August 8, 2023 • 21 mins
Today we are speaking with Michael Tu of Everyplace Labs. Michael and his team are developing a self-service kiosk that automates point-of-care testing. Enjoy the show!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
Thank you for visiting the Medi Apps show brought to you by the Medical Logistics and Transportation Organization,
Medi Apps.
I'm your host Ryland Stone.
Today we are speaking with Michael,
two of Everyplace labs.
Michael and his team are developing a self-service kiosk that automates point of care testing.
I hope you enjoy the show.
(00:30):
Hey,
Michael.
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
I really appreciate your time.
Hey.
Oh,
yeah.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate you having me on here.
Yeah,
of course.
I think it should be an interesting conversation and hopefully we can get some good information from you to jump into your personal story.
I know right now you're working on Everyplace labs,
but let's go back before we get into that.
And let's kind of looking over your linkedin.
(00:51):
It looks like you were at Northwestern University.
Um You also did some overseas work,
just kind of give me the background where you grew up and then that early schooling and then we can get into where you are now.
Definitely.
So I grew up in the Dallas area uh in a suburb of Dallas called Plano Texas.
Uh I grew up in a Taiwanese American family and I lived in Dallas the 1st 18 years of my life.
(01:13):
And then after that,
I moved to Chicago for college at Northwestern where I studied biomedical engineering and economics.
Uh During my time at Northwestern,
that was really when I discovered my passion for medical device innovation.
Uh It was during that time uh where it became a dream of mine to start a medical device company after college,
which I can go into some more details about after.
Um And so during this time,
(01:34):
Groupon IP O Ed at Northwestern or but then IP O Northwestern IP O ed in Chicago,
but the founder of Groupon was the Northwestern music alum.
So there was a lot of buzz on campus during that time.
And uh before Northwestern,
I,
I didn't think too much about starting my own company,
but when the buzz started happening on campus,
that's when I started thinking about,
oh,
maybe it'd be fun to start,
it'd be cool to start my own company one day.
(01:55):
And uh during this time,
I started discovering my passion for map with the device development.
And uh so it became a dream of mine to start a Mac with the advice startup.
Uh At the time,
it seemed a bit impossible to do uh like a really big hurdle.
Uh I noticed that most,
most health care entrepreneurs,
especially medical device entrepreneurs,
they tended to be in their like forties or fifties,
they have a lot more experience and,
(02:16):
you know,
in this space,
um you know,
investors tend to value,
you know,
entrepreneurs who have a lot of experience because with health care,
uh there's been so many more stakeholders involved in most industries.
So you really need to understand and have a lot of experience to know what you're doing and make sure you develop a product that um you know,
uh keeps patients safe while also improving health care for them.
Uh So during this time,
(02:36):
I had for my senior design project,
I got a chance to uh collaborate with a surgeon in Nigeria to develop a surgical tool for infants in Nigeria.
And so it was a really cool experience.
Uh And at the end of the program,
uh we got to go to Nigeria,
Nigeria also to uh observe the use environment or to observe the hospital there live.
And also uh our project was part of this uh um a,
(02:58):
a collaboration with Northwestern and the University of Ibon Nigeria to establish one of the first biomedical engineering programs in sub-saharan Africa.
And so we got to also share our lessons learned about the critical thinking behind developing a medical device to the first cohort of graduate students at the University of Ibadan Nigeria for this biomedical engineering program.
Uh So it was a really cool experience and uh I think it was like a really great.
(03:21):
Yeah.
Yeah,
it was a lot of fun and uh learned a lot through that process.
What was the device that you guys made over there?
What was the use case for it?
Hm.
Yeah.
So it was a surgical electrical stimulator uh for anal rectal m malformations uh for infants.
Uh So what happens is,
you know,
some infants they can be born with the anal rectal malformation and because of that they can't defecate.
(03:42):
Uh So the,
the way they treat that is uh they would take a,
a surgeon would take a stimulator and shock the anal covering.
And then based upon how the muscle contracts,
they figure out how to where to make the incision to open up the covering.
And so uh there's a need to for a low cost version of uh this type of surgical device.
So that's what we worked with the surgeon on the fairness program.
(04:04):
Very interesting,
very niche uh tool that you guys kind of developed there for sure.
Uh Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it's definitely something I would have.
Uh it's a that need I would not have known about otherwise if it wasn't a program.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very cool.
So then from that,
uh where did you kind of go from there?
So now you got this under your belt,
you're like,
wow,
I really,
really like the hardware,
the device uh manufacturing all of this for health care,
(04:26):
which is like you said,
a very different route than a lot of people take it's very intensive from a capital perspective and a time perspective.
Um,
yeah.
Where did you kind of go from from there?
Yeah.
So after that,
um,
I stayed at Northwestern for another year for grad school.
And uh during that time,
I was part of a team that developed a litter box for cats that analyzes the urine and cats for kidney disease.
(04:49):
And so a lot of cats as they get older as they approach like age 15,
uh they start developing chronic kidney disease.
But by the time their owners notice the symptoms,
uh it's already too late to treat the symptoms.
And so what our goal is to develop this like litter box product that will analyze the urine as cats peed and uh it will catch the kidney disease early on.
(05:10):
And uh it was a cool product and a great business opportunity.
Uh But during Northwestern,
I discovered my passion was really improving human health through medical device design.
So I wondered,
is analogous technology possible for humans,
something that automates the diagnostic testing process for humans.
And this inspiration eventually became uh what we're working on at everyplace labs today.
And I'll share more about uh that journey shortly.
(05:33):
And so after Northwestern,
I went into the medical device industry,
uh first I worked at for and then after that,
I worked at Baxter Health Care.
And uh during this time during my time at Baxter,
I got the chance to co-lead the development of a new class two medical device from its early concept through regulatory approval.
Uh So I,
I learned uh you know,
uh how to develop the product and go through the regulatory framework.
(05:55):
Uh And,
you know,
from beginning to end essentially.
And uh so it was a um it was a great experience uh that I'm applying now to our Everyplace labs and uh during this time in my nights and weekends for about 3.5 years,
uh I work with my team to get Everyplace labs off the ground.
And so our,
our coo Clare.
So uh she comes from a management consulting background.
(06:16):
She's really good at market research.
So,
uh we,
we,
you know,
we,
we,
we put together a team and we went through a mentorship program at a health care star at the called in Chicago.
And uh during this program,
we formed a mentorship board of industry executives,
uh who would give feedback on our business models and what we're thinking about doing.
And so we uh the goal is to basically find a met need for a uh automated urine testing.
(06:39):
And so we start interviewing many clinicians about the problems they face with urine testing.
And we started hearing from emergency medicine physicians over and over again that uh urine testing is a major bottleneck to patient care in the er uh so it's so it's something that 30% of patients need.
Uh either urine pregnancy test or a general analysis test when they go into the er,
(07:00):
uh but because of understaffing,
it ends up taking clinical staff the average of 65 minutes to turn around.
What should be a fast rapid test.
It should only take three minutes.
So today patients uh self collect the urine sample and they usually leave it on a counter for the clinical staff.
But then oftentimes the sample will just,
will just sit there for the next hour before uh a clinical staff member has bandwidth to run the test.
(07:23):
And so what happens uh this ends up creating bottlenecks in the care.
So when the physician sees the patient,
uh they don't have the test result yet.
And because of this,
uh they can't order uh oftentimes they need to order like AC T scan as an example.
So they can't order the CT scan.
So they go see other patients and come back later when the test is ready.
So this creates a delay and when the CT scan is ordered and then that creates a delay and when the patients treated and discharge,
(07:47):
which causes the next patient to be seen later on,
uh we estimate about 30 minutes later.
And so because of this,
this ends up extending wait times and patient length to stay in the er s overall.
And so our goal now with air place labs is we're developing a self-service diagnostic kiosk that automates the point care,
diagnostic process to improve the efficiency and patient experience of testing in acute care settings like emergency departments.
(08:11):
So we're deploying our kiosk in the waiting room or the triage area in the emergency rooms and then patients uh instead of leaving their urine samples on counter for the staff members,
they insert the urine sample into our kiosk and then the robotics within our kiosk automate the testing process which will speed up the turnaround time from 65 minutes to five minutes.
And because of this,
we're improving the efficiency of testing and removing dependencies on clinical staff and their availability to run the tests.
(08:37):
And by doing this,
we're improving like patients throughput in the er and reducing wait times,
improving patient satisfaction.
Yeah,
I'm sure,
I mean that that's a huge difference from 60 minutes down to five minutes and I'm sure there is a hard metric for you guys to kind of track of patient outcome.
I mean,
if a doctor can make that informed decision quicker,
that can kind of help care.
(08:58):
Um So,
so yeah,
very,
very interesting.
We can kind of congrats on getting to this point so far.
Where is ever place labs at today?
Are you guys piloting?
Are you in market?
Where are you guys at?
Mhm.
Yeah.
So I would say we're,
we're starting to approach the end of our pilot phase.
And um and so we've done um um a few pilots in the life cycle of our company.
Um And I can go into more details about that shortly.
(09:21):
Uh But at a high level,
uh we've done a clinical trial with Northwestern's OBGYN Department uh for in pregnancy testing.
Uh During the study,
uh we tested our alpha prototype.
Uh 54 patients were recruited and we achieved a 98% accuracy without any cross contamination of patient results.
So it was a great start.
Uh First study we've done uh during the pandemic,
(09:41):
we did a clinical pilot with the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.
It's a leading boarding school where students live on campus.
24 essentially 24 7.
Uh This pilot was more for COVID testing.
So it was a COVID testing pilot.
And so we deployed our kiosks at the uh the high school I MA and then 24 students and staff used our kiosks to test themselves for COVID.
(10:03):
And we also did a comparison with PC R test results.
And so in this study,
uh a kiosk prototype,
uh what we call our beta prototype.
It received the average user experience score of 9.1 out of 10.
And the accuracy and specificity in the study was 100%.
Wow.
Uh So that's another study we did.
We,
we did uh we also did a usability pilot at um the man at a manufacturing plant of a drug um drug delivery company called.
(10:29):
Uh So it's a French drug delivery company with the manufacturing plant in Chicago.
And so uh we brought our kiosk prototype there and the manufacturing plant workers went through the workflow of using kiosk and they gave feedback on uh on what the experience was like using the kiosk.
And with our kiosk,
there's a lot of uh heavy graphical based instructions.
(10:49):
And so even though a lot of the manufacturing plant workers,
their first language was Spanish instead English,
our interface was in English,
like they found our kiosk to be very easy to use compared to some of the other uh COVID tests they've done in the market.
And so uh that was also uh the the results there were very promising as well.
Uh In the future,
we'll be,
we'll have different languages are kiosk,
including,
you know,
Spanish as well.
Uh But it,
(11:10):
it was good to know like even even with the eli even if the language was in English because of the graphics,
we improved the overall experience.
And uh our goal this uh later this year in this next year is to do a clinical pilot in an emergency department setting where we deplore a kiosk there and we do a pilot for urine pregnancy testing to prove out the operational viability and clinical accuracy of our prototype in this real world emergency department setting.
(11:34):
And when we're done with that,
I would say we're done with the pilot phase.
Got you very,
very cool.
That's incredible traction.
So,
congrats for all of that.
Thank you.
Yeah,
just kind of,
I guess what I'm most curious in is what was it like developing and building this?
This is a very,
it's,
it's a real thing.
It's not software,
it's not a,
a product.
(11:54):
It's a,
it's a real piece of hardware.
How is developing that?
What was the process like,
especially for health care in a very regulated industry?
Yeah.
Uh,
I would say there's a few layers to this,
there's like the pure,
like technical side.
And I think there's like more like the fundraising dynamics of how to fund developing a hardware product with the regulatory component.
Uh I will start,
(12:15):
I'll start with the technical side.
Uh So early on,
you know,
we recognized,
you know,
most of our,
our founding team,
we were a relatively fresh out of college and grad school at the time.
Uh So we realized,
you know,
um we need to learn from industry veterans who've been there and done this before.
And so we formed an advisory board of uh industry leaders from diagnostics and health care early on uh who were uh technical commercial and clinical leaders in the in the space.
(12:39):
So,
in particular,
we had uh a few technical advisers that have been heavily involved with our product development process throughout the life cycle of our company.
Uh So as a few examples,
we have uh Eric Shane,
he's a former R and D leader at Avid Diagnostics,
I forget the exact number of patents he has.
But,
and I think it's something like 100 patents during his time.
It something like that.
A super smart guy,
a very nice person as well.
(13:00):
And um uh we've also um there's also like Mark Fisher who comes from a diagnostic device development background at Northwestern uh and also Craig Samson,
he's the early founding leader of ID O,
a human center design expert.
And so uh what we usually do is like,
we would have these advisory sessions with them where they would,
you know,
poke holes at our design and figure out give us feedback on the data that we're seeing uh so that we can like kind of like speed up our processes of our prototypes uh to so that it performs as intended during our studies.
(13:30):
Uh And usually,
you know,
uh they're usually right whenever they make recommendations so that we've learned,
we should try out what they,
what they suggest first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
And then where are they being built right now?
Are,
are you guys building them yourselves?
Uh Yeah.
Yeah,
we are.
Um they're being built in our uh office in Chicago.
Um So in 22 main locations.
(13:52):
So uh we're based out of M hub in Chicago.
It's like a hardware uh development incubator in the Chicago area.
And then we also have a wet lab space at he lives 51 in Rosalind Franklin Medical School in North Chicago.
Uh So we,
we split our product development between these two locations.
Uh And so like at,
there's a lot of like machinery that we can use to make physical prototypes.
(14:16):
Um And then at uh he looks 51 we have a bio safety level two compatible uh wet lab space.
So,
uh we can do things like uh viral testing there uh using like viral positive controls when we're like COVID testing,
things like that.
Very cool.
So what's been the hardest roadblock that you guys have encountered?
Uh again,
back to health care being crazy regulated.
(14:37):
A lot of people just not wanting to do things differently.
What's been the biggest hurdle that you've had in getting your devices into emergency rooms,
into these testing areas where people can start tests?
Mhm Yeah.
Um So before I started the company,
uh before I started this medical device company,
I didn't realize there's a very like industry specific fundraising uh dynamic uh for early stage map of device startups.
(15:02):
Um So it turned out uh there aren't really pre C or C stage venture capital firms that invest in medical devices.
Uh Usually venture capital firms don't start investing in medical devices until the series A or series B stage.
And usually not until a member of the bys start pass FDA approval or almost has FDA approval.
Uh So that ends up creating this really big check in and egg dynamic uh and where it's like uh for us to go from,
(15:26):
you know,
idea to FDA approval,
we probably need to raise $6.5 million overall.
Uh So,
so,
but to raise that money,
we have to show,
you know,
product development,
clinical study progress.
So it becomes,
you know,
how do you develop the product without the capital?
So uh that I would say that's been the biggest challenge for us uh as a company.
So,
so what we've learned to do is be like really lean as a team and achieve results with minimal capital.
(15:52):
And uh we found like,
mainly I would say,
like angel investors along the way,
uh oftentimes they're like,
uh they come from a health care background,
maybe they're a medical advisor or biotech executive previously and they invest maybe 25 to $50,000 at,
at a time.
So we get these like small checks where we make like slow and steady incremental progress and we like kind of bootstrap our way uh through the pro uh uh the,
(16:15):
the process over time.
So,
you know,
it's a uh it's a long process um that can take some time.
Uh So,
you know,
we,
we've learned to be patient with the process as well.
So I,
I worked on this in my next weekend is about 3.5 years and I went full time about four years ago.
So,
uh you know,
it's been tough of my,
you know,
7 to 8 years now for me.
Uh so we,
you know,
we just,
(16:35):
you know,
we're just,
we just,
uh do our best to stay resilient and keep pushing and,
you know,
I think once we're done with the pilot phase,
then we'll do like a formal,
like bigger series,
a race.
And I think at that time,
um things just start speeding up for us.
So we'll develop our production product and submit that to the FDA for approval.
And then after that,
uh we'll be commercial.
Wow.
(16:56):
Well,
again,
congrats,
I just can't keep echoing that it's just a whole bunch of big milestones as you guys have continued to come along.
So that is very impressive for someone going into the hardware space in health care.
What would be your advice to that starting entrepreneur that is like,
I wanna bite off this really big bite of stuff and yeah,
it's,
it's a big problem.
(17:16):
Mhm Yeah.
Um So I would say uh there's a few pieces of advice I would share.
So uh the first one is,
you know,
don't overthink it and just don't overthink it and just get started.
Uh What I notice is,
uh you know,
there's a lot of people who have ideas and want to start a company and oftentimes I think they don't get it off the ground because they're waiting until they have like a very great or a very perfect idea and they end up not taking the steps to get started to execute and like move forward and generate momentum.
(17:45):
And so I think like the key is really generating momentum and the best way to generate momentum is just to get started.
And you know,
your initial idea may not most likely won't be what uh you eventually start as a company.
Like um we've gone through many pivots as a company as well.
So we've gone through many innovations.
Um And,
but I think by getting started,
you create you,
you start developing the habits to execute consistently on what will become your company.
(18:10):
And also uh you start learning new information uh to that will help you refine your idea to become what you eventually truly pursue.
Yeah,
that's,
that's great advice.
And I do agree that that momentum in starting anything is very,
very important.
You can't get sidetracked on,
on other projects.
You really got to stay laser focused on what you're building and just continue to go and health care will,
(18:31):
will kind of beat you down.
Um So it's even even more important to really just continue going.
Uh So,
so congrats again,
I,
I just keep saying that so sorry to help.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you saying that uh the second piece of advice I would share would be um as you're forming your team,
I think um in terms of like characteristics to look for a team and for yourself and something to self reflect about before really jumping into this is uh especially for medical devices,
(18:57):
it's going to be a very long journey.
And so I think really the people who stick with it,
their primary motivation is like intrinsic motivation to uh have a positive impact on patients and patient care.
Uh I think like,
uh if it's,
if someone's primary motivation is more like financially oriented or it can even be like,
uh you know,
more like,
(19:17):
you know,
the technology is really cool,
but uh maybe not so much about the patient,
it,
it can be very easy to get burnt out by the process because uh you know,
it take a while,
usually it will take most people a long time to raise the capital.
Uh It will take a long time to get through FDA approval to develop the prototypes through all the studies.
So it's a long journey,
I think uh to really stay motivated and uh persevere through the challenges it has to be primarily driven by in terms of mo if you looked back at all of your career and you were giving advice to a young entrepreneur,
(19:47):
not necessarily in the hardware space.
Um I,
I know you already mentioned just kind of keep going,
but yeah,
what would be like a key takeaway?
Uh I know you did,
you did mention that kind of continue to go but what would be like something exciting,
I guess uh that you're like,
hey,
this is something that I've taken away from my business.
That's just been really,
really impactful on yourself.
(20:08):
What would that be?
So,
um I guess like in terms of a lesson learned,
like something that I've enjoyed about the process or uh in terms of recommendations,
you know,
I think the main one will be the first one I mentioned about,
you know,
just get started and keep,
keep pushing.
Uh in terms of like what I've really enjoyed about the process was uh it's given me a chance to meet some uh really inspiring and accomplished and generous health care leaders uh at a relatively young age.
(20:35):
Uh So,
uh as an example,
uh you know,
one of our,
he is uh the former county or he,
he,
he's a,
uh he's the founding CEO of BJC Health Care uh was uh health care system.
Uh He's in the health Care Hall of Fame as a pioneer of integrated health care.
So he was like one of the first uh health care leaders to really push a health care system to try out that bottle,
(20:56):
which is,
you know,
across the US today.
Uh You know,
we get to learn from mentors like,
yeah,
uh with this background and a lot of our mentors and advisors have been like,
really generous with their time uh with us.
So like,
uh we were doing this our next and weekends they would,
you know,
meet with us on the weekend to like review our prior types or share feedback on our business model.
Uh I think without their support in that way and their generosity,
(21:16):
like we wouldn't have been able to get this company off the ground.
Uh,
so I think that's what I've enjoyed the most about this process.
That's an awesome takeaway.
Well,
thank you,
Michael for coming on the show.
I,
I really do appreciate your time.
I think we had a good conversation and I hope you have a great rest of your week.
You too.
I really appreciate you having me.
Thank you for visiting the Medi Apps show brought to you by the Medical Logistics and Transportation Organization,
Medi Apps.
I'm your host Ryland Stone.
Today we are speaking with Michael,
two of Everyplace labs.
Michael and his team are developing a self-service kiosk that automates point of care testing.
I hope you enjoy the show.
(00:30):
Hey,
Michael.
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
I really appreciate your time.
Hey.
Oh,
yeah.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate you having me on here.
Yeah,
of course.
I think it should be an interesting conversation and hopefully we can get some good information from you to jump into your personal story.
I know right now you're working on Everyplace labs,
but let's go back before we get into that.
And let's kind of looking over your linkedin.
(00:51):
It looks like you were at Northwestern University.
Um You also did some overseas work,
just kind of give me the background where you grew up and then that early schooling and then we can get into where you are now.
Definitely.
So I grew up in the Dallas area uh in a suburb of Dallas called Plano Texas.
Uh I grew up in a Taiwanese American family and I lived in Dallas the 1st 18 years of my life.
(01:13):
And then after that,
I moved to Chicago for college at Northwestern where I studied biomedical engineering and economics.
Uh During my time at Northwestern,
that was really when I discovered my passion for medical device innovation.
Uh It was during that time uh where it became a dream of mine to start a medical device company after college,
which I can go into some more details about after.
Um And so during this time,
(01:34):
Groupon IP O Ed at Northwestern or but then IP O Northwestern IP O ed in Chicago,
but the founder of Groupon was the Northwestern music alum.
So there was a lot of buzz on campus during that time.
And uh before Northwestern,
I,
I didn't think too much about starting my own company,
but when the buzz started happening on campus,
that's when I started thinking about,
oh,
maybe it'd be fun to start,
it'd be cool to start my own company one day.
(01:55):
And uh during this time,
I started discovering my passion for map with the device development.
And uh so it became a dream of mine to start a Mac with the advice startup.
Uh At the time,
it seemed a bit impossible to do uh like a really big hurdle.
Uh I noticed that most,
most health care entrepreneurs,
especially medical device entrepreneurs,
they tended to be in their like forties or fifties,
they have a lot more experience and,
(02:16):
you know,
in this space,
um you know,
investors tend to value,
you know,
entrepreneurs who have a lot of experience because with health care,
uh there's been so many more stakeholders involved in most industries.
So you really need to understand and have a lot of experience to know what you're doing and make sure you develop a product that um you know,
uh keeps patients safe while also improving health care for them.
Uh So during this time,
(02:36):
I had for my senior design project,
I got a chance to uh collaborate with a surgeon in Nigeria to develop a surgical tool for infants in Nigeria.
And so it was a really cool experience.
Uh And at the end of the program,
uh we got to go to Nigeria,
Nigeria also to uh observe the use environment or to observe the hospital there live.
And also uh our project was part of this uh um a,
(02:58):
a collaboration with Northwestern and the University of Ibon Nigeria to establish one of the first biomedical engineering programs in sub-saharan Africa.
And so we got to also share our lessons learned about the critical thinking behind developing a medical device to the first cohort of graduate students at the University of Ibadan Nigeria for this biomedical engineering program.
Uh So it was a really cool experience and uh I think it was like a really great.
(03:21):
Yeah.
Yeah,
it was a lot of fun and uh learned a lot through that process.
What was the device that you guys made over there?
What was the use case for it?
Hm.
Yeah.
So it was a surgical electrical stimulator uh for anal rectal m malformations uh for infants.
Uh So what happens is,
you know,
some infants they can be born with the anal rectal malformation and because of that they can't defecate.
(03:42):
Uh So the,
the way they treat that is uh they would take a,
a surgeon would take a stimulator and shock the anal covering.
And then based upon how the muscle contracts,
they figure out how to where to make the incision to open up the covering.
And so uh there's a need to for a low cost version of uh this type of surgical device.
So that's what we worked with the surgeon on the fairness program.
(04:04):
Very interesting,
very niche uh tool that you guys kind of developed there for sure.
Uh Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it's definitely something I would have.
Uh it's a that need I would not have known about otherwise if it wasn't a program.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very cool.
So then from that,
uh where did you kind of go from there?
So now you got this under your belt,
you're like,
wow,
I really,
really like the hardware,
the device uh manufacturing all of this for health care,
(04:26):
which is like you said,
a very different route than a lot of people take it's very intensive from a capital perspective and a time perspective.
Um,
yeah.
Where did you kind of go from from there?
Yeah.
So after that,
um,
I stayed at Northwestern for another year for grad school.
And uh during that time,
I was part of a team that developed a litter box for cats that analyzes the urine and cats for kidney disease.
(04:49):
And so a lot of cats as they get older as they approach like age 15,
uh they start developing chronic kidney disease.
But by the time their owners notice the symptoms,
uh it's already too late to treat the symptoms.
And so what our goal is to develop this like litter box product that will analyze the urine as cats peed and uh it will catch the kidney disease early on.
(05:10):
And uh it was a cool product and a great business opportunity.
Uh But during Northwestern,
I discovered my passion was really improving human health through medical device design.
So I wondered,
is analogous technology possible for humans,
something that automates the diagnostic testing process for humans.
And this inspiration eventually became uh what we're working on at everyplace labs today.
And I'll share more about uh that journey shortly.
(05:33):
And so after Northwestern,
I went into the medical device industry,
uh first I worked at for and then after that,
I worked at Baxter Health Care.
And uh during this time during my time at Baxter,
I got the chance to co-lead the development of a new class two medical device from its early concept through regulatory approval.
Uh So I,
I learned uh you know,
uh how to develop the product and go through the regulatory framework.
(05:55):
Uh And,
you know,
from beginning to end essentially.
And uh so it was a um it was a great experience uh that I'm applying now to our Everyplace labs and uh during this time in my nights and weekends for about 3.5 years,
uh I work with my team to get Everyplace labs off the ground.
And so our,
our coo Clare.
So uh she comes from a management consulting background.
(06:16):
She's really good at market research.
So,
uh we,
we,
you know,
we,
we,
we put together a team and we went through a mentorship program at a health care star at the called in Chicago.
And uh during this program,
we formed a mentorship board of industry executives,
uh who would give feedback on our business models and what we're thinking about doing.
And so we uh the goal is to basically find a met need for a uh automated urine testing.
(06:39):
And so we start interviewing many clinicians about the problems they face with urine testing.
And we started hearing from emergency medicine physicians over and over again that uh urine testing is a major bottleneck to patient care in the er uh so it's so it's something that 30% of patients need.
Uh either urine pregnancy test or a general analysis test when they go into the er,
(07:00):
uh but because of understaffing,
it ends up taking clinical staff the average of 65 minutes to turn around.
What should be a fast rapid test.
It should only take three minutes.
So today patients uh self collect the urine sample and they usually leave it on a counter for the clinical staff.
But then oftentimes the sample will just,
will just sit there for the next hour before uh a clinical staff member has bandwidth to run the test.
(07:23):
And so what happens uh this ends up creating bottlenecks in the care.
So when the physician sees the patient,
uh they don't have the test result yet.
And because of this,
uh they can't order uh oftentimes they need to order like AC T scan as an example.
So they can't order the CT scan.
So they go see other patients and come back later when the test is ready.
So this creates a delay and when the CT scan is ordered and then that creates a delay and when the patients treated and discharge,
(07:47):
which causes the next patient to be seen later on,
uh we estimate about 30 minutes later.
And so because of this,
this ends up extending wait times and patient length to stay in the er s overall.
And so our goal now with air place labs is we're developing a self-service diagnostic kiosk that automates the point care,
diagnostic process to improve the efficiency and patient experience of testing in acute care settings like emergency departments.
(08:11):
So we're deploying our kiosk in the waiting room or the triage area in the emergency rooms and then patients uh instead of leaving their urine samples on counter for the staff members,
they insert the urine sample into our kiosk and then the robotics within our kiosk automate the testing process which will speed up the turnaround time from 65 minutes to five minutes.
And because of this,
we're improving the efficiency of testing and removing dependencies on clinical staff and their availability to run the tests.
(08:37):
And by doing this,
we're improving like patients throughput in the er and reducing wait times,
improving patient satisfaction.
Yeah,
I'm sure,
I mean that that's a huge difference from 60 minutes down to five minutes and I'm sure there is a hard metric for you guys to kind of track of patient outcome.
I mean,
if a doctor can make that informed decision quicker,
that can kind of help care.
(08:58):
Um So,
so yeah,
very,
very interesting.
We can kind of congrats on getting to this point so far.
Where is ever place labs at today?
Are you guys piloting?
Are you in market?
Where are you guys at?
Mhm.
Yeah.
So I would say we're,
we're starting to approach the end of our pilot phase.
And um and so we've done um um a few pilots in the life cycle of our company.
Um And I can go into more details about that shortly.
(09:21):
Uh But at a high level,
uh we've done a clinical trial with Northwestern's OBGYN Department uh for in pregnancy testing.
Uh During the study,
uh we tested our alpha prototype.
Uh 54 patients were recruited and we achieved a 98% accuracy without any cross contamination of patient results.
So it was a great start.
Uh First study we've done uh during the pandemic,
(09:41):
we did a clinical pilot with the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy.
It's a leading boarding school where students live on campus.
24 essentially 24 7.
Uh This pilot was more for COVID testing.
So it was a COVID testing pilot.
And so we deployed our kiosks at the uh the high school I MA and then 24 students and staff used our kiosks to test themselves for COVID.
(10:03):
And we also did a comparison with PC R test results.
And so in this study,
uh a kiosk prototype,
uh what we call our beta prototype.
It received the average user experience score of 9.1 out of 10.
And the accuracy and specificity in the study was 100%.
Wow.
Uh So that's another study we did.
We,
we did uh we also did a usability pilot at um the man at a manufacturing plant of a drug um drug delivery company called.
(10:29):
Uh So it's a French drug delivery company with the manufacturing plant in Chicago.
And so uh we brought our kiosk prototype there and the manufacturing plant workers went through the workflow of using kiosk and they gave feedback on uh on what the experience was like using the kiosk.
And with our kiosk,
there's a lot of uh heavy graphical based instructions.
(10:49):
And so even though a lot of the manufacturing plant workers,
their first language was Spanish instead English,
our interface was in English,
like they found our kiosk to be very easy to use compared to some of the other uh COVID tests they've done in the market.
And so uh that was also uh the the results there were very promising as well.
Uh In the future,
we'll be,
we'll have different languages are kiosk,
including,
you know,
Spanish as well.
Uh But it,
(11:10):
it was good to know like even even with the eli even if the language was in English because of the graphics,
we improved the overall experience.
And uh our goal this uh later this year in this next year is to do a clinical pilot in an emergency department setting where we deplore a kiosk there and we do a pilot for urine pregnancy testing to prove out the operational viability and clinical accuracy of our prototype in this real world emergency department setting.
(11:34):
And when we're done with that,
I would say we're done with the pilot phase.
Got you very,
very cool.
That's incredible traction.
So,
congrats for all of that.
Thank you.
Yeah,
just kind of,
I guess what I'm most curious in is what was it like developing and building this?
This is a very,
it's,
it's a real thing.
It's not software,
it's not a,
a product.
(11:54):
It's a,
it's a real piece of hardware.
How is developing that?
What was the process like,
especially for health care in a very regulated industry?
Yeah.
Uh,
I would say there's a few layers to this,
there's like the pure,
like technical side.
And I think there's like more like the fundraising dynamics of how to fund developing a hardware product with the regulatory component.
Uh I will start,
(12:15):
I'll start with the technical side.
Uh So early on,
you know,
we recognized,
you know,
most of our,
our founding team,
we were a relatively fresh out of college and grad school at the time.
Uh So we realized,
you know,
um we need to learn from industry veterans who've been there and done this before.
And so we formed an advisory board of uh industry leaders from diagnostics and health care early on uh who were uh technical commercial and clinical leaders in the in the space.
(12:39):
So,
in particular,
we had uh a few technical advisers that have been heavily involved with our product development process throughout the life cycle of our company.
Uh So as a few examples,
we have uh Eric Shane,
he's a former R and D leader at Avid Diagnostics,
I forget the exact number of patents he has.
But,
and I think it's something like 100 patents during his time.
It something like that.
A super smart guy,
a very nice person as well.
(13:00):
And um uh we've also um there's also like Mark Fisher who comes from a diagnostic device development background at Northwestern uh and also Craig Samson,
he's the early founding leader of ID O,
a human center design expert.
And so uh what we usually do is like,
we would have these advisory sessions with them where they would,
you know,
poke holes at our design and figure out give us feedback on the data that we're seeing uh so that we can like kind of like speed up our processes of our prototypes uh to so that it performs as intended during our studies.
(13:30):
Uh And usually,
you know,
uh they're usually right whenever they make recommendations so that we've learned,
we should try out what they,
what they suggest first.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
And then where are they being built right now?
Are,
are you guys building them yourselves?
Uh Yeah.
Yeah,
we are.
Um they're being built in our uh office in Chicago.
Um So in 22 main locations.
(13:52):
So uh we're based out of M hub in Chicago.
It's like a hardware uh development incubator in the Chicago area.
And then we also have a wet lab space at he lives 51 in Rosalind Franklin Medical School in North Chicago.
Uh So we,
we split our product development between these two locations.
Uh And so like at,
there's a lot of like machinery that we can use to make physical prototypes.
(14:16):
Um And then at uh he looks 51 we have a bio safety level two compatible uh wet lab space.
So,
uh we can do things like uh viral testing there uh using like viral positive controls when we're like COVID testing,
things like that.
Very cool.
So what's been the hardest roadblock that you guys have encountered?
Uh again,
back to health care being crazy regulated.
(14:37):
A lot of people just not wanting to do things differently.
What's been the biggest hurdle that you've had in getting your devices into emergency rooms,
into these testing areas where people can start tests?
Mhm Yeah.
Um So before I started the company,
uh before I started this medical device company,
I didn't realize there's a very like industry specific fundraising uh dynamic uh for early stage map of device startups.
(15:02):
Um So it turned out uh there aren't really pre C or C stage venture capital firms that invest in medical devices.
Uh Usually venture capital firms don't start investing in medical devices until the series A or series B stage.
And usually not until a member of the bys start pass FDA approval or almost has FDA approval.
Uh So that ends up creating this really big check in and egg dynamic uh and where it's like uh for us to go from,
(15:26):
you know,
idea to FDA approval,
we probably need to raise $6.5 million overall.
Uh So,
so,
but to raise that money,
we have to show,
you know,
product development,
clinical study progress.
So it becomes,
you know,
how do you develop the product without the capital?
So uh that I would say that's been the biggest challenge for us uh as a company.
So,
so what we've learned to do is be like really lean as a team and achieve results with minimal capital.
(15:52):
And uh we found like,
mainly I would say,
like angel investors along the way,
uh oftentimes they're like,
uh they come from a health care background,
maybe they're a medical advisor or biotech executive previously and they invest maybe 25 to $50,000 at,
at a time.
So we get these like small checks where we make like slow and steady incremental progress and we like kind of bootstrap our way uh through the pro uh uh the,
(16:15):
the process over time.
So,
you know,
it's a uh it's a long process um that can take some time.
Uh So,
you know,
we,
we've learned to be patient with the process as well.
So I,
I worked on this in my next weekend is about 3.5 years and I went full time about four years ago.
So,
uh you know,
it's been tough of my,
you know,
7 to 8 years now for me.
Uh so we,
you know,
we just,
(16:35):
you know,
we're just,
we just,
uh do our best to stay resilient and keep pushing and,
you know,
I think once we're done with the pilot phase,
then we'll do like a formal,
like bigger series,
a race.
And I think at that time,
um things just start speeding up for us.
So we'll develop our production product and submit that to the FDA for approval.
And then after that,
uh we'll be commercial.
Wow.
(16:56):
Well,
again,
congrats,
I just can't keep echoing that it's just a whole bunch of big milestones as you guys have continued to come along.
So that is very impressive for someone going into the hardware space in health care.
What would be your advice to that starting entrepreneur that is like,
I wanna bite off this really big bite of stuff and yeah,
it's,
it's a big problem.
(17:16):
Mhm Yeah.
Um So I would say uh there's a few pieces of advice I would share.
So uh the first one is,
you know,
don't overthink it and just don't overthink it and just get started.
Uh What I notice is,
uh you know,
there's a lot of people who have ideas and want to start a company and oftentimes I think they don't get it off the ground because they're waiting until they have like a very great or a very perfect idea and they end up not taking the steps to get started to execute and like move forward and generate momentum.
(17:45):
And so I think like the key is really generating momentum and the best way to generate momentum is just to get started.
And you know,
your initial idea may not most likely won't be what uh you eventually start as a company.
Like um we've gone through many pivots as a company as well.
So we've gone through many innovations.
Um And,
but I think by getting started,
you create you,
you start developing the habits to execute consistently on what will become your company.
(18:10):
And also uh you start learning new information uh to that will help you refine your idea to become what you eventually truly pursue.
Yeah,
that's,
that's great advice.
And I do agree that that momentum in starting anything is very,
very important.
You can't get sidetracked on,
on other projects.
You really got to stay laser focused on what you're building and just continue to go and health care will,
(18:31):
will kind of beat you down.
Um So it's even even more important to really just continue going.
Uh So,
so congrats again,
I,
I just keep saying that so sorry to help.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate you saying that uh the second piece of advice I would share would be um as you're forming your team,
I think um in terms of like characteristics to look for a team and for yourself and something to self reflect about before really jumping into this is uh especially for medical devices,
(18:57):
it's going to be a very long journey.
And so I think really the people who stick with it,
their primary motivation is like intrinsic motivation to uh have a positive impact on patients and patient care.
Uh I think like,
uh if it's,
if someone's primary motivation is more like financially oriented or it can even be like,
uh you know,
more like,
(19:17):
you know,
the technology is really cool,
but uh maybe not so much about the patient,
it,
it can be very easy to get burnt out by the process because uh you know,
it take a while,
usually it will take most people a long time to raise the capital.
Uh It will take a long time to get through FDA approval to develop the prototypes through all the studies.
So it's a long journey,
I think uh to really stay motivated and uh persevere through the challenges it has to be primarily driven by in terms of mo if you looked back at all of your career and you were giving advice to a young entrepreneur,
(19:47):
not necessarily in the hardware space.
Um I,
I know you already mentioned just kind of keep going,
but yeah,
what would be like a key takeaway?
Uh I know you did,
you did mention that kind of continue to go but what would be like something exciting,
I guess uh that you're like,
hey,
this is something that I've taken away from my business.
That's just been really,
really impactful on yourself.
(20:08):
What would that be?
So,
um I guess like in terms of a lesson learned,
like something that I've enjoyed about the process or uh in terms of recommendations,
you know,
I think the main one will be the first one I mentioned about,
you know,
just get started and keep,
keep pushing.
Uh in terms of like what I've really enjoyed about the process was uh it's given me a chance to meet some uh really inspiring and accomplished and generous health care leaders uh at a relatively young age.
(20:35):
Uh So,
uh as an example,
uh you know,
one of our,
he is uh the former county or he,
he,
he's a,
uh he's the founding CEO of BJC Health Care uh was uh health care system.
Uh He's in the health Care Hall of Fame as a pioneer of integrated health care.
So he was like one of the first uh health care leaders to really push a health care system to try out that bottle,
(20:56):
which is,
you know,
across the US today.
Uh You know,
we get to learn from mentors like,
yeah,
uh with this background and a lot of our mentors and advisors have been like,
really generous with their time uh with us.
So like,
uh we were doing this our next and weekends they would,
you know,
meet with us on the weekend to like review our prior types or share feedback on our business model.
Uh I think without their support in that way and their generosity,
(21:16):
like we wouldn't have been able to get this company off the ground.
Uh,
so I think that's what I've enjoyed the most about this process.
That's an awesome takeaway.
Well,
thank you,
Michael for coming on the show.
I,
I really do appreciate your time.
I think we had a good conversation and I hope you have a great rest of your week.
You too.
I really appreciate you having me.
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