Revolutionizing Preventative Healthcare: The Future of Whole-Body MRI and AI with Andrew Lacey

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What if you could proactively manage your health before symptoms arise? Join us for a groundbreaking conversation with Andrew Lacey, CEO and founder of Prenuvo, as he reveals how whole-body MRI imaging is revolutionizing preventative healthcare. Inspired by a transformative personal health scan, Andrew transitioned from serial entrepreneurship to pioneering a new era in health assessments. Discover the challenges and victories Prenuvo faced during its expansion amidst the pandemic and how it provided an essential alternative when traditional healthcare was constrained.

Tackling skepticism head-on, we explore the resistance and eventual acceptance of whole-body screening within the medical community. By drawing parallels to the evolution of mobile phone usage, Andrew envisions a future where MRIs are embraced as a preventative tool, potentially covered by insurance. This discussion highlights the critical need for early detection in reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes, especially as healthcare expenses soar and populations age.

Artificial intelligence is at the forefront of this healthcare transformation, particularly in radiology. AI's ability to enhance diagnostic accuracy and track subtle changes in organ health is changing the doctor-patient dynamic, positioning physicians more as health coaches. Patients, especially those middle-aged, are increasingly seeking proactive health measures, utilizing tools like Prenuvo's scans to empower themselves on their health journeys. Tune in to uncover how AI and innovative imaging are shaping the future of personalized, preventative healthcare.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, everyone, welcome to another episode of
the Dari Hammer podcast.
Today, my guest is no otherthan Andrew Lacey, who is a CEO
and founder of Prenuvo, thecompany pioneering proactive
whole body MRI imaging to detectcancer and other diseases early

(00:20):
MRI imaging to detect cancerand other diseases early.
Under Lacey's leadership, thecompany has expanded across
North America and, as a matterof fact, we have one Prunuva
Center here, close to where I amhere in Bethesda, Maryland,

(00:46):
Establishing Prunuva as arecognized and trusted proactive
healthcare service for patientsand referring clinicians.
Lacey is a seasonedentrepreneur with extensive
experience taking transformativeproducts from conception to
scale.
His notable achievementsinclude playing an influential

(01:07):
role in developing the iPhoneapps ecosystem as a co-founder
of Tapalus I hope I pronounce itright which was later acquired
by the Walt Disney Company.
In addition to hisentrepreneurial pursuits, Lacey
has held key leadershipconsulting, strategic, financial
and product roles acrossinternational companies,
including McKinsey and the WaltDisney Company.
In addition to his work atPranuvo, Lacey is an advisor and

(01:29):
investor across diverseportfolios and startups.
And welcome on to my podcast,Andrew, and it seems to me that
I would describe you as a serialentrepreneur, angel investor,
health promoter.
What do you see yourself as?

(01:51):
What would you call yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, it's funny.
Absolutely I'm a serialentrepreneur, although I think
these days, unfortunately, theway that serial entrepreneurs
treat their bodies and you knowthe way that serial
entrepreneurs treat their bodiesthat also means I'm sort of a
serial.
I guess like sort of had aserial life of like poor diet,
poor exercise, too much stress,not enough sleep.

(02:17):
But I've been doing nowbuilding companies for the last
20 or 30 years, so that's aboutall I'm qualified to do.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
How's that working with trying you know you're
trying to promote health ofothers.
How are you promoting your ownhealth?
How does that work?
You know you have so many ironsin the fire.
You have so manyresponsibilities, one of which
the main one is promoting healthand helping people with their

(02:46):
health span and their longevityusing MRI imaging, which we're
going to talk about in thispodcast.
But you know, what are thethings that you're doing for
your own health, consideringthis busy lifestyle?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, I would say, you know, that's really how I
got started with Prenuvo was Ihad one of those moments where
you sort of look in the mirrorand you say, holy cow, you know,
I'm not the 25 year old that Iremember myself to be and I'm
working so hard to build abetter future.
You know, how do I even knowI'm going to be around for that
future?
And so that sent me off on ajourney to sort of learn more

(03:25):
about my health.
And I found a gentleman who wasdoing an earlier version of a
prenuvo scan up in Canada, andso I took a trip up there and
got one of these scans and youknow what?
It was such a fascinatingexperience.
It was the first time I reallylooked at every someone, looked

(03:47):
at every single organ in my body.
I could give me sort of acomplete accounting of.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Is that how everything started?
Is that where the idea camewith for Pranuvo, or was?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
it, yeah, yeah.
No, it came from having thisexperience myself, and the
experience really taught me afew things.
Having this experience myself,and the experience really taught
me a few things.
Um, thankfully I wasn't sort ofI wasn't dying of any sort of
serious underlying medicalcondition.
That was great, but I had thistremendous peace of mind, and

(04:18):
that peace of mind was justsomething that's so hard to
explain to other people thathaven't gone through it, because
I think for most of us, wealways have this voice inside
our head.
You know, whenever we have anache or a pain or we think about
our lifestyle and we we have alittle bit of concern, or if
it's not inside our head, it's,you know, our mother or our
father.
They're telling us to look at,look out for ourselves better,

(04:40):
and it just felt incredible tohave that kind of clarity and it
enabled me to approach life ina totally different way.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
And.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I came back and a month later I'm like well, that
was such a nice feeling.
How can I live the rest of mylife feeling that way?
And so that was really thegenesis of the decision to find
ways to bring these scans to asmany people as possible.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
How long ago was that ?
That was five and a half yearsago.
Five and a half years ago, soright before the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Correct, right, we have in the second clinic.
Uh, right, I guess six monthsinto the pandemic interesting.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
How was that experience?
You know you have this greatidea and now the pandemic hits
with.
You know I'm sure there isconstruction involved.
I'm sure there is like a lot ofthings involved.
How, how did that affect um the?
You know, building the companyand then building all these

(05:39):
centers?

Speaker 2 (05:41):
well, it was interesting.
We managed to stay open thewhole time through the um,
through the pandemic, and whathappened during that period was
a lot of hospitals and medicalpractices stopped doing
preventative.
Yes, yeah so people weren'tgetting mammograms, people
weren't getting colonoscopies.
There were people who had hadcancer that was in remission but

(06:02):
they weren't getting checked upon, and so we became known as a
place where people could go tomake sure that they didn't fall
behind on that.
And to my knowledge, we never Imean like any business.
From time to time we had peoplethat had COVID, but everyone
was wearing masks and we neverreally identified any risks that
we sort of brought to thepatients that came in and, on
the contrary, we were able tohelp people stay on top of their

(06:23):
health during.
So any risks that we sort ofbrought to the patients that
came in.
And, on the contrary, we wereable to help people stay on top
of their health during thisreally troubling two or three
years.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, I think for the audience I want to describe
what your company actually does,so I can speak from personal
experience.
And it's interesting.
When I found out about Prannuvo, it was really exciting for me
personally because a yearpreceding that in my head, I was

(06:53):
in my health journey and mylongevity and health span
journey, trying to just get myown health and my own life
really on track because fordecades I'd been neglecting it
not in an abusive way, just notthinking about it, not being
proactive and consciouslythinking about it and I always

(07:13):
thought I have a healthylifestyle, I always exercised, I
never overate, I never ate junkfood, everything was in
moderation.
Now I know how much more Icould have done, which I'm doing
today, but it was during a timewhere I had heard about it

(07:34):
sounded like futuristic.
I had heard about full bodyMRIs but I had no clue where to
go.
You know, I didn't know of anycenters that existed and I had
just heard of it and I thoughtit's an amazing idea, almost
like utopian, futuristic sciencefiction movie, where you see

(07:55):
they put someone in a tube andAI analyzes the entire body and
tells them exactly what's wrongand then put something on the
injury and then it heals withintwo seconds.
In front of you I did that typeof futuristic science fiction,
so it sounded like that to me,but I remember the feeling I had
about it.
I said that would be amazing ifI could just get a full body

(08:16):
MRI and see everything that'swrong or not wrong with my body.
At least I know what to do, Ihave something to use, I have a
visual guide that tells me abouteverything that's going on in
my body where I can plan and beproactive about how to not just

(08:38):
prevent disease but also undosome of the damages that have
occurred as a result of mylifestyle genetics.
And then I stumbled upon Prenuvoand I remember when everything
was so seamless that I wasshocked that it's something that

(08:58):
not everybody knows about, andI hope that people, and mainly
physicians and healthcareproviders, will understand the
value of it.
So tell me a lot, a little bit,about what your experience has
been introducing this idea, thisconcept, not just to the
consumer, because I believe theconsumer is ready.

(09:18):
I know as a fact the consumerwants it, because I have people
asking me about it.
Everybody is on this health andhealth span and increasing
their lifespan journey, at leastin my demographics, but I see
it throughout the country.
But to me the interesting partis the average healthcare

(09:42):
provider is still way behind,and it's very bizarre because
it's almost like they've beenbrainwashed by our system, that
they've been first taught andthen they've been practicing in
for decades, and now someonecomes and tells them the earth
is round and not flat andthey're fighting you.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Is it only me or has this been your experience
dealing with healthcareproviders?
Well, I think it's.
Yes, it's been our experience.
But it's also it'sunderstandable in the sense that
so the underlying technology weuse is MRI, and MRI actually
has been around for 30 years.
You know, the first MRIs cameout in the 80s.
In fact, in some of thehospitals out there they still
have the originals because it'stoo difficult to pull them out
and put a new one in.

(10:33):
And the field has advanced alot since then.
The image acquisition hasgotten faster, the image quality
has gotten better.
Faster, the image quality hasgotten better.
Um, there's increasingly ai thatsort of enables us to do more
with these machines than wasever possible, even maybe 10
years ago.
And a lot of physicians maybedon't fully appreciate that this

(10:55):
modality is a is not like anx-ray or a ct machine where, you
know, those are quantitativeimaging modalities.
Mri is a qualitative imagingmodalities.
So all of that the hardware andacquisition protocols and the
radiologist training and the AI,all these things just become
they're really importantdeterminants of how accurate the
scan is, sure, um, and so ittakes time for us to educate

(11:19):
folks, um physicians, about.
You know why it.
It is what we're doing inparticular.
You know is sort of differentand how you know what the
industry is doing more broadly,compared to sort of 30 years ago
and certainly compared to CTscreening, which was something

(11:39):
that a lot of physicians werefamiliar with 20 or 30 years ago
and that was not a greattechnology to be looking in the
entire body.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
So what are some of the things the cynics and the
doubters tell you?
It's shocking to me.
You come across publishedarticles trying to evaluate
whether taking a full body MRIwould be justified, based on
some meta-analysis of a bunch ofretrospective studies, just

(12:11):
trying to reason why it's anoverkill and completely
neglecting the fact that stageone and two cancer is treatable,
versus three and four is deadly.
And that's where I dropped themic.
But what are what are some ofthe things that you've heard
communicating with healthcareprovider, especially with the

(12:33):
cynics and the um, the, I wouldsay the old school ones?

Speaker 2 (12:38):
well, to give you an.
I mean, it's interesting thosemeta studies.
Most of them were evaluations ofstudies that were done using a
particular technique on mricalled dixon and it used to take
maybe 15 minutes and it was afast protocol to see the entire
body and but it, you know it wasfast.
Just because it fast didn'tmean it was particularly
accurate.

(12:58):
Um, our protocol is now 45minutes and we spend one minute
doing a Dixon.
So that's sort of 2% of what wedo is the part of the exam that
all of those meta studies werebased on, and obviously we're
collecting a lot more imagesbeyond that and folks just don't
really understand this.

(13:18):
Whenever a physician speaks outagainst whole body screening,
the first thing I do is I reachout for them and ask them hey,
why don't you come in and see itfor yourself?
Why not experience it?
Speak to my, one of myradiologists.
You know, let's have a dialoguehere.
If you still feel the same wayafter you've gone through that

(13:39):
process, you know, god bless you.
You know, keep fighting thefight against, against whole
body screening.
But unfortunately no one'sreally taken us up on that offer
.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Why do you think that is?
It's very bizarre to me.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean, the only real conclusion one can draw is that
it's sort of a dogmaticapproach that's not based in
evidence.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
How so?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
I mean the evidence would be the results of the
image no, I know, I agree, but Iguess the stance that some of
these folks are taking is adogmatic stance, you know, and
if they were truly interestedand open to learning about these
techniques and they would havetaken us up on those offers it's
very, very strange.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
You would think I'm a health care provider.
You would think I always thinkpeople think like I do and it's
confusing to me when they don't.
And so when you're a healthcareprovider, as someone that
should be promoting health,should be preventing disease or
trying to be ahead of diseasethat one tool you have to be

(14:48):
able to look into one's bodybetter than any other tool you
wouldn't want to look into it.
It's very strange.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Well, and it's even worse than that because it's not
like our health system is on aparticularly good trajectory,
you know, and with agingpopulation and health costs
going up, I mean, uh, you know,the health system is projected
to cost three times more in 15years.
I mean, who's going to pay forthat?
The government won't be able to.
I'm not sure employers aregoing to be able to.

(15:18):
Um so, so, so.
So either the consumers will bepaying or we will be rationing
care, and I don't think eitherof those are great outcomes.
So now really is a time forpeople to have a certain level
of curiosity about differentapproaches to health care, and
that's really what we're tryingto do at Prunivo, and, you know,
that's why we're excitedwhenever we can get physicians

(15:41):
in to really help themunderstand how these protocols
can change the way they practicemedicine.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Have you been able to convert some of the doubters in
Cynic and where they said, wow,I was not aware, I'm glad I did
it.
Do you have any stories?

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Oh yeah, I mean in fact, even when we speak to
investors, I say kind of one ofthe most interesting things
about this company, and almostany transformative company
shares this characteristic whichis, you know, before people
really understand and experienceit, most of them are skeptical.
And when they experience it,then they become believers.
You know, that was true forAirbnb, that was true for Uber,

(16:20):
you know, and I think that'strue for us, because 80% of
physicians are skeptical, youknow.
Know, when they hear about us,um, if they come and experience
that over 80 refer us patientsroutinely so it's a complete
mindset shift and uh, and thatsort of information asymmetry, I
think is in some ways gives mea lot of faith that you know

(16:41):
we're on the right track hereand you know we're transforming
health care.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
I think you have a lot of uh, that you know we're
on the right track here and youknow we're transforming
healthcare.
I think you have a lot ofperspective in that regards.
I've read about when you weretrying to develop apps for the
iPhone, when people were stillusing and hard set on their
Blackberries and Nokia phonesand you know, probably they were
making fun of you about 20years ago.

(17:06):
Think you know, and look at usnow I mean there's an app for
everything.
And tell us a little bit aboutthat perspective and how are you
utilizing that perspectivegoing into other businesses as
well as Prenuvo?

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, well, there's just a lot of.
You know, I believe thatanalogy is sometimes the best.
Uh, teacher and I often talkabout mobile phones as sort of
an analogy for mris.
They have been around for 30years as well, and it was only
when apple said, hey, you know,we want to have a touch screen
and we want to make this thing,you know, behave in a different
way, have a different ui, all ofa sudden it unlocked this

(17:44):
entire different use case for aphone, and now people buy phones
not to make phone calls.
They buy phones to doeverything else.
And today the market for MRIsis 99% diagnostic.
You have a problem already andwe use these machines to better
characterize that problem.
I believe the future market forMRI machines is going to be 99%

(18:06):
screening asymptomatic patients, you know, and that use case is
going to, you know, it willtake over this industry and it's
only a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
What's your prediction?

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Well, it took.
It's so hard to imagine.
Um, that mobile company that westarted.
We started in 2009 and you knowso we're 15 years.
15 years ago, we didn't usephones for anything other than
making phone calls.
So I mean, it's been atremendous change in a
relatively short period of time,and medicine is not known for

(18:43):
moving things along very fast.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Not at all.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
But I think in 10, 15 years time everyone's going to
be getting these.
I hope they're covered byinsurance.
And I'll tell you what.
If that was the case, ourhealth system would be much less
expensive than it is today,because much of what's driving
those costs is reactive medicineprevent late detection of

(19:07):
cancers in specific or otherchronic disease, whether it's
neurodegenerative disease,whether it's cardiac, whether

(19:31):
it's GI, anywhere in your body.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
You know, that's where I see, as a clinician, the
value.
Even as a patient for myself, Isee the value.
I want to know things when theystart happening at a cellular
level, using blood biomarkersand visually using MRI, which is
the greatest detail, beforeeven clinical symptoms occur.

(19:58):
I mean, ideally, that's whywe're doing it and technology
allows us to do it that way.
And so now the question is whywouldn't you do it?
So I think me and you bothagree on that and there's we
don't even have to debate thatand any anyone that wants to
debate me, I would gladly invitethem because I would I yet have

(20:20):
to hear an argument against it.
The the question here is Idon't understand.
I guess I don't understand howthat would fit into the
insurance model and correct meif I'm wrong.
From my view, insurance modelis based the way they're

(20:41):
profitable Because, especially alot of insurance companies,
they own actually the pharmacies.
For example, aetna owns CVS, sothey have a whole system, a
whole model that grows and makesmoney based on.
It's a recurring thing, sopeople get sick, they are in

(21:04):
need of prescription medication,and the longer we can keep
those patients alive onmedication, the more profitable
it is for the insurancecompanies.
And the pharmacies not want topromote health because they're
paying out a lot for our healthcare, of our sick care, when

(21:29):
we're sick.
Insurance companies make money,right, well, yes.
However, if no one gets sick,really if no one gets chronic
disease, insurance is going toeventually become less
attractive.
Because the attractive?
Because the reason why peopleget insurance is not because
they constantly get sick.
It's because they're afraid ofgetting sick and not being able

(21:54):
to afford their health care ortheir sick care, and so,
therefore, they buy insurance.
The same thing with lifeinsurance, the same thing with
car insurance.
If I know I never get in anaccident, why would I get car
insurance?
I'm not going to pay for carinsurance if someone told me
you're never going to get in anaccident or you're going to
drive this car and the car youcan hit anything, the car is not

(22:15):
going to break down, is notgoing to get damaged, so why
would I get car insurance?
So, for insurance companies,how is that attractive if we
prevent chronic disease or makethe disease processes shorter,
by not having someone onchemotherapy for five years, or

(22:35):
someone being in the ICU for ayear and then being in some home
health center for 10 years, for10 years?
How does that, how do you seeprenuva something being
proactive be attractive for aninsurance company?
and why would insurancecompanies cover it, not that
they have to, but I'm justputting that question out there.
Have you thought about it?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, I think I mean,
first of all I you know thereare a lot of well-intentioned
people in health care, in allparts of it.
So despite all of the bestintentions, the system seems to
not work really in a veryoptimal way for the patient and
I think you know we need to lookat that.
But I would say, as it relatesto preventative health and

(23:18):
screening, most of the advanceshave come through governments
legislating that insurancecompanies have to cover these
evaluations.
So you know, Obamacare made itsuch that every insurance plan
had to provide a certain levelof preventive health, including
mammograms and colonoscopies andso on.
Since then, a lot of stateshave legislated to provide

(23:42):
breast MRI for women that havedense breasts.
So a lot of it has comeactually from the state and
federal governments.
And so, you know, I wouldimagine, at some point in the
future, if there's politicalwill to really, you know, stand
behind the notion that we needmoonshots in healthcare, then I
think you know where thatimpetus is going to come from is

(24:02):
from governments to say youknow what you know, we see the
future of our current healthcaresystem Today, 10, 20 years down
the track.
We don't like what we see.
We need to try somethingfundamentally different, and so
we're going to ask that you,we're going to insist that you
mandate coverage for theseadditional preventive procedures
.
I think that's generally howchange would happen.

(24:23):
I 100% agree with you theseadditional preventive procedures
.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
I think that's generally how change would
happen I 100% agree with you, Ithink without the government
mandating the insurancecompanies.
And that's the other challenge,because there is a lot of
funding going on the other way.
So there is a lot of financialbias involved there too.
But it really requires anon-corrupt government, a
non-biased government,non-biased government,
non-financially biasedgovernment to have the power to

(24:48):
mandate and not to get temptedin taking funding from insurance
companies and pharmaceuticals.
Uh, you know in I don't thinkit's a secret anymore that
that's happening.
But it requires a real,independent government for that
to mandate.
And you know we'll see if thathappens.

(25:10):
You know we're going to have anew administration now, starting
in January, and with agovernment that is all about
promoting health and making ushealthier At least that's what
they claim.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
So we'll see how that will unfold well, I think
there's one other aspect to thiswhich is a little harder to
sort of get one's head around,which is sort of a moonshot
involves in some way likesuspension of disbelief, like
for me that's inherent in the,in the sort of definition of a
moonshot and I think, as ahealth case.
You know, if you go back 200years you had people selling

(25:46):
snake oil and there was no suchthing as a clinical trial.
And now we've got pretty goodat clinical trials and you know,
and that's saved a lot of lives.
But the method of running aclinical trial generally is most
easily applied against anincremental improvement to the
way that we do health.
So that could be a differentdrug.
You know drug, everyone's usingdrug.

(26:08):
A pharma company, you know,invents drug b.
We can run a trial to comparedrug b against drug a.
Drug b is better than that one.
You know, become that.
That's the winner.
That's the next blockbusterdrug.
And it's pretty easy becauseyou can sort of hold all of the
rest of the health care systemof static.
It behaves the way it hasalways behaved.
The challenge with preventativehealth is sort of everything is

(26:33):
downstream of perennial health.
If you imagine a world whereyou catch everything early, the
rest of the health systemwouldn't behave the way that it
behaves.
It would behave verydifferently, you know.
You would have a different setof clinical care pathways.
You maybe would have apharmaceutical industry that
would dust off drugs that hadfailed because they had tested
them against advanced diseaseand we would have a whole new

(26:55):
set of drugs that might helpsolve some of these intractable
health problems like dementia.
Because we can see it early.
The health insurance worldwould have to behave really
differently, and so it's reallydifficult to evaluate
fundamental changes to thehealthcare system because you
can't hold the healthcare systemstatic while you're sort of
evaluating them, and I think alot of the arguments against

(27:17):
whole body screening sort ofmake that mistake by saying well
, you know, if you findsomething early, there's going
to be a big cascade ofunnecessary testing, because
that's what we do in thehealthcare system.
Well, you know you shouldn'tyou shouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
How about?

Speaker 2 (27:33):
thinking about changing the way that you sort
of like manage disease?

Speaker 1 (27:37):
um, because that seems like a poor argument for
not looking for it in the firstplace, and I think that's one of
the from the studies that I'veread, that's one of the main
arguments.
I read many studies aboutaddressing the value and then
the downsides of taking afull-body MRI, which is, oh well

(27:59):
, a small discovery, will leadto a cascade of unnecessary
tests.
Yeah, but that's a healthcaresystem problem.
That's not the MRI problem.
That's a human behavior problem.
So the human behind it needs tobe educated, the system needs
to be changed.
But we can't use that as anargument why we shouldn't

(28:22):
discover cancer early.
It's such a bizarre argumentthat it has to do with dogma,
what you mentioned.
It also has to do with lack ofperspective.
You're so siloed, you're so inyour own closet that you can't

(28:47):
see what's around you.
It's almost like not that Ihope it for anyone, but I feel
every person needs to get atsome point in their life to get
some sort of not a health scare,but a health concern where the
mri solves it for them, in orderto buy into it, to be able to

(29:11):
get away from their old beliefsystem or whatever opinion they
have.
And it's also an echo chamberthing.
I talk to colleagues and we inmedicine have also echo chambers
and it's almost like politics.
There's so much politics thatexists in medicine.
There is so much opinion thatexists that people almost it's

(29:36):
almost as if their opinions arefacts and no one takes the
effort to actually do theirresearch.
They just take someone else'sword at face value, just because
they respect that person.
And and there's this amazingbook written by, uh, dr mark
mccary, who's actually going tobe the head of the FDA now.

(29:56):
He's an oncologic surgeon hereat Johns Hopkins, around the
corner from me, and he wrotethat book called Blind Spots how
Medicine Got it Wrong.
I don't know if you've read it,but he beautifully, you should
read that because he hits thenail on the head.
He literally describes why, um,science is something like we

(30:24):
call science, but then half ofthe science, several years down
the road, is debunked and andthen is is is basically 10 years
later.
You show how this certain studythat became a landmark study.
They spent, like in the case ofthe Women's Health Initiative
study about a hormonereplacement 20 years ago, which

(30:47):
was the most expensive studyover $2 billion.
It was the most expensive studythat was funded by the NIH that
falsely claimed that hormonereplacement therapy increases
the chance of breast cancer inwomen.
So a whole generation of womenlost out on the chance of

(31:09):
hormone replacement therapy andchanging their lives just
because of that study, which was10 years later completely
debunked and it was proven thatthe primary investigator was
heavily biased and none of theother there was like 20 other
investigators on the studyactually looked into it and just

(31:30):
took his word for it and gottheir name on the paper and it
became the Bible.
Until today you will findOBGYNs or endocrinologists
arguing that hormone replacementtherapy can cause breast cancer
.
It's shocking.
So I think, medical bias, eventhough we call it science,

(31:57):
unless you really look into the.
The devil is in the detail,unless you look into the details
and take the time to read thesearticles yourself and have the
ability to interpret itcorrectly and know where the
weaknesses and strengths are.
One of the things that youmentioned beautifully is these
MRI scans, which were the oldertechnology.

(32:19):
They were not as detailed.
Of course, they can't tell youwhat's on the image compared to
our current technology.
So another thing I want to talkabout is the different types of
MRIs.
I know some people argue thatthese MRIs aren't specific
enough.
For example, let's say you wantto evaluate someone's brain for

(32:44):
neurodegenerative disease, oryou want to evaluate the cardiac
vessels, or other vessels forthat matter.
What are the currentlimitations and what
technologies are out there thatwould solve those issues that
can us in greater detail what'swrong with it, give us a more
accurate diagnosis?

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, well, the starting point really is to say
you know what's your objectivefunction, what are you trying to
solve for and for us?
As a company, we wanted to havea scan that would be under an
hour.
You know 45 minutes to 50minutes that could be
diagnostically relevant for themost number of things that could
kill you or seemingly affectthe quality of your life.
So that's sort of ourphilosophy.

(33:28):
And you know the scans haveevolved.
You know, every couple ofmonths we update our protocols,
we add something here, we removesomething there, we introduce a
new sequence, but we're alwaystrying to make this optimization
work.
How do we get the best bang forour buck?
Because more than 50 minutespeople don't like being an MRI

(33:49):
machine.
I think mine took like 45minutes or so, yeah, so in fact,
speaking about old machines, ifyou go to some of the original
hospitals, you know the bigteaching hospitals.
They do whole body MRIs forcancer predisposition patients,
typically teenagers.

(34:10):
It takes three hours and theyneed general anesthetic, jesus.
So you know that's what theexisting machines in the
healthcare system are able to doand that's why, you know, being
able to do this in 45 minutesto 50 minutes was a game changer
for screening, but we're alwaysmaking these decisions.
So these scans are very goodfor picking up solid tumors.

(34:32):
They're very good at looking atthe brain.
They're good at looking foraneurysms we have a particular
sequence that is very good atlooking for hardness in the body
, and there are two things thatare hard cancer and also
inflammation.
So it's good at picking out,for example, digestive issues or
RA or RA.

(35:03):
Where we're not so good as adedicated scan would be the
heart, mainly because it justtakes so long to image the heart
.
We haven't figured out how tostop it beating while you're in
the machine.
So that's one area where mostpeople, if they had specific
heart concerns, we wouldrecommend that they also go and
get a CT angiogram or a calciumscore.
And then the joints probably isthe other area where we look at
them sort of superficially.

(35:25):
But if people have a particularproblem with a joint, it's
going to be easy and inexpensiveto go get a dedicated set of
imaging of that joint itselfwhat's the difference between
that dedicated image and yourimage, which covers the whole
body?

Speaker 1 (35:42):
is it just like a software thing?
Is it a time factor?
What is it specifically?

Speaker 2 (35:48):
well, most of the images that we take are at
diagnostic quality levels, sothere really isn't any
difference.
When we take the images of yourbrain, they're equivalent to
what you might get from adiagnostic MRI of simply the
brain.
The main, I would say,difference is that we don't use
contrast, and contrast with MRIis this heavy metal that gets

(36:09):
injected into blood so that wecan visualize better the blood
vessels, and that's particularlyuseful for looking for cancer
better the blood vessels, andthat's particularly useful for
looking for cancer, um, uh.
We instead rely on hardness,that the idea that tumors are
always harder than thesurrounding tissue.
That's why women are told tofeel their breasts for lumps.
Not every lump is a cancer, butevery cancer is a lump, um, and

(36:32):
so we use hardness as a way toscreen, and then every so often
we find something that we can'tfully characterize and we send
the patient to do contrastimaging.
But we don't want to beinjecting something, a heavy
metal, in a person's bloodstreamif they don't need it,
particularly if they're gettingscreened every year.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
How about the brain?
How about the functional MRI ofthe brain, using like the
subtraction mri?
Are you able, are you guys able, to do that?

Speaker 2 (37:03):
we're doing a lot of experimentation, so our brain
scans are going to evolveactually in 2025 how so right?
now mainly to get morefunctional uh, information about
.
You know how the brain is aging, so looking at perfusion in the
brain, trying to get a sense ofthe patency of the neural
tracks as well, and writing asequence called SWI, which is

(37:28):
particularly helpful for peoplethat might have had traumatic
brain injury.
So we're experimenting andlooking at all these and we'll
make some changes in the future.
What we're doing right now is,um, we do on every patient a
sequence that is typically onlydone on alzheimer's patients,
and this is a very, verydetailed quantitative brain scan
that enables us to measure thebrain volume of different parts

(37:50):
of the brain.
Now, if you come in for onescan, that doesn't tell us too
much about your brain health,because everyone's brain is
unique.
Sure.
Some people have big brains,some people have small brains,
and how smart they are is sortof not necessarily highly
correlated with the size of thebrain, right, but what we care
about is how that brain volumeis changing over time.

(38:10):
And once you hit your 40s, onaverage, your brain is going to
shrink around 3% per decade.
Hit your 40s on average, yourbrain is going to shrink around
three percent per decade.
And so with two or more pointsin time we can start to help you
understand.
How is your brain changing asyou age?
Are you able to maintain brainvolume?
Is it shrinking at anaccelerated rate?
And these all become reallyearly indicators of

(38:32):
neurodegenerative process,ideally at a point where you can
still just make lifestylemodification and sort of arrest
the progression of that disease.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
I would hope someone thinks about making those
lifestyle changes before thatoccurs, right?
Because I mean, once your brainshrinks it's really hard to get
it back, even though there arestudies, especially of the
amygdala, showing that if youwalk like just a mile a day you
can increase the size of theamygdala and with that decrease

(39:05):
the chance of dementia or slowdown the progression of dementia
or alzheimer's well, thereality is there are
interventions but also we don'tknow because we aren't imaging
disease as early as we're ableto see it with prenuvo yeah so
you know, um, uh, take even sortof msk degeneration, so spinal

(39:27):
degeneration.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
You know I had a very , very mild uh disc bulge in my
cervical spine and this was likefive years ago and you know,
because I spent a lot of time infront of computers and
obviously a lot of time lookingat phones, and so I went and got
a treadmill desk and now I walkthree or four hours a day while
I'm working and five yearslater my spine, you know,

(39:52):
certainly hasn't got any worseand and, if anything, it looks a
little bit better.
And so I don't think we reallyeven know, you know, to what
extent we can not just stop buteven reverse some of these
conditions, because you know wealmost define the condition by
being at a chronic stage.
You know there's only chronickidney disease.
There's no early stage kidneydisease.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
It doesn't exist, there's's only dementia.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
There's no, like you, you know, uh, no sort of.
It's not defined as like thething that happens 20 years
earlier.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
That sort of sets you on that path yeah, I think for
me that's where I see the valuewith this, because a lot of us,
if we are confronted with anidea, with a hypothesis, like we
go to our doctor, they say,okay, you have high blood
pressure, for example, or youknow you got arthritis, you know
the common stuff where yoursugar is borderline high, it

(40:45):
seems like a very abstract thingfor someone to digest and, as a
result, hard to make a change.
Because I think a human brain,the way we, we work, you know,
uh, talking about the brain iswe don't believe things until we
see it.
It's almost like if we seesomething visually, it's more
compelling, more convincing tothen make a change because, um,

(41:09):
we might, even though we trustour doctor.
but you know, it has a differenteffect when someone just tells
you sounds almost like someoneis preaching, like you're
listening to a broken record andthen so you're less inclined or
you're less motivated to make achange and I think psychology

(41:30):
has a lot to do with it has thishuge value as an educational
tool, but also as a tool wherethe patient, for the first time,
can literally see forthemselves what's happening and
then having compelling enoughevidence to make lifestyle
changes or choices.
For example, let's say someoneis in denial about the fact that

(41:55):
they're becoming more forgetfuland is slowly creeping in
dementia and even their doctorsays ah no, this is normal, you
know, because maybe it'ssubclinical, it's normal You're
just getting older, but I don'tthink you have dementia.
So you're completely relying onthe doctor's ability to
diagnose based on clinical signsand symptoms.

(42:17):
And we all know there's almostthere's some number that 30% of
cancers get misdiagnosed,whether over-diagnosed or
under-diagnosed, and so you havebasically to depend on the
specific physician's ability todiagnose based on clinical signs
and symptoms.
Specific physician's ability todiagnose based on clinical

(42:38):
signs and symptoms.
Now you have an MRI that youtook five years ago and now
you're taking it and you canactually show quantitatively
that it shrunk by 3%.
So now you have evidence.
You're like well, wait a second, maybe the patient is not
imagining that they're forgetfulor they have short-term memory
loss, and because this is prettycongruent with what we can

(43:00):
follow from the MRI.
And I think it's different whena patient sees that and then
believes it, and then feelscompelled enough to say you know
what, maybe I should go out ona walk every day, maybe I should
stop eating sugar, maybe Ishould exercise more, maybe I
should hydrate better, maybe Ishould, you know, take certain

(43:23):
supplements that help that.
All these lifestyle changes nowhave a better, I guess, chance
to succeed and then improve thepatient, and I think that's
where I see the power.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Well.
But I would go even further andsay you know, the sort of good
and bad of our bodies and theorgans inside them is that
there's all this plasticity, soyou can actually do a lot of
damage to an organ and the organstill behaves normally until it
sort of hits a tipping point.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
True.
And so you know there's a lotthat's going on when you're
still pre-symptomatic.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Um, a good example of the brain is you know, we can
start see small vessel ischemicchange and and you, you are as
high functioning as you've everbeen.
You know the I don't know whatthe brain does.
It sort of reroutes the neurons, but like there's brain tissue
that's dying there, yeah, andit's just a matter of time.
Yeah, it's just a matter of time.
And I do agree with you.

(44:21):
That sort of a picture is soimportant.
You know, in in europe, on thecigarette packets they have
these pictures of these horriblydiseased lungs.
You know, I don't know whyanyone would smoke when you see
those pictures it actuallyworked.
You know, there's studies thatshow that it actually worked
well, we show people I mean,I've shown smokers, you know,
okay, here's, see all this likewhite in your lungs here, this

(44:42):
is inflammation.
So in the apex of your lungsand, by the way, this is where
lung cancer likes to start, um,you know.
So put that on your fridge, youknow, next time you try and
quit, and you know, see how that.
Or you know, we can show peoplethat little white matter
lesions that a patient might getin their brain from high blood
pressure.
It's like next time you thinkof high blood pressure as an
abstract thing and you ask, ask,why should I take my medication

(45:05):
?
Well, this is why, um, so thepicture is so powerful for you
know, for as a catalyst forchange there is.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
I'm glad you mentioned the cigarette thing.
There's nothing more powerfulthan visual tool and I think one
of the success stories inreducing the number of smokers
was those pictures and evenwriting that, just reminding
people that it can cause cancer.
And that movement really wassignificant.
But it was like you said, itwas mandated by the government

(45:35):
and without the government itwouldn't have happened.
And I was joking with acolleague of mine the other day.
I said they should put thesesame images on a cereal box or
on all these prepackaged junkfoods or you know, a picture of
your gut, a picture of yourbrain, a picture of your heart

(45:58):
or fatty liver.
They should put pictures ofthat and that would probably
change human behavior.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Well, although it does sort of you know, I have
European friends that stillsmoke, so it does it also
highlights just how importantpsychology is in sort of
proactive health and preventivemedicine, because you know my
friends will look at thatpicture and say those aren't my
lungs, my lungs are fine.
That's denial, I mean you knowthey'll, they'll, they'll even

(46:28):
hear about these scans.
I mean the number of people Irun to and say, oh, that's
incredible what you guys aredoing.
I'll have to do it one day.
I need to get around to doingit.
Or I don't want to know.
It's great what you're doing,it's fantastic You're saving
lives, but I don't want to know.
So there's psychology here andyou say it's denial, but in some
ways we think of that as beingthe sort of like a weakness of

(46:53):
the individual.
I don't believe it is.
I believe that we, aconsequence of the sick care
system that we have, means thatdisease is only ever diagnosed
at an advanced stage.
And if the only you know so, wehave now been conditioned to
believe that being diagnosedwith anything is a scary,

(47:14):
horrible, life-changing thing.
Why on earth would you want togo and look for something like
that?
And that's where I feel likethe psychology is so important,
because you know, we've beenconditioned.
I still get a little nervouswhen I do a scan.
I've done five of them.
It's that deeply, you know.
I speak every day about thisand I still get a little nervous

(47:36):
because I am a product of thatsystem as well.
I grew up around people thatwere diagnosed with advanced
cancer and so on.
My parents came from thatgeneration, the stoic generation
, where no one wanted to know.
Because, again, why would you?
It's horrible.
The psychological barrier is, II think, the most powerful one

(48:00):
to you know, for people toreally sort of like look after
their health and do what theyactually sort of, in their heart
of hearts, knows is right forthem yeah, I think you hit the
nail on the head.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
I think, um, I'm very certain actually I don't think
I'm very certain that it has todo with the fact that we're
conditioned that way, that ourhealthcare system conditioned.
It's the same reason when yougo to the dentist.
Every time, people hate to goto the dentist because every
time you go to the dentist, theyfind something and tell yep,
you need a filling here or youneed a crown there, or something

(48:30):
is broken there, and you dreadit.
You always dread it becauseyou're like as long as I don't
have pain, I guess everything'sfine.
So why would I bring on the badnews early and ruin my time, my
life and and that psychology?
I think that is humanconditioning and it's a

(48:51):
personality thing.
You know.
I could tell you, one of thelife-changing things I witnessed
wasn't actually my patient, wasa family member that had
complained of headaches and itwas back in Canada, in Vancouver

(49:12):
, and my wife said, like, yeah,my uncle is complaining of these
headaches.
What do you think he should do?
Like I don't know.
I mean, how old is he?
Like, what's his medicaldiagnosis?
Like, what other underlyingconditions does he have?

(49:33):
I mean, I just, there's so manythings.
I mean, what do you want me tosay?
It's like, yeah, so he hasthese, has had his headaches
that um just started in clustersand then now it's kind of like
permanent and they're piercing.
It's really debilitating.
I'm like well, uh, does he havelike migraines?
Is he ever diagnosed withmigraines?
I mean, he should probably needa.
He probably needs a brain mriif, if it's progressively

(49:57):
getting worse and nothing takescare of it.
This is well he has beentelling his doctor.
His doctor said well, you know,just um, insurance won't cover
it yet, so it has to.
A certain time has to pass withconsider they love this word
conservative measures beforethey can approve an m, and if
that doesn't work, then they'llapprove for an MRI.

(50:21):
And so a month passed and thesymptoms got really worse and
it's like he's really suffering.
I said, well, have him just goat an MRI center and just pay
out of pocket, just get afreaking MRI.
Like it's like 500 bucks forgetting a brain MRIs.
So he's like, yeah, that's agood idea.
So then he goes like well, whyshould I pay out of pocket if

(50:43):
it's covered by insurance?
You know we talk aboutconditioning.
That is another way ofconditioning is these insurance
companies.
They condition you, they giveyou this illusion that you know
if you pay out of pocket, youwasted your money, because why
else are you paying forinsurance?

(51:04):
And in the case of Canada, hewasn't even paying anything for
the insurance.
It was, you know, governmentinsurance.
He finally got an MRIprescribed, but he wouldn't be
able to get it immediately.
He had to wait nine months.
After nine months long storyshort he gets an MRI.
He had a brain tumor the sizeof a tennis ball.

(51:25):
Two weeks later he dies wow.
I know.
So that has always stuck withme and you know we all have a
holy shit moment, whether itaffects us personally.
Hopefully it won't affect uspersonally.
Hopefully we can learn thelesson from someone else's
mistake, which is tragic enough.

(51:46):
But it was always in the backof my head, and not that.
I live my life every daythinking what if I have a brain
tumor?
But the fact that I have thepeace of mind that I could
literally walk into a centerwithout asking my doctor or the
insurance company for permission, and to get an MRI scan and to

(52:09):
detect the brain tumor when it'sa size of a peanut instead of a
tennis ball, I know it would becurable, at least have a much
higher chance of cure.
And so, to me, this is where Iagain I drop my mic for anyone
that wants to argue with cure.
And so, to me, this is where Iagain I drop my mic for anyone
that wants to argue with me.
They want to say, oh, thechances, according to studies,

(52:32):
is less than 3% or just somearbitrary number.
I don't know the number, butit's pretty minimal.
Well, 3% or 1% out of 1000people or out of 100 people,
that's one person that you saveone life out of a hundred.
That's a lot.
There is 7.7 billion people inthis world.
You know how many billions oflives would you save with that,

(52:56):
or hundreds of millions?
How could you argue againstthat?
So the argument is just sobizarre that it doesn't even
make sense.
So I think the fact that yourcompany is able to provide that
direct to consumer, just likecompanies like Function Health
or Insight Tracker are able tobring biomarker testing to the

(53:17):
consumer without the need ofgetting a prescription from a
doctor to check 140 biomarkersand knowing exactly what your
levels are whether it is yourallergies, your DNA
predisposition from yourcholesterol, sugar, vitamin
levels, all of those things andthen what the next step in my

(53:40):
mind is is AI using to interpretall of that in within
milliseconds, without humanerror, without human opinion,
free of bias and opinion, whichis huge in medicine, like we
talked about where do you seethe power of ai?
Is it something your company istalking about?

(54:00):
Because I can only imagine youare creating this huge library
of images that you can feed anAI computer and you can help an
AI computer make this diagnosisthat a human eye couldn't make.
Is it something that you guysare.
I'm sure you guys are lookinginto it, aren't you?

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, no, we definitely, definitely are.
I mean the.
The theme really is what youtouched on around blood, for
example.
You know we get, let's say, yougo get a cholesterol test.
You know you're you either havenormal cholesterol or you have
abnormal cholesterol.
So there's it's sort of like abinomial test.
But we all know, if you doenough of these tests, that you
know your cholesterol can trendin a certain direction and it's

(54:42):
good to know about it before itbecomes, you know, quote-unquote
, abnormal.
Uh, the inverse is true.
You know, if you're working onyour health and you you do
serial cholesterol tests, youcan see really the impact of um
lifestyle on reducing thesenumbers.
So you know, I prefer to thinkof health generally as as
something that's on a spectrum,not, you know, you're either

(55:03):
healthy and then you'reunhealthy, and I think um
prenuvo is all about that as acompany.
Uh, of course the challenge isthat it can be very challenging
for radiologists to look at forvery, very subtle signs, very,
very subtle changes from onescan to the next.
So if you look at the spine,you know it's very difficult to

(55:25):
say, oh, you know, that curveangle of that vertebrae changed
like one degree from your lastscan.
You know.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Plus, you're depending on the radiologist's
skill, which varies hugely.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Correct.
There's obviously astandardization and a
consistency issue, and we'vealso found some radiologists,
you know, will read scansdifferently depending on the age
of the patient, whereas we wantto just be objective and give
everyone sort of very clearinformation that they can act on
whether they're 80 or whetherthey're 40.

(55:56):
And so AI really helps us.
It can help us understand thisvery small change over time, us
understand this very smallchange over time.
Uh, we're building algorithmsright now that um are designed
to help you understand how eachorgan in your body is aging
relative to your biological age.
Um, so similar to what youmight have seen in an epigenetic

(56:17):
clock where it looks at sort ofthe dna age, we're able to look
at the organs themselves, lookat the brain, the liver, the
kidneys, the pancreas, the spineand so on, and what we're
finding is obviously everyonehas something different to work
on, and some of that is based onlifestyle, a lot of that is
based on genetics and you know,people perhaps don't really

(56:39):
understand that you might have,you know, fit people that run
triathlons, but they have fattyliver.
You might have, uh, you know fitpeople that run triathlons but
they have fatty liver.
Uh, you might have generallyhealthy people have a kidney
disease.
So, um, it's, it's ai reallyhelps us understand sort of how
we're tracking in our health and, again, like it provides like a
way for you to see your healthjourney as something that is, um

(57:00):
, you know graduated, not justyou know healthy, and then I'm,
I've got advanced disease.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, I think these gradual changes showing relative
trends in your health, that'sthe power and that's even with
your biomarkers, that you canget tested.
That's a power of that becauseit's individual to you, where
you know what lifestylemodifications you should be
doing to improve that to you,where you know what lifestyle

(57:25):
modifications you should bedoing to improve that.
And you know, actually I'mwearing a glucose monitor just
so I know how my body respondsto certain diets, to stress, you
know, and then so I can managethose.
I'm more aware of it.
It just increases one'sawareness and when you're aware
of something, only then you canchange it or take action.
You're aware of something, onlythen you can change it or take
action.
You might not take actionbecause, for whatever reason,

(57:48):
maybe you don't care or you feelit's too much work, and that's
fine.
But I think we all have skin inthe game and are motivated

(58:08):
enough, at least the ones thatlive for the love of life and
are not just waiting to checkout or don't say, well, we're
all headed towards the cliff.
So what's the point?
Kind of attitude, and I seemore and more people I can't
tell you in the past just twoyears alone.
There's not a middle andspecific.
The middle-aged people that cometo me that haven't taken
initiative towards their ownhealth outside of their network

(58:31):
of their doctor, meaning ontheir own with direct to
consumer stuff online, whetherit's taking a whole body MRI,
whether doing direct to consumerbiomarker testing and that
number is increasingsignificantly.
It's incredible, at least in ourdemographics.
I don't know what's happeningin the rest of the country or
the rest of the world, but welive in a very progressive area

(58:54):
here in the greater WashingtonDC area and I could tell you, if
I had to guess, I would say outof the middle-aged patients,
whether male or female, age 45to 55, that specific group, I
would say 8 out of 10 are doingsomething.
They're either taking asupplement or they're doing

(59:17):
something aside of just going totheir doctor, and they're
highly curious just going totheir doctor, and they're highly
curious and they're very opento suggestions, almost like
hungry.
When I mentioned something like"'Oh yeah, can you tell me
please more about it' I wasthinking about it, but there's
so much conflicting informationonline", so they're kind of lost
and they, I think, as doctors,were a little behind the eight

(59:39):
ball there in being able toguide these people that are
looking to live a preventativelifestyle, a healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Well, I think it changes, in fact, the
relationship that doctors havewith their patients.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Oh, and trust, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
We have all these patients now that are, you know,
coming out of COVID, they're sofocused on preventive health.
And there's a lot of companieslike Prenuvo that are, you know,
coming out of COVID, they're sofocused on preventive health.
And there's a lot of companieslike Purnuvo that are you know,
really are aiming to empowerpatients to sort of take control
of their health.
And so you have a patientoftentimes will come into a
physician sort of interactionand they'll know as much as the

(01:00:21):
physician you know or maybe evenmore in some cases, about
what's going on with theirbodies, and I think really the
change here is, you know, the,the physician of yesterday spent
most of their time diagnosingyeah, trying to figure out what
was going wrong, and thephysician of the future will be
one that's more like a coach,trying to help patients you know
, um live a healthier and betterlife by relying on some of

(01:00:46):
these diagnostic tools to sortof cut straight to the chase on
what a patient needs to focus onyeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
I think you hit the nail on the head there and um,
um, I'm excited for the future.
I'm glad we're going throughthis evolution in my lifetime.
I'm 51, so so I know I'm headedtowards the cliff.
I'm just trying to slow down thecar, the speed of it, and I
really want to thank you fortaking the initiative to put

(01:01:17):
your time and effort and moneyinto building a company that
really, to me it already haschanged the paradigm.
But for many will change aparadigm whenever they're ready,
mentally ready, whenever theyget over themselves and get over
their opinions, their strongopinions they have, which is

(01:01:37):
guided by some groupthink orwhatever bias they have, and I
think I don't.
I hope that they won't find outwhen something bad happens to
their health.
I hope people can realize thevalue of it.
And you know I always jokeabout that people.
You know, when we go onvacation I love people watching

(01:02:01):
and I'm always thinking like,wow, like this family of four
came and spent like ten thousanddollars to go to, like you know
, example, disney yeah and thenuh, how much?
how much is a scan, for example?
How much do patients pay for ascan?

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
twenty five hundred dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
So twenty five hundred dollars for the
knowledge.
It's a scan, the knowledge ofwhat's going on inside your body
.
I mean, I can't put a value onit personally.
But then you compare that to avacation that is over in four
days, that the money is gone,the vacation is gone, everything

(01:02:39):
.
You're going back home, youjust spent $10,000.
You're going back home, youjust spent $10,000.
But then, when it comes totheir health, they start being
very frugal and they just saywell, I already pay for
insurance, so if insurancedoesn't cover it, I don't do it.
And that is the kind of um tome.

(01:03:09):
Um, what, what, what has tochange and it will change.
Once more people do it, moredoctors talk about it, where it
then becomes normalcy, and rightnow people think it's only for
the rich and the famous.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
But, um, I believe or they think it's uh oh, they
think it's for people that arereally into longevity and I
think you know everyone who'sinto longevity does one of these
scans.
But you know, our averagepatient is just an average
person, you know, like they justhad grandkids and they want to
make sure they're around for youknow, as many years as possible
.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Well, when it comes to longevity, you're right.
But you have a generation thatis dying.
So you have the baby boomers.
It's probably much harder toconvince a baby boomer because
they're just too deep into thesystem as far as belief.
But then you have my generation, with the Generation X, they
really are on the longevitybandwagon.

(01:03:58):
And then you have themillennials and the Gen Z-ers
that are highly aware.
I know that because they come tome.
They ask me hey, what can I donow to slow down or prevent
aging?
I'm like you're 25.
Just enjoy your life, just livea healthy life, do all these
things sleep, exercise,nutrition, diet and mindfulness

(01:04:22):
and you should be fine.
Don't come here shop for Botox.
You don't need that.
You just need someone toeducate you how to live.
And they're like oh, I alreadyknow all that.
I meditate, I eat only wholefoods.
I'm like, wow.
And so that's the power ofsocial media and the internet
that the generation like,especially the Gen Z-ers.

(01:04:44):
They're the smartest and a lotof millennials.
By the time they will be readyto get an MRI scan.
To them it's going to be asnormal as walking into I don't
know Starbucks getting a coffee,and I think that's something
that, if I was Pernuvo, I wouldbe excited about knowing that

(01:05:06):
the coming generation that ismore so.
Um, a customer is superintelligent intelligent,
educated and proactive when itcomes to anything in their lives
yeah you know, well, yeah, I'mexcited.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
I'm just excited that more people are thinking about
this and um, we've been helpingthousands of people so far with
life-saving diagnoses, and it'sa cool space to be working in.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
So what are you working on now?

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Speeding up the scan, making it more comprehensive,
opening up new locations.
We have 17, in the US, we'reopening another 10, or us we're
opening another 10 or so yearwe're opening internationally in
europe and australia next year.

Speaker 1 (01:05:50):
How do you gauge the speed of opening new centers?
Um, you know, because you knowthere is an art and I mean
you're, you're obviously amaster in business and there's
an art between opening make sureyou don't expand too fast and
stretch yourself thin versus nottoo slow and missing out on
opportunity.
How do you balance that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
well, I think the idea is you're always a little
bit over your skis.
The goal is to make sure youdon't fall over.
Um where, look that?
There's great private marketfit for what we're doing.
People want us to enter newmarkets.
There's a lot of pull for that,and so sort of some of the best
signal that we have is justwhen we think we're going to go

(01:06:34):
into a market, we run wait listsand you know we have thousands,
sometimes tens of thousands, ofpeople that are waiting for us
to enter, and so that's probablyas much science that goes into
it.
If I'm being totally honest, uh, and we just have I have a team
that works just tremendouslyhard trying to help people get

(01:06:57):
the courage to come in andreally stay on top of their
health amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Well, thank you so much for all you do.
I can't wait to see thisbecoming normalcy and I really
appreciate you taking the timeto come on.
I know you're super busy and Ipromised Andrea and Grace to
keep it at one hour and yeah, sohopefully we get to do next

(01:07:22):
year or so another podcast andnew developments and I'm
personally excited.
I'm excited to have theopportunity to, just for myself
and my family, for you to havegiven us this opportunity and
yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
I appreciate it.
It's been a great conversation.
Thanks for having me, Dario.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
It's been a great conversation.
Thanks for having me, dario.
Thank you so much, and AndrewLacey, everyone.
The CEO of Prenuvo, and if youhave any questions or comments,
don't forget to put them onSpotify and I will put out
Andrew's information onto thecomments and caption section of
this podcast.
And what's the best way ifsomeone wants to get in touch
with you?
Andrew's information onto theum comments and caption section

(01:08:05):
of this podcast.
And what's the best way ifsomeone wants to get in touch
with you.
Andrew, you know what's thebest way.
If someone wants to learn moreabout it, what do you would you
advise them to go to and referto?

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
So, yeah, if they go to our website, actually there's
a lot of information there, sothat's probably the best
starting point.
There's a lot of informationthere, so that's probably the
best starting point.
Uh, there's a chat featurethere where they can speak to
one of our um consultants.
That can help people understandwhether the test is right for
them and, uh, and if they preferto if they're old-fashioned,
they prefer to speak to someone.
There's we.
We actually have a phone numberon our website, unlike most

(01:08:39):
other websites, where you cancall in and have a conversation
with a human.
Wow, again, just to make surethat the scan, you know, ask
whatever questions you mighthave about your personal medical
situation and, um, and uh, getsome clarity about whether the
scan's right for you so there'sa few ways to reach out
wonderful and for our listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Um, thank you for um providing us a discount code.
Um, we'll have a discount codeinto the caption section of this
podcast If you're interested ingetting your Prunuvo scan in
your local town.
You know there's 17 now in theUS, as you heard and you know.

(01:09:18):
Yeah, take advantage of it andthank you very much, andrew.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
No problem, thanks, dario.