What was the motivation behind your business idea?
Back in 2015, I got interested in the idea of moving diagnostics from the laboratory, closer to the patient. Our system that supports diagnostics is inefficient, this was highlighted as a result of the pandemic. In 2015, I thought in terms of trying to move diagnostics literally into the patient’s hand; something that they could hold, run an assay, and get a result instantaneously, so they would have that information when and where they needed it. This was the motivation behind what I was trying to do.
While the technology that we had licensed and were working on was quite clever, I learned that it was very difficult to scale. I had a lot of problems trying to move the technology into something that could be commercialized.
I was working in a lab on chip technology which was very much in vogue at that time. Essentially, it was just miniaturizing a standard molecular or antigen assay onto a mechanical device. No innovation to speak of. It was just taking what was being done in the lab, miniaturizing it, and trying to put it on a device that you could hold.
While the technology that we had licensed and were working on was quite clever, I learned that it was very difficult to scale. I had a lot of problems trying to move the technology into something that could be commercialized.
If I built 10 devices, two of them might work and I'd get great results, but the other eight were useless. That didn't cut it for a diagnostic type of device.
When I was sharing my challenges and issues that I was facing with a colleague, he suggested that I look at graphene. I did some research and concluded that it had the potential for eliminating some of these challenges and could be the basis for a biosensor that could eliminate chemistry.
I did some research and among other interesting papers, I came across one paper done by a scientist at Princeton University who had printed a graphene sensor on a live rat’s tooth. He was able to wirelessly detect the bacteria in the rat’s mouth. I thought this was cool technology and it had great potential. I gave this scientist a call and we had similar visions about where this technology could go, and we agreed that it would make sense for us to collaborate.
I’m a biologist and these scientist engineers introduced me to this whole new world of solid-state electronics. I realized that solid-state electronics could teach us just an awful lot about molecular interactions that we couldn't test or understand in other ways.
We collaborated for several years and finally came up with a very crude prototype where we could show that this technology could work and could detect biomarkers. We could detect both protein and nucleic acid and you can't do that with conventional assays.
So that by itself was transformational. I realized this is significant. And I was considering retiring and decided I'll take one more swing here. I decided to start the company in 2019.
What would you say were the biggest stressors as a founder?
I feel complete responsibility for everything when it comes to raising the money, keeping it, and getting the technology and science moving. I feel responsible for the people that I work with in the lab and part of the motivation for me to continue raising money is so that they can remain employed.
In addition to that, you have shareholders that agreed with funding your project because they trust and have confidence in you, feeling that you will deliver and that the money is not going to be wasted.
What is important in that process is being honest with yourself – me being honest with myself and clear about what my strengths and weaknesses are.
My motivation is to see this technology platform commercialized. I don't have strong financial goals. Those aren't the motivations for me. If this technology can be commercialized, the financial rewards will follow but it's more about getting this commercialized and that means that I must make smart decisions.
Part of my role is to find the best people to get this and move this forward, to reach that ultimate goal of commercialization. At some point, and not too distant future, we need to bring other people in to take my role. People who have better skills, different ideas, and different perspectives that can help take the company to that level.
I try to be as clear as possible in my mind that there's going to be a time when I should step back and relinquish control. That's a very hard thing to do, particularly because I started the company.
Having the trust and confidence in people that can help you get to where you need to go is an important thing to develop, but it's not easy, frankly.
Have there been any pivot points in the company’s lifetime?
At the beginning of the company in pre-COVID 2019 we intended to develop a handheld device that you could use in the field. We were targeting vector diseases, for example, Zika and Dengue, which are part of a big, global healthcare crisis – particularly related to dengue – although we in the United States don't understand that because we haven't been affected by it. This was our target market.
It was almost as though we didn't have a choice, but a moral obligation you have this technology platform and keep working on dengue when we have this huge global pandemic.
The pandemic hit turned the world upside down, and we pivoted considerably to address the issues we were all facing with COVID diagnostics. We gave up vector-borne illnesses and moved into respiratory infections.
It was almost as though we didn't have a choice, but a moral obligation you have this technology platform and keep working on dengue when we have this huge global pandemic.
So, the pivot was a bit forced in many ways. In that, we had to step and do what we could to see if we could offer something that could be applied and developed. While our technology's still in development, it is going to be quite useful technology for future pandemics.
I think the pivot is going to make a lot of sense. We believe the technology will be helpful and we will transform the way diagnostics are done in the future when we have these emerging biothreats.
Can you tell me about your experience with fundraising?
Firstly, I managed to get a couple of angel investors involved. A couple of people invested in me, essentially, because that’s what it was. It was only me and my vision of the technology.
We've been quite successful at raising cash. We've raised about $5 million in seed investments, primarily through angel investors. That enabled us to set up a lab in St. Paul, Minnesota, and establish collaborations with two universities. So, we had the money to get things started and the result of that is that we've been able to complete the technical validation of the technology.
We've raised funding and we've managed to hit some milestones. As you hit those milestones, people become more confident that what you're working on has a chance of success and it makes it easier to raise more money.
We were also able to get funding through a grant from NIH and we were just recently awarded a contract from BARDA, which is the biodefence group in the US.
We are now in the process of trying to close on a series A, between 12 to 15 million dollars. The economic climate is awful. It's probably the worst it's been in 20 years and the VCs are all hiding on their shells. The valuations of the portfolios have plummeted. They're saving their cash for their portfolio companies in anticipation of a recession. It's been hard. But finally, we had a breakthrough and we're hoping in the next 60 days to close on that series A. Which will completely transform the company.
Have you got any advice for other founders?
There are a couple of pieces of advice, and they're related.
don't let good be the enemy of perfect.
The first is: to make a decision. Do it and if you're going to fail, fail quickly, learn from it and move on. That’s a learning process. In the lab and with the scientists and engineers, I usually say “let's not overthink this, let's not overanalyse it, let's do it.” If it doesn't work, we learn from it. If it does work, great! But let's move on. We don't want to get paralysed by analysis.
The second piece is: don't let good be the enemy of perfect. It’s not going to be perfect out of the box. We need to take iterative steps, move things forward, and give ourselves a chance to fail.
Don't beat yourself up because you failed, or it didn't work. Let’s move on and we'll benefit in the end from having that learning experience. It’s all a matter of doing and not dwelling on the failures. Learn something from them and move forward.
What opportunities do you see in the animal health market that would benefit both animals and the commercial side of it?
I do believe that animal health represents a huge opportunity for point-of-need diagnostics. When we talk about diagnostics, we're not just talking about humans or animals, they're intertwined.
As we learned with the pandemic, zoonotic diseases are considerable in the population. Being able to monitor, test, and diagnose diseases in livestock and pets is important and will continue to be important. I think the importance has increased. I believe that there's a big opportunity in the industry. As far as companion animals: the idea of moving diagnostics into the homes so that consumers can test their pets without having to go see the vet, it may be a little early for that, and I think that's what we're learning as we explore this opportunity.
We're trying to learn about which applications are the best to apply to this particular technology platform. We've had several conversations with companies that are interested in diagnostics, and we've learned a great deal. Two or three companies are quite interested and may prove to either become good partners or maybe even investors in the company.
We did reach out to a couple of VCs in this space, and it became very clear to us that we couldn't do it alone because we don't understand it. We don't have a business model. We need someone who understands the space to help us develop a market model so that we can understand the financial aspects of the opportunity.
In addition to that, we must stay focused on what we're doing now. This is incremental to our business plan, but we think it could be and will be important in the future. So, laying some groundwork now is important. We'll continue to pursue that, but to get any of the larger funding from VCs, we need a strategic partner that can give us credibility for us to say we understand this market.
