoffice right next to me.
Um, so we became very goodfriends over the years, as you
(13:54):
can imagine.
Um, but so during that period oftime, you know, I I was I, you
know, especially in 2022, wewere getting ready to announce,
you know, our you know, we'regoing public.
We were unwritten by Guggenheimand Credit Suisse and and all of
that.
So we were it was a big deal.
It was going to be a very bigIPO on a stacks.
And then the market crashed, ifyou remember.
(14:14):
The world ended in June, um,like about a week before we were
scheduled to announce, and allof a sudden, you know, Silicon
Valley Bank went out ofbusiness.
Uh, credit suites got broken upinto little bits and pieces.
Um, everybody kind of just thewhole world sucked.
Um, and so we collectivelydecided that we're not going to
(14:36):
do this today.
We're gonna step, you know, holdback on the IPO.
However, that kicked off aseries of of events where I
decided collectively with theboard we were going to go to
private say.
We had shareholders who wantedto exit.
Uh, they had been in thebusiness for a while, they're a
little older, um, looking forsome liquidity.
(14:56):
So we decided to go down andexit and we started negotiating
with a company.
Now everybody knows it's public.
It was Modine.
It was a very big deal at thetime, probably one of the
largest private deals out there.
Um, so I was living in aircraft,hotels, boardrooms, surrounded
by lawyers, eating way too much,you know, restaurant food,
(15:18):
certainly drinking way too muchwine and whiskey, uh, and
probably too many cigars.
Um, but that's what you do, likewhen you're in the middle of a
deal.
It took us nine months.
During that period of time, Igained 15 pounds.
I started, I grew a beard sothat no one would see the fat
under my neck.
Um, I wasn't feeling too hotbecause I wasn't sleeping very
(15:40):
well, because I was havingdinners with lawyers and and you
know, negotiating deals and sodrinking a little too late and
not getting enough sleep.
And it just kind of accumulated,it did accumulate over time.
And and so I went to my nextdoor neighbors.
I'm about eight months, ninemonths into this into this
transaction, very largetransaction.
(16:02):
Um, and my next door neighbor isan interventional cardiologist.
Um, his name is, and this iscoming full circle here, his
name uh is uh Dr.
Rajul Kazori.
Um, and he's the guy that nobodywants to see, right?
He's the one that you're having,you're very symptomatic.
Um, you or you had a heartattack or stroke, or you're in
the middle of having a targettake or stroke, even worse, and
(16:24):
he's the catheter guy.
He's gonna go in there, he'sgonna put the stints and the
balloons and stuff like that.
Um, and his colleagues do thebypass surgeries, the
revascularization, and thingslike that.
Um, but I went over to his houseuh with a bottle of wine in my
hand, um, and he goes, JD, youlook like hell.
Like what happened to you?
I haven't seen you in a while.
He goes, You don't look good.
(16:44):
And and and when a when a whenan interventional cardiologist
tells you you don't look good,you need to do something about
that, right?
So he said, I want to introduceyou to a gentleman.
His name is Dr.
John Osborne.
And Dr.
John Osborne um took me the nextday.
I literally went in the nextday, literally in the back door
of the hospital where he was,you know, doing his thing.
(17:08):
Um, and within an hour, okay,now think about the context
here.
Five years, fifteen thousanddollars a shot times four times
five, right?
You're talking about a half amillion dollars, five years
going to the what's consideredthe number one clinic in Texas
for sure, one of the top in thecountry, um, private.
(17:29):
Uh and he tells me in one hourwhat they couldn't tell me in
five years, and that is I hadstage two um disease.
And by stage two, a lot ofpeople don't know that we can
actually stage disease now, uhcardiovascular disease, like
oncology has been doing foryears, staging cancers, um,
(17:51):
level of disease.
Uh, so stage two, I had 260millimeters of soft plaque.
A reason why I had a zerocalcium score because none of my
plaque was calcified.
So we know that calcium scoresreally don't mean anything other
than if it's positive that youhave the disease, it doesn't
mean how much you do and whereit is and how active it is and
(18:11):
how much plaque you have.
We all we know all this now.
I certainly know it all now.
But I had 200 and plusmillimeters of saw plaque in my
LAD, um, which you know, we alot of people call it the
widowmaker, um, all right there.
So I was at a substantial riskof a heart attack and stroke due
to plaque rupture.
Um, a lot of people don'trealize that plaque rupture is
(18:33):
you know what causes most heartattacks is strokes.
It's not uh and I put a wholevideo out about what that is.
So in one hour, he told me whatthey couldn't tell me in five
years, uh, half a milliondollars later, and and that made
me really upset.
Um, I got upset for a number ofreasons.
Um, I got upset because I spent,or the company had spent half a
(18:59):
million dollars going to thisclinic.
I had spent five years goingevery quarter running on
treadmills with masks on and ECGleads and having fingers up my
butt and you know, all of thatstuff that they do, right?
Um, and me thinking that I'mgreat, okay, it's worth the
money.
Um, only to find out in one hourthat they did nothing for me.
(19:21):
Zero.
Right?
Uh they tried to put me on astatin at one point, and I said,
Well, how do you know if it'sworking?
Well, your cholesterol camedown.
Well, what does that mean?
Like, is my is that cholesterolbad?
Like, like, help me understandthat.
And it just went around incircles.
So I got upset at that.
I got upset that I was at risk.
I've worked my whole life reallyhard educating myself, building
(19:46):
businesses, um, creating wealthfor other people, myself
included.
Um, I have two children, um, sonand daughter, uh, and an adopted
daughter as well.
Um, and you know, only to findout that I was at a risk of a
heart attack and stroke anddropped dead, because we know
now, statistically, you know,half the population over the age
(20:06):
of 40 or 45 uh will have sometype of event, heart attack or
stroke, and half of them willtheir first symptom is death.
Right.
So that's scary.
And then I got into the pointwhere I was upset that why isn't
everybody doing this?
Why isn't this the state?
Why isn't this the you knowstandard of care?
(20:29):
It's been around for a longtime, like you know, CTs, CCTAs,
things like that now have beenaround for a long time, imaging.
Now, the the FDA approved AItools that we use have not.
That's relatively new, so Iunderstand that.
Um, but it's a game changer,it's an absolute game changer.
(20:49):
So I said to myself, you know,I'm gonna get through the sale
of this business, TMG Corp, andthen I'm going to do something
about it.
I'm gonna put my time, mywealth, my my business acumen,
and I'm not a physician, I'm nota doctor.
Um, I'm just a I'm I'm I'm apatient of clear cardio.
I am I am a I'm a businessman,so I know how to build
(21:10):
businesses and make profitablebusinesses.
So I'm gonna take that acumenand I'm gonna put it together
towards towards this particularissue, and that's cardiovascular
disease, which causes you knowheart attacks and strokes.
Um and that was the genesis,that was the you know, the
ideation of clear cardio was uhso I got through the sale of the
(21:32):
company and then met with Dr.
Osborne.
Dr.
Osborne was had a small Regisoffice, um about the size of my
wife's shoe closet.
Um because he's such a kind man,he's such a philanthropist, he
wants to save the whole world.
I mean, he's a Harvard trainedguy.
(21:52):
I mean, he's I mean he shouldyou should have him on at some
point, but he's a remarkableman.
And but he's he's Just not goodat business, he admits that, and
so he's been trafficked hiswhole life.
Um, and I call it that.
I mean, I really just put thattag on there.
He's been trafficked, you know.
And and so, you know, he had asmall little registration office
(22:13):
with all he has so many degreesand licenses, it took up every
inch of the walls in his littletiny office.
And I said, We gotta get you outof here.
We've got to wrap a businessaround what you've been doing
and telling people we should bedoing for the last 20 something
years.
Um, you know, and because hestopped doing heart
catheterizations 20 years ago,um, and only uses imaging now.
(22:37):
And now with the AI tools, it'seven better.
He's developed this incredibleprogram, uh, which I follow.
Uh, right now, by the way, uh, Ihave no more soft plaque.
I went from no calcified, nocalcium, no calcified plaque, so
zero calcium score, which forall indications would tell me
I'm in perfect shape um becauseI looked good.
Uh, but to see having 260millimeters of soft plaque, now
(23:02):
I've got um all of that iscalcified.
So I have effectively a zerorisk of of plaque rupture.
Um so no more heart deck orstroke risk.
So I'll probably die of cancer.
Let's let's hope not.
But that's statisticallyspeaking, that's that's the
case.
Um, but knock on wood.
(23:23):
But um, so so we know I know theprogram works because I'm living
proof.
Um, and so we did we we adoptedthat program that he's developed
um using some medications ifit's necessary, uh, have
significant disease, and that'swhat we do.
Um, and also diet, exercise, allof the things you know you and I
chatted about before we startedthis podcast was you know,
(23:45):
roughly, you know, about thefunctional side of things and
the importance of that, youknow, getting your visceral fat
down, all that.
So that was the genesis of uh ofpericardio, and that was um
almost three years ago.
Um, now we started uh I see TMGCore sold in December 2023.
(24:05):
So we are now you know comingaround to almost four years, I
guess.
Um but um that was the ideation.
Dr Andrew Greenland (24:12):
Fantastic.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing thatbackstory.
It really provides context foreverything that you're doing and
your sort of personal experienceof how you've ended up in this
situation and the directionyou've taken with the business.
So I suppose your experience isquite unique in the sense of
probably nobody else is going tohave the level of health
screening that you had, youknow, with that company that
were paying all this money everyyear.
(24:32):
But what's fundamentally brokenabout traditional cardiovascular
care that you know the averageperson experiences um in the US?
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
Well, that's a great question.
Um I can tell you, I I wasfortunate because I could pay, I
could afford, and the companywas paying as well for the
private care.
Um, most people can't.
And so what happens is they endup um what I call in the you
know, kind of like the circle ofdeath, right?
(25:03):
So um health care in America isfundamentally broken.
Um it is quite good once you getthe care.
The doctors and nurses and nursepractitioners and the folks that
are giving the care areoutstanding.
Um, I think it's one of the bestsystems in the world, at least
(25:24):
from a training perspective.
However, to get to the thoseexperts, that's where it's all
broken and whether or not youcan actually get them.
Um, and so, you know, today, ifif you're my age and you're not
symptomatic, or let's just say,you know, I'm 58, okay.
Um, let's just say you're inyour 40s, late 30s, early 40s,
(25:47):
and you're non-symptomatic,okay, because a lot of people in
their late 30s and 40s and 50sdie of heart attacks and
strokes, men and women alike.
Um, and why do they do?
A lot of times because they'reasymptomatic and they have a
plaque rupture.
They didn't know they hadsignificant plaque.
Um, they didn't know what plaquerupture was.
Um, and I've actually got modelsand things like that that show
(26:08):
how it works, and prettyinteresting.
I've got some videos out thereto show how it works.
So educating people.
But a lot of people are noteducated because there's not a
lot of information out thereabout that.
Um, so so you either have to besymptomatic, okay, which means
you have late stage disease, youknow, 70% blockage or more
stenosis, you know, thenarrowing down of the artery
(26:29):
going from something like this,which is a normal artery and you
know, wide open flow, nostenosis, no ischemia, things
like that, to something thatlooks like this, right?
Which is, you know, this isabout 70 to 80 percent blocked,
right?
So reduction in flow.
So this is significant stenosisoutside in the wall of the
artery here, that's where the uhplaque builds up.
(26:50):
So plaque doesn't build up.
A lot of people think plaquebuilds up on the inside and
sticks to the wall of the arteryhere on that one cell membrane.
There's a little membrane on theinside of your of your artery
here, which kind of protects youknow that.
And it's when you're born, it'slike a slip and slide, right?
From the 80s, you know how it'slike it's like Teflon.
Everything that flows throughthe blood, everything that's in
(27:11):
the blood, the oxygen and andand cholesterol and all of that
stuff, it's just flowing throughand nothing adheres to that
line, that thin lining.
As you age, um, you know, uhhardening of the arteries or
lifestyle or genetics, geneticsplays a big role.
Or as you age, uh, you know, yougain visceral fat, fatty liver,
(27:31):
uh diabetes, um, you know, allof the high blood pressure, you
know, hardening of the arteries,things like that, that lining
becomes damaged and it becomesmore like velcro instead of
Teflon.
And what happens is thatcholesterol in particular
adheres to a certain area in thein the artery.
And then what it does is it getsabsorbed into the wall of the
(27:52):
artery.
It doesn't stay on the on thealigning here, it gets pulled
into the artery wall, like that,right?
So even if you put a camera likea heart catheterization down the
center, you wouldn't see plaque.
You're not going to see plaqueand what kind of plaque it is.
So heart catheterizations fromunderstanding the level and and
and the type of disease youhave, um, is useless.
(28:15):
It doesn't tell you what type ofplaque you have, doesn't tell
you where the plaque is, uh, andand how much of it is.
And we know that you know thesoft plaque.
So if you see the color codinghere, the blue is the calcified
plaque, um, the yellow, and wecolor coded specifically so you
can identify it here.
Um, but the blue is calcifiedplaque.
We don't care about that becauseit doesn't rupture, it's stable
(28:37):
plaque, so that's old plaquethat's turned hard.
Um, and then the soft plaque,what we call the medium density,
high lipid, think of lipids asfats, like butter, right?
That's the yellow stuff.
And then in here, the little redstuff, that's the low density,
what we call the lava, uh, lowdensity, high lipid plaque.
So these two plaques, theseyellows and reds, these are the
real dangerous stuff.
(28:58):
That's the stuff that rupturesthrough the lining.
And it's when it ruptures, whichcauses you know 85 to 90 percent
of all heart attacks, you know,uh, versus, you know, that's the
plumbing issue versus theelectrical issue, which is the,
you know, if you've got AFib orsomething like that.
But in this case, we're talkingabout plaque rupture, that
ruptures into the blood flow,and then your body responds in
(29:19):
minutes to seconds, causes theclot, and it's the clot that
blocks off the blood flow, whichstops oxygen to the brain or to
the organs and the heart, andthat's what kills you.
So, this is what it normallylooks like.
This is this, and so you can seehow it expands out.
So this is your normal outsidediameter.
Then it as that as thatcholesterol gets absorbed, looks
(29:39):
as it gets absorbed into thearterial wall, it starts
expanding outwards first,pushing that artery so it
expands like this.
And while it's through that, atthe same time, it's pushing down
on that, on on the uh on the uhinterior on the lumen here, and
it causes what we call stenosis,and that's you know, cause
symptoms, you know, shortness ofbreath and high blood pressure
(30:01):
and all those types of things,right?
So normal, not normal.
This is so so you know what wedo is we we identify that right
off the bat.
Like, do you have it or not?
So the problem is 90% of thecardiologists out there are not
preventive cardiologists,probably more than that.
Um, they're not trained tocommunicate that to patients.
(30:24):
Um, their go-to is especially aninterventional cardiologist,
their go-to is stents andballoons.
And in some cases, if it's ifyou're serious enough,
revascularization, you know,effectively a um, you know,
bypass surgery.
And and there's a lot of moneyin that, right?
Um, and but oftentimes you'renot getting to see a doctor to
(30:45):
even determine if you have thedisease unless you're
symptomatic, because you'redepending on your insurance
company to pay for everything,the doctor's visits and things
like that, because they're notcheap.
Um, and it can take asignificant amount of time
because doctors, right now, youyou know, they're two, three
months out.
So you got chain pet uh pain inchest.
Okay.
(31:05):
Then you go to see your regulardoctor or you go to the
emergency room, and they theymight brush you in to do an
emergency heart catheterization,right?
Which is invasive, can cause,can cause heart attacks or
strokes, can cause infections,and you may not, it may not, it
may and so, and then if they doput a stint or balloon in there,
all they're doing is addressingthe symptom, right?
(31:28):
Because stints and balloonsdon't actually address the
underlying disease, right?
They don't stop heart attacksand strokes.
It's that's not their job.
Their job is to open up, youknow, push against the arterial
wall here and open up so thatyou can get more blood flow to
so you're not symptomaticanymore, right?
And so so you get uh so, butit's not addressing the disease
(31:50):
which is out here in thearterial wall, which you can
still rupture right through thearound and uh stint.
So it's just to resolvesymptoms.
So the biggest challenge I seeright now, what's broken, is
first of all, people gettinghaving the education and doctors
educating the patients, whetheryou're a generalist or a
(32:10):
cardiologist, it's the thedependence on your uh healthcare
insurance to allow you to haveyour insurance cover you to go
see a cardiologist, right?
And then what happens?
Okay, so if you think about thecircle of death that I talked
about, you got to have asymptom, okay, or you're maybe
(32:33):
you're doing, if you're lucky, alot of guys and girls don't.
There they go in and they get acheckup and they fail a checkup.
Their ECG is weird.
By the way, ECGs are forelectrical issues, they have
nothing to do with plaque.
So uh that's useless when itcomes to 90% of the hard tax and
strokes.
Um, so but it's you it's usefulfor other things.
(32:54):
Um, they put you on a treadmill.
You have to fail a stress test,right?
Um, in order to actually go onto be referred to a
cardiologist, an expert.
Um, and we know that stresstests um have false positives
and false negatives.
So if you fail a regular stresstest, then they put you and they
do a nuclear stress test.
(33:14):
Um, they'll look at your calciumscore, which only shows you if
you have old plaque, say if youyou have active plaque.
And then if you fail all those,then they'll say, okay, now the
insurance company will pay fordoing a heart catheter.
By the way, a heartcatheterization again only
treats the symptoms, it doesn'ttreat the underlying disease.
(33:35):
Um, and you can do everythingthat I just talked about by
doing a CCTA, cardiac CTangiogram, which will show you
definitively if you have thedisease.
Then you layer on the AI on topof that, uh, which analyzes you
know 20,000 pixels of you knowof imaging on the CCTA.
(33:55):
The CCTAs that we use today inthe CT um machines, uh, we're
using state of the art.
So it's 620 slices for those ofyou who don't know what that is.
Uh a 620 slice machine um is themost advanced in the world, it's
AI enhanced, and it's the amountof uh of pictures it takes um of
(34:17):
your heart and your system.
We can do it from your carotidall the way to your belly
button, and we can see withextraordinary detail um what's
going on.
We create a three-dimensionalmodel um of almost a perfect uh
three-dimensional model of yourexact physiology, your heart,
your kidneys, your livers, youreverything, bones, structures,
(34:38):
flesh.
Um, and then we can actually flydown your arteries and all of
that.
We can do all of that, and thenwe layer on the AI tools, the
plaque analysis tools, whichthen takes a look at that that
plaque um and categorizes aplaque, quantifies it.
So, what kind of plaque it is,how much it is, and where it is,
and then we we tell you whatlevel of disease you have, and
(35:01):
then we know how to treat youexactly, how to convert that
soft plaque into hard plaque.
So we know all of that now.
So that circle, so most peoplenever get there.
Most people, half of all peoplewho have a heart attack or
stroke, roughly half die, theirfirst symptom.
Um, the other half survive.
(35:24):
The ones who survive after theyhave a stroke, significant can
be significant brain damage, um,you know, a lot of recovery, a
lot of costs associated withthat.
The others are now gettingstints and balloons, or worst
case scenario, they'rerevasculalization or or they're
having um bypass, you know,bypass surgeries.
But that's too late.
(35:44):
Like that's way too late.
We know now if you're pre, ifyou're if you're proactive, then
you can help prevent some ofthose heart attacks and strokes,
a significant portion of them,and actually start reversing the
disease, slowing down theplaque, soft plaque formation,
slowing down the the um, and andspeeding up the calcification
(36:06):
process, which is stable plaque,calcified plaque, uh, and then
and then ideally eliminating uhor or significantly reducing the
amount of new plaque formationthat's created.
And that's the goal.
Dr Andrew Greenland (36:21):
So why is prevention such a difficult
conversation?
I know you kind of earlieralluded to the fact that you
know you have to have a symptomto get seen by the right people.
But in terms of patients, how doyou persuade someone who feels
well that they needinvestigating?
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
It's not easy.
Um, it's and it's and all a lotof it just believe it or not,
unfortunately, it's even todaybecause it isn't widely known,
um, you know, and insurance forthe most part won't cover
prevention, um, which is a majorproblem in this country.
Again, circle of death, right?
Um, they just don't they don'tvalue it.
(36:55):
I think that is going to change.
That is going to change.
It is my life's mission, it isDr.
Osborne's mission, it is all thestaff here at Clear Cardio and
others out there.
There's others out there, uhpreventive cardiologists who are
out there and care about this.
But um, you know, they justwon't cover preventive.
And so the conversation we'rehaving with patients is because
(37:19):
we don't take insurance.
We can't.
There is no insurance to takebecause they'll they reject it
every time.
We tried in the beginning, andit was just futile.
So the conversation is um um,okay, you're over you're over
45, you're 50.
Most of our patients are over40.
Um, not all of them, but most ofthem.
(37:40):
Um, and for some reason that'swhen the light goes off and
you're like, oh, wait, you know,I need to do something.
Um, or they've had or they'rehaving symptoms, but
non-symptomatic people, um, oncethey find us, they're usually
the people that are worriedwell, the ones that are doing
the research are out therelooking on the internet, um, but
they're still asking thequestions.
(38:00):
Uh, or if I'm having aconversation at dinner uh or in
an elevator, someone will say,What do you do?
Oh, I've been cocaine.
What is that?
Oh, why do I care?
But what's plaque?
Is that in your teeth?
I mean, like, no, it's notplaque in your teeth, it's the
number one cause of heartattacks and strokes.
Um, so I always say this haveyou had a colonoscopy?
(38:21):
Most of them over the age of 50in their 40s and 50s will say
yes.
I'm like, okay, why did you dothat?
Well, because they told me Ishould.
Why?
Well, because I don't want toget colon cancer, right?
Polyps, like a lot of people arevery educated about colon
cancer.
I said, okay, that's great.
I said it's important tocontinue to do that.
Um, however, you know, cancer ingeneral, um, compared to heart
(38:46):
disease, heart attacks andstrokes, uh, makes up a much
smaller segment of mortality.
Uh, and in fact, roughly 2% ofcancers uh are associated with
colon cancer.
Um and and and even fewer, youknow, go on to pass away as a
result.
However, it doesn't mean youdon't do it, right?
(39:07):
Just because statistically it'slower, because nobody wants
colon cancer.
But you do it anyways.
Okay, great.
Now take that and apply that tothe number one cause of death on
the planet.
The number one cause, heartattacks and strokes.
And most of them, 85 to 90percent, are due to plaque
rupture.
(39:27):
Don't you think it makes sensethat we would have a preventive
program to go in there todetermine whether or not you
have the disease?
And if so, what to what level?
And unlike uh unlikecolonoscopies, where you can go
in and remove the polyp andvoila, no more cancer or no more
potential cancer, right?
Um, and so come back in threeyears.
You can't do that withcardiovascular disease.
(39:50):
Um, what you can do, however, ittakes longer, is treat it, slow
it down significantly, or evenstop it and allow that soft
plaque, the dangerous plaquethat can rupture, to stabilize
and convert to calcifide plaque.
That takes time, effort, and youhave to understand the type of
plaque you have, where it is.
And then your physiology isuniquely yours, and therefore
(40:13):
you may have a disposition,genetic disposition in your
family, right?
So we take family in account,you we do blood tests um to
determine whether or not youhave a genetic disposition for
you know um converting umcholesterol into plaque, you
know, through the arterial walland all of that.
So we look at all that, right?
So wouldn't you say that's evenequally as important, or maybe
(40:38):
even more important,statistically speaking?
And the answer is always yes.
Absolutely.
I didn't know any of that.
They're like, of course it is,yes, okay, great.
Do you take insurance?
Nope.
Uh, we don't take it.
We unfortunately your insurancecompany won't cover it unless
you have your symptomatic.
And we can't tell you to saythat you're symptomatic, right?
(41:00):
And so, and most people aren't.
And so, you know, they eitherhave to lie to their general
practitioner and say, I haveheart pain or I have something,
right?
Um, in order to go see acardiologist, but then they're
gonna they're gonna end up witha cardiologist who's ideally, or
not ideally, who is most likelya cardiologist who is not doing
(41:23):
the advanced systems that we'redoing, doesn't understand yet
what's available to them.
And their first diagnosis islet's get you on a treadmill,
let's do a stress test, let's doyour calcium score, CAC score,
let's, and then let's get you into do a heart catheterization.
Right?
That's their path.
That's the path they've beenfollowing forever.
So the conversation to yourquestion is it's a challenging
(41:48):
one.
It's one of education.
Um, and it's just telling themwhat's available to them.
And then, if assuming they canget out of their mindset that
the insurance companies havetheir best interests at heart
and that they're going to coverthem, and then they have to come
out of pocket for it, right?
We've worked really hard to getthe prices and pricing down as
low as we can get it and stillbe in business because we can't
(42:10):
run a business.
And this will go towards thepart of this podcast where we
talk about how important thebusiness is in order to sustain
the technology to be able to getthis to the masses.
Um, but uh, you know, they theyhave to prioritize where they
spend their money.
I mean, people walk around witha$2,000 phone, okay?
(42:31):
Our program isn't much more thanthat, maybe a little bit more,
right?
Yeah.
But it's a phone, right?
The phone's important, butphone's not going to save your
life.
unknown (42:41):
Okay.
Dr Andrew Greenland (42:42):
So I guess you what you do at Claire
Cardio, you're you'rechallenging healthcare, you're
challenging the status quo,you're asking healthcare to
think differently.
What sort of resistance have youhad?
And how do you respond whenpeople challenge what you do?
SPEAKER_01 (42:54):
That's a great question.
You got some great questions.
Um you know, a lot of timeswe'll we'll put in the effort.
Um we don't get a lot ofchallenging from from potential
patients or patients.
Once patients see it, you know,I'm a believer that when you
(43:15):
hear the truth, you know thetruth.
Like when you hear it, you go,uh, yep, that that makes, yep,
that's true.
Um, and you can't argue withfacts and truth.
And and that's what we do.
We we bombard people with factsand truth.
We prove we we prove it to you,right?
We're not just, you know, it'snot just, hey, let's take some
medications and trust me.
(43:36):
Uh, we can show you, because wecan we can do these things, you
know, again.
And then we show you the imageshere's where your plaque was,
here's where it is today, youknow, da da da.
And we monitor you as we goforward.
So it's a proof program, um,proving that that we're we're
treating the disease.
Um but when we're talking toinsurance companies uh uh on a
(43:58):
day to day basis, um Um whichisn't something that most of my
team does because again we don'tinterfa interface with the
insurance companies.
Um but when I'm havingconversations at uh events or um
you know, when I'm doing apodcast, things like that, the
(44:18):
it's all about again, justtalking about the facts and and
and the underlying uh like howdoes this benefit you?
You know, my father used to tellme you'll never be successful in
business unless the ecosystemthat is that you require to be
to have that business besuccessful, your suppliers, your
(44:38):
things like that, unless theysee a vested interest and they
in in in what you're doing.
And so, you know, there's wetake that approach.
I take that approach.
I say, okay, how do they how canthey benefit from what we're
doing?
Um, lowering healthcare costs,right?
Um in the case of lifeinsurance, for example, that's
(45:00):
an insurance, right?
It's not medical insurance, butit's life insurance.
They are starting to wake up.
We're doing, we're having a lotof dialogues with some of the
biggest life insurance companiesout there.
And we're able to extend thelife in many cases, or at least
we're working towards extendingthe life of their policy
holders.
Um, and we can also provide themwith um with information um that
(45:25):
helps them make better decisionson underwriting.
Um, so they see the value there.
And and most of these lifeinsurance companies have a
division that does healthcare aswell.
Uh, and so we're we're we'rehoping and praying, I hate that
soft language, but that thatsomehow translates over across
(45:46):
the aisle in the offices, in thebuildings that they have and
saying, hey, no, there's realvalue in what they're doing.
Let's start covering some ofthis stuff.
Because the minute they startcovering some of this pre
preventive um medicine, what wedo, then we will start taking
insurance 100%.
Um, they're just not there yet.
But um, but as far as talking topatients, they when they hear
(46:06):
it, they go, Oh, I get it.
It's just an education process.
But when it comes to now,private equity firms, completely
different issue.
Private equity firms orinvestors um in companies that
do interventional cardiology donot like us at all because that
is their bread and butter.
They get$20,000 to$30,000 perheart calf.
(46:28):
They get, you know, three tofour hundred thousand dollars
for revascularization for openheart surgeries, stints and
balloons, add, you know, onto aif you do a heart cath and you
add a couple of stints, youknow, now you're talking about
close to 70 to 80,000,$90,000,right?
And then they're doing, youknow, one heart cath doctor, one
(46:49):
interventional cardiologist, isrequired if they're under the
private equity you know umbrellaof companies, a group, as it
were, or even a hospital group,um, they're required to do you
know as many as they can do aday.
So they're referring people tothe cath lab.
Well, you got a little thing.
Oh, it's I might as well just doa heart cat.
(47:09):
Might as well just do a heartcat.
And then if they see a 70%blockage, which they could be
asymptomatic, they could have noproblems, no, it could be all
calcified, there's no risk ofrupture, but they'll put a heart
cat, um, they'll put a stint orballoon in there, and then
they're on blood thinners for ayear and they're higher risk of
bleeding, it can cause a heartinfections, things like that.
(47:31):
But they're doing it becauseit's a business.
Unfortunately, it's a businessfor them.
Um, and so they don't like us.
So we're not having muchconversation with those folks.
Dr Andrew Greenland (47:44):
Got it.
Um, so turning now to more thesort of business side of the
operation at CleoCardio, and onething I really admire is it's um
Cleo Cardio has really stayedincredibly focused.
You know, rather than trying tobecome everything to everyone,
you've built the business aroundsolving one problem
exceptionally well.
What's your kind of philosophybehind that and in terms of you
know that decision and also howit's affected your growth?
SPEAKER_01 (48:05):
Yeah, yeah.
So, again, another goodquestion.
Um, and a fundamental question,um, and it's something that I've
I've learned over the years umby making mistakes, is that
you've got to specialize, you'vegot to be focused.
So, you know, when I firsteffectively stumbled onto Dr.
(48:26):
Osborne, and then I realizedthat you know, there was a huge
opportunity to save a lot oflives, myself included.
Um I said, okay, look, what arewe what are we going to do here?
Like, do we want to beeverything for everybody?
Like, like, because Dr.
Osborne has, he's an internist,he's a lipidologist, he's a PhD,
he's a this, like he's all ofthose things.
(48:47):
You know, do we want to?
I want to do this to help savelives.
Do we want to do you know, otherthings, pain management?
Do we want to do well?
And the answer was absolutelynot.
Because I learned over the yearsthat you know, find one thing
that you're really good at andown it and be the best in the
market at that.
Let everybody else who let themweren't worried about that other
(49:07):
stuff.
Um, so I said, you know, what isthis issue?
It's plaque.
Okay, what causes most heartattack?
Plaque.
So we don't we don't treatpeople per se, we we refer them
out if they have AFib and theyneed pacemakers and they need
all of those types of things.
That's not what we do.
That's a smaller percentage, orif five to ten percent.
(49:28):
And so we to people, there'sexperts out there, that's what
they do.
But I recognize that because nowwe can narrow down um our
ecosystem, it makes it simpler.
Our suppliers, our partners, thepeople that we depend on and
will depend on us um to besuccessful.
Um, and and we can we cannegotiate better because that's
(49:51):
what we do, um, and get thepricing down so we can make it
more available to more people.
Um so specialization iscritical.
I think you see that in law in alot of you know, in a lot of um
um industries or or um you knowthings that people do to make
(50:11):
money these days, right?
So doctors specialize.
Um, and a business should be nodifferent.
Um, because the minute you startto try to be everything for
everybody, you do nothing reallywell.
Um, and so we want to do this,we want to be the best in the
world at it and give the bestcare.
Dr Andrew Greenland (50:29):
So we'll also talk about um education and
marketing because that's a keypart of what you do.
And I think your colleaguementioned that around 95% of
your patients come throughYouTube, which is quite
remarkable.
Um, so how did that happen?
And what's your kind of take oneducation in terms of advancing
the business?
SPEAKER_01 (50:45):
Well, I didn't know it was 95%.
So you're talking you'rereferring to Sherry Thacker, who
is she's remarkable.
She's she is such a rock star,she's such a powerful lady, um,
and she's so engaged in clearcardio.
It's like her, she's made thisher life mission, and she's been
a health advocate her wholelife, written books.
Um, but I didn't realize it was95%.
(51:07):
I I knew it was, I know we didwe have an affiliate program,
which is really exciting, whereanybody, and we a lot of our
patients have become affiliatesum who make referrals and then
we give them discounts, or youknow, we we we give them um
incentives to bring patientsbecause we want to save lives.
Um we we do get some doctorreferrals as well.
(51:28):
Um we're a member of the privatephysician alliance.
Um so you know, I think we'rethe only preventive cardiology
program within that nationalprogram, which is scary that
we're the only ones doing this.
Um, but uh, but yes, you two.
One of the things that I I rightfrom the onset, um, especially
when I engaged, one of thereasons why I engaged with
(51:50):
Sherry three years ago now, um,because she's really good at
that stuff.
That she likes that's hermainstay.
Um, and so I knew right up frontthat our strategy was direct to
consumer.
I knew what that meant becauseI've done this before, um, which
means we have to be really,really good at social media.
(52:10):
We have to be really good.
Um, in fact, I invested in builtout and hired staff.
We have our own podcast studioum in our headquarters, which is
in Carrollton, Texas.
Um, and it's right next to theVIP lounge where we bring our
patients.
Um, and um, so we do podcastsall the time.
(52:30):
We do patients.
So I knew it was important toget on all social media outlets,
um, Instagram, things like that,and then put a message out there
because I also knew that goingdirect to consumer in this case,
because we don't have a lot ofdoctors who know what we're
doing, understand what we'redoing, or care what we're doing,
(52:52):
because they're not educated onit.
And they're they're so busy andso overworked, and they're
especially in the cardiovascularspace, they're doing balloon
stints, bypass surgeries, all ofthose things, you know, running
on treadmills, all that stuff,that they don't have time
necessarily to be, you know,thinking about and referring
patients to us.
Um, so I knew we were gonna haveto educate people directly.
(53:15):
That's a lot of work, that takesa lot of money.
Um, you know, when you'rebreaking ice for the first time,
and you're the one breaking theice, you know, people behind you
can just follow you, right?
It makes it easier.
They're not having to go upagainst the ice.
We're going up against the ice.
And so um what makes that easieris is is the educational
(53:36):
process.
So I knew that was reallyimportant in the beginning, um,
which is why we developed uh weuse so we use AI, and I know
everybody's using that termthese days, right?
Um, but it's it's relevant inthis case, so I'll I'll bring it
up.
Not only do we use AI on thediagnosis, on the medical side
of the business, which iscritical, and it's
game-changing.
It is really game-changing, andit's going to change the
(53:57):
industry forever.
Um, and we I could talk forhours about that, but we also
use AI on the front end of thebusiness, which is the funnel.
And we develop these incrediblemachine learning tools, um, AI
tools, um, and funnels.
Uh, we use programs like Go HighLevel to develop all of this to
allow for um automation um andto learn from itself to get
(54:23):
better.
Because the better we off we areat that, the more lives we can
save.
Um, and and in order to savelives, we've got to educate
people, we've got to get topeople, we've got to educate
them, we've got to build trust,uh, authority in the market, and
then enough, and then provide,make it easy for them to pick up
the phone, right?
Uh or get on the computer andset up.
(54:45):
We've got to make it easy forthem.
And you know, we take that veryseriously.
It is our mission.
You know, we say your heart isour mission, it is absolutely
critical.
So if we fail at that, we failat our business, not just from a
monetary perspective, right?
That's that's the effect.
The money comes when you do agood job of taking care of the
patient, of educating thepatient and taking care of the
(55:06):
patient and and and showingthem, proving to them that what
we're doing is is improvingtheir lives.
Okay.
Then the money will come becausepeople will see the value.
So I knew it from the beginning.
Sherry's the one that reallydoes all the education on that
side of things.
I just support her, but that wascritical, knowing right up front
that we needed to communicatedirectly to the to the to the
(55:28):
potential patients um until weget to the point, and forever,
but until we get to the pointwhere we have enough traction
where patients are actuallyadvocating on our behalf, which
is what's happening now throughthe affiliate program and so on.
Dr Andrew Greenland (55:41):
So turning to the future, where would you
like to be in you know 12months' time with clear cardio?
Any plans on the horizon?
Where are you looking to kind ofum go with the business and the
clinic?
SPEAKER_01 (55:54):
On a beach in Cabo with a hundred of my patients
and my entire staff celebratingour our our you know, our
10,000th patient.
Right?
Because you've got to celebrate,you know, um, otherwise you just
like hit your head against thewall because it's hard.
This is a hard business to bein.
You know, um, it's a hardbusiness.
(56:16):
Uh, you've got doctors you'redealing with, you've got you've
got um malpractices insurance,you've got lawyers up the yin
yang protection, and you've gotyou're dealing with people that
are sick or worried well, um,and you you know, you know,
they're trusting you, so you'vegot to be responsive.
You've got call centers, you'vegot AI, you've got medications,
(56:38):
and you're dealing with, I mean,there's so it's such a complex
business.
Um, that you've got to, you'vegot to, you know, celebrate the
wins.
So one year from now, I'd liketo be celebrating, you know, um
10,000 patients have gonethrough the clear cardio program
or are going through the clearcardio program.
I'd like to be celebrating ournext office opening.
(57:00):
We have an office.
Um, we have three offices now,one in Miami Beach, one in uh
Manhattan on Park Avenue.
Um, one our headquarters inDallas and Carrollton.
Uh, we're opening one up inScottsdale by the end of
September.
Um, so we'll have fourlocations.
My goal is and within 12 monthsto be uh in California, two
(57:20):
locations in California, anotherlocation to be determined.
So I'd like to have seven oreight locations by the end of
next year.
That'll allow us to be able tomeet, you know, those see as
many patients as we can.
Um, because you have to dial youknow your ad spend on the social
media stuff.
You got to dial it right so youdon't sell yourself out of
business.
Because the minute you yourquality of service drops, well
(57:44):
then, you know, one bad reviewand and and trustpilot, like you
know, we have five star, we havehundreds of patients and
hundreds of of reviews on trustpilot, all five star.
You have one one star, and itdrops you down to like 4.8.
I think we're at a 4.8 becauseearlier on, I think we one
patient was having some issues,internal family issues, and took
(58:08):
it out on us.
It happens.
Um, but you know, all of thosethings that matter.
But in 12 months, I want to bein in additional locations so
that we can cover more people,more patients, and support them.
I want to be celebrating thosenew patients.
Um, and uh, you know, obviouslyI would like I want I want um I
(58:31):
would I I think I'm this I'm thelarge I'm the sole investor in
the company, so I put a lot ofput millions of dollars into
this business to get it to whereit is today.
I'm gonna continue to put moneyinto it um as we expand, right?
And the money that we do make,we reinvest back into the
business, uh, and ideally to getcosts down as much as we can.
(58:52):
But that's where I'd like to bein 12 months, celebrating
somewhere with with patients andstaff on on the advancement of
pericardio in the United States.
Dr Andrew Greenland (59:02):
Amazing.
Finally, if we were having thisconversation in 10 years from
now, what would you hope hadchanged?
SPEAKER_01 (59:10):
Yes, so I'm we are gonna get there.
So um it's I want preventivecardiology, I want prevention
and awareness.
It the number one killer of allhuman beings on the earth.
I want it to be an everydayconversation about plaque.
(59:33):
I the same way you talk aboutthe colonoscopy and and making
sure that people aren'tcontracting and dying from colon
cancer.
I want I or for breast cancerfor that.
I mean, there's so muchadvocation for breast cancer,
and I I there should be, um,because it's it's it's a
devastating disease and itaffects a lot of women and men,
(59:55):
by the way, men die about breastcancer too.
Um however, it is a segment ofcancer.
Um and we we will we will in 10years have that level of
education, awareness, proactiveapproach towards the number one
(01:00:17):
killer of all people on theplanet today, right today.
Um, and and I want to see thatnumber decrease.
Dr Andrew Greenland (01:00:26):
What a great point to end on.
What a fantastic mission.
JD, it's been an enormouspleasure.
Thank you so much.
What I love about today'sconversation is that although
we've talked about technologyand AI, the underlying message
is really about changinghealthcare from reacting to
disease to preventing italtogether.
So thank you very much forsharing not only the vision
behind ClearCommodio, but alsothe realities of building and
leading a healthcare companythat's really challenging
(01:00:48):
existing thinking.
I think um listeners,clinicians, health and
entrepreneurs are going to takea great deal away from this um
session.
So thank you very much forjoining me.
It's been absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:59):
It is my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
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