Chay Carter: we are joined today on the Open Loop podcast by Daniel Powell, the founder of Spark Biomedical. Daniel, fantastic to have you on. I would love for you to introduce yourself to the audience, tell them a bit about yourself and your background.
Daniel: Yeah, thank you for having me on. like you said, I'm Daniel Powell. I'm one of the co-founders of Spark Biomedical. I've been doing med device and specifically neuromodulation for about the last 22 years of my career. before that I was a consultant doing all kinds of things, even was a Y2K consultant back in the day.
Chay Carter: I mean I started my career as an investment banking recruiter and did lot of business analysis and project management recruitment back in the early 2000s so very familiar with that world. I mean how did you make the leap from a KPMG consultant to a medical device executive?
Daniel: So I had my first midlife crisis and decided to open an internet gaming cafe. This was how long ago this was. And the director of electrical engineering for Saint Jude Medical would come in on his lunch break to play games and we got to talking and I needed to get a job because I was losing money hand over fist and there was an opening in at St. Jude Medical Neuro and I beat all odds and got a job there and Never looked back.
Chay Carter: That's incredible. Gaming Cafe. You don't hear about them too often anymore.
Daniel: So went out of a professional career, opened a retail stop, was standing there on my feet all day selling video game time to kids, and then got back into soaps. I always had an entrepreneurial interest.
Chay Carter: fantastic I mean so I've been the the neuromod space from from a gaming cafes is quite the leap I mean what was that that learning curve like what did you know about it actually before going into it was it completely fresh
Daniel: It it was really interesting because I I thought I was gonna have a real steep learning curve. and so do the you know, the interviewers, you're like, I don't know. but I had a strong software background, I'd done development, one of my previous careers was at KPMG and my job was to go into a new business, drop a team into whatever environment, and we had to figure out the unmet need and come up with a solution. And so it just used those same skills. when I joined, I was a software analyst first, which means I was defining software requirements, designing the interface, stuff I had done before I built apps and or before they were app software. actually built some bookie software once upon my you know, so for off Vegas betting. so I came in knowing how to like elicit requirements. And then build solutions to meet those requirements. And that's really where the matchup. And then learning the science, I just fell in love with it. It was just, you know, understanding how we're putting electricity into the nervous system that's affecting organ function. I would say I just couldn't get enough of it and I've just, you know, was in a mood to learn and apply the science compared to my technical abilities.
Chay Carter: It's interesting, isn't it? feel like everybody who gets their first exposure to neurotech or neuromodulation, I suppose, in its first iteration, sort of gets obsessed with it immediately. And just like this is insane how it actually works. And I think even now, I've had conversations like this recently where you talk to people about what neuromodulation is, spinal cord simulation, but even further, deep brain simulation, been around for decades, people still haven't heard of it and still think it's science fiction. of implanting electrical stimulators is bizarre.
Daniel: Yeah, I remember going to I was in Dusseldorf, Germany for the 30th anniversary of DBS, and that was 15 years ago. So yeah, it's still so I I originally was in the software department and working on the spinal cord stem system. I actually got inventor of the year with a couple of others where we developed a new way to move the stimulation field up and down a percutaneous lead. And then the DBS group grabbed me, brought me over to marketing to do upstream marketing and I got to launch DBS Europe and just see I it was just such an incredible time in my career. I was young, energetic. I didn't mind sitting for twelve hours on coach from Dallas to London. And I got to see hospital systems all over Europe and Australia You go from the blinders of I only know how the US works to in two years seeing, you know, three dozen countries. It was really cool.
Chay Carter: I love that. it's still a bit of a struggle I think in Europe too with some of the neuromod accessibility to patients, but it's growing all the time. And I actually spoke to somebody recently in India who was saying they're doing sort of a thousand DPS procedures a year right now. And it's just a huge, huge uptick. Yeah, it's madness I think. But yeah, was really, really exciting time globally for the business considering where it came from. We were talking 20 years ago. You did seven years at St. Jude. Did it turn into Abbott then?
Daniel: my goodness.
Chay Carter: you were there for that change.
Daniel: No, I I was there right after A and S became St. Jude. so I was part of that cultural transition. but I was out before Abbott. But there was always rumors. It was like Johnson Johnson's gonna buy us, Abbott's gonna buy us. It was always the rumor mill that there was a plan to roll that up. Yeah, yeah.
Chay Carter: jumped over to leaving over again I a pretty nervous Vegas nerve simulation that's for the third like major pillar in neuromodulation how was that change
Daniel: pretty interesting. culturally the companies were pretty similar. They were small, we still had that small neuromod. One of the success stories, ANS was one of the great startup success stories. Cyberonics at the time, great success story. continuing trying to grow and trying to add a second indication, of course Cybronic struggled with losing depression and then pivoting into sleep apnea. but there was a profound change in how the disease state looked. So spinal cord stem, did it make your pain go away? It's subjective, but you know the stimulation's happening and yes, but DBS was exciting, like you're in the DBS operating room. Standing right next to the surgeon, there's a hole in somebody's head, you can literally see their brain, they put the wire in. The patient is awake, their hands are shaking, you turn on electricity, their hands go steady, and they can sign their name for the first time. And you and the doctor are like, this works. You know, this is just so objective. Going into epilepsy, it was like, we're gonna put this thing in your neck, and you're gonna slowly have less seizures over the next two to three years. And it's like, so, you know, so you're still having seizures. and we would try to sell they were shorter seizures, they were less impactful, your recovery time was better. Every seizure is a minor piece of brain damage, right? it's an electrical storm in your head that goes off. And so the doctor and patient belief was really a a bigger uphill battle just for that disease state. And and then you get into what every neuromodulation Company has a challenge with, you know, I'll just give them one more pill. I'll just try one more drug combo. And so you're always up against a very easy script to convince to switch to the implant. So that was really eye-opening. And when we were starting Spargo, it was something I was like, I don't want to be in such subjective indications, subjective effectiveness. And the first time I saw somebody detoxing off an acu p electroacupuncture detox, and in thirty minutes they go from just like in distress, sweating, you know, high anxiety to and thirty minutes later they're laughing and smiling and you're like, That works. That is profound. So I I love stuff that I mean it seems kind of obvious, but profound clinical effects.
Chay Carter: Yeah, I mean, it's quite the jump from leaving over to Spark, right? mean, it's vagus def simulation at Spark, non-invasive, different indication. I mean, tell us about that transition from the implantable neuromod space, which obviously serves a purpose, right? The implantable sector will always exist, extreme indications, extreme needs from patients, but there's this big push towards wearable, non-invasive. Now, tell me about that journey for you from that to where we are now.
Daniel: Yeah, so when I was at Cyberonics, we had an investment in a German auricular neurostem company that I made fun of and said, that'll never work. So we'll set the stage. I was not a believer. but I met what would become my two co-founders, Dr. Naveed Kadaparos and Dr. Alejandro Kovalin, both neuroscientists, and they were combining their knowledge of vagus nerve stem and trigeminal st stem.
Chay Carter: You
Daniel: There was a Alejandro had a hypothesis that you put these two together and you're gonna get an outsized effect. And what really started making them believers was like Naveed's work was in stroke stroke recovery, what became microtransponder, so upper limb stroke recovery, vagus nerve using neuroplasticity. And these groups out of Cambridge were reproducing his implanted work with a wearable. So he was, you know, he was starting to become a believer and go, I need to look at this. Alejandro built the monarch system which stimulates the trigenital nerve now on market for ADHD. So he was already a believer. And they talked me into it. And remember the first time they were putting it like this prototype earpiece on me. And Naveed was like, You have really nice ears. And I was like, That's a weird world I'm getting into, but thank you. and now, you know, I never meant to get into a business where I have to touch people's ears all the time, but I did. It's it's like I'm gonna touch your ear now. Just
Chay Carter: You
Daniel: Here we go. Yeah, yeah.
Chay Carter: That's how we all get you everywhere, right? That's it. I love that. mean, tell us bit more about the technology itself. What does it look like? yeah, mean, the opioid withdrawal space is almost something that's really, really obvious to some degree. That's something, know, the withdrawal symptoms. Targeting that, is it the first company to have targeted that with the neuro simulator? What does the landscape look like?
Daniel: Yeah, so we were not the first. Before us came an acupuncture system. And if you go back before electroacupuncture, which you might remember the P STEM device out of Austria that kind of had a sordid history because of reimbursement. but if you go back to the eighties, like everybody had an ant that had an acupuncture needle in their ear trying to quit smoking, and they would wiggle it to alleviate the withdrawal and the cravings. so We're just picking up something that the Chinese figured out six thousand years ago. so you know, progress to electroacupuncture and then progress to us, which is, you know, transcutaneous versus percutaneous. So ours is a hydrogel that goes on the ear at those nerve endings. It's it's all hitting those same nerve endings. one of the unique challenges that makes our system special is the trigeminal nerve speaks a different language than the vagus nerve, specifically in frequencies. So we actually built a dual stem engine that can stimulate independently the vagus nerve at 15 or 30 hertz, and independently the trigeminal nerve at 100 hertz. So that kind of makes the electronics a little more complex. And but yeah, we we hit the trigeminal nerve. At this little divot right in front of your ear. If you've ever rubbed your temple area or this while you're stressed, you're actually releasing endorphins, which is part of the mechanism of action. And then we used to target the cymbicontia, this little area right above your ear canal. it's really difficult to hit, ears are really greasy. And one of our big inventions, it sounds so crazy to say an invention, but we've we move the lead behind the ear on the mastoid. It's a branch of the vagus nerve coming out of the cranium called the Arnold's nerve. And so now our earpiece is this nice horseshoe. Super easy to put on. And I'll say years of having something that was inside the ear was a pain and getting out of the ear has been a a good pivot.
Chay Carter: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I feel like the vagus nerve simulation market, I that's only part of what you do, but it's, I wrote an article about this recently, just there's so many different indications being focused on it and different areas of the body where you can simulate it too. And obviously, leaving over is a good example. We've got depression studies, they've got epilepsy studies, they've got yourself, obviously, there's anti-anxiety, wearables. Vegas nerve simulator you can buy on Amazon you know let's not get into the questionable no let's not let's not question the clinical validity of those there's a lot there isn't any but let's talk about yeah this Vegas nerve
Daniel: Yeah. I don't I don't like those. Yeah, I don't like Well and so this and it does sound ridiculous. You're like, how how can this one nerve affect all those items? So you go down to what the two or three fundamental things we know the vagus nerve modulates. And so we'll start with the autonomic system. the fight or flight versus rest and digest. And if you think of any time you're stuck in kind of a high fight or flight, you're cranking out cortisol, you're having stress, and that ripples into all kinds of diseases. And so in withdrawal is extreme fight or flight. You literally believe you're gonna die if you don't use again because you it's a disorder in the amygdala, it's balancing all these things. And so anytime you increase parasympathetic tone and reduce sympathetic tone, and you improve fight or flight, anxiety, stress, depression, PTSD, anything that you can kind of draw back to that autonomic disruption is gonna get better. So that's kind of one why it works on so many things. my sister used the device and she had a disease called Renault's disease where your fingers get real cold. And she's like, My Renauds went away. And I asked Alejandro, why did this happen? He goes, That's an autonomic disorder, and you're fixing the autonomics. So at our heart, we're an autonomics company. The other component that we've seen come out of the Feinstein Institute and all Kevin Tracy's work is the inflammation. We just recently saw SetPoint Medical finally get an FDA indication for rheumatoid arthritis. Well, that's all that work out of the Feinstein Institute, and that's sending the signal not to the center of the brain and the brainstem, but down the vagus nerve, which comes out of your cranial. It's your only cranial nerve that comes out of the head. And it goes and touches every organ, most importantly the spleen. And through a cascade of neurotransmitters, you have an systemic inflammation reduction. Well, anytime you reduce inflammation, how many diseases get better? So and that was one of the things we always hypothesized at cyberonics for epilepsy is, you know, were we interrupting the seizure or are we actually reducing inflammation that stops the seizures? Because we know for epilepsy, if you go on a pure keto diet and reduce all inflammation, you can actually stop all seizures. The problem is you eat one wrong thing, you come out of ketosis and you have a horrible seizure, so it's not as popular. so that's why you see so many disease states around the vagus nerve. being treated it's fix inflammation, fix autonomics and a lot of things get better.
Chay Carter: really interesting. It's fascinating market. there's so much potential out there isn't there? think and I feel like we're just we're just kind of getting started on it. I think the accessibility to different neurotechnologies too is a really fundamental piece and I think a large part of that comes to the communication of what the technology actually does and you know how does the everyday person understand that. I think the first thing that people often try and do is prescribe. as the drug treatment is always the first place to go. But I do feel like there's this almost slow, it's like a slow turning cruise ship at the moment of this understanding of what's happening in neuro technology, how stimulating various parts of the body can alleviate various ailments. And I feel like what you guys are building in relation to, yeah, like withdrawals for instance, is a really, I wouldn't say every day, but really understandable. cause and effect really of what's going on. mean, how's it going with the expansion of the business and the expansion to patients? What's that journey been like? Because no one has an easy time in neurotech getting their device in front of people.
Daniel: No. the problem with addiction is it tends to take all your money away. All right. it's very expensive. So very we're highly dependent on reimbursement. So we're still working on reimbursement for a wider commercial rollout. on this journey, though, we discovered or we were contacted by the Feinstein Institute, ke like I mentioned, Kevin Tracy, on a new novel application in hemostasis. So 24 years ago. So so long story short, still limited rollout for addiction. We're focusing on things like the VA, county programs that can pay for it that aren't dependent on reimbursement. Most of our efforts now are going towards this new novel hemostasis application that was discovered. It was a DARPA project 24 years ago. And the other thing that's go so when when they were studying the white blood cells for inflammation, they noticed changes to the platelets. And they're like, okay, we're affecting platelet behavior as well. And so they came up with this idea called the neural tourniquet, which was can we control hemostasis with the nervous system? And the long story short is you can, and you can stimulate a head of a wound, prime the platelets that are housed in the spleen, and you get a fifty percent reduction in blood loss. A huge, huge market here. So soldiers can use this before going on the battlefield, and literally we did a A large mammal study with a a 25% liver lobectomy, unsurvivable wound, stimulated before the surgery, and the unsurvivable wound became survivable. I mean it it's profound. So think anything that needs a transfusion, any surgery with a drain tube for blood that increases length of stay, any non-compressible hemorrhage, GI bleed, postpartum hemorrhage, things that you can't put a gel or a tourniquet on.
Chay Carter: Yeah.
Daniel: And you want to prevent blood loss, specifically transfusions, this has a fit. So we're really excited. We're getting that, we're doing our final clinical study. again, we consistently show a 50% reduction in blood loss every application we do. so we're highly focused on bringing that to market. And I'll get back to what I love doing, which is selling to hospitals and doctors versus rehab clinics. and that'll be the majority of our focus. We're not abandoning addiction, it's just
Chay Carter: interesting because we haven't
Daniel: Yeah, it's always gonna be a tough.
Chay Carter: Well, you guys have got some interesting things going on at the moment, right? Obviously apart from this, we've got a new CEO come in recently, Anya Kramer. We've also got OnBody as well, which is sort of the spinoff. Not really sure where to start here. Should we start with OnBody and how that came to life? Because that's maybe not as recent as Anya's appointment.
Daniel: Yeah, you know, what started off is we were just trying to prove the neural tourniquet worked and we were trying to figure out a clinical model that didn't require us to be in the surgical suite measuring blood loss or doing worse estimated blood loss. And so one of our hematologist advisors suggested we look at heavy menstrual bleeding, specifically women with von Willebrand disease, which is a clotting disorder. And we went and ran a pilot study. Saw enormous results, 57% reduction in blood loss, menstrual blood loss, 50% reduction in cramps, which that's your autonomic system effect, improvements in mood, that's your endorphin release from from the trigeminal nerve. and so it was we decided that we actually had a unique women's health opportunity here. And so we created a sub-company totally focused on women's health and to advance this. So it's on market as own body and selling as a wellness device, but we will get an FDA indication for that and the goal is to make it over the counter and not require prescription. And then recently, like you said, bringing in a new CEO has IPO experience under her belt, multiple exits, you know, looking at all these opportunities and starting to make some exit deals with some of our IP just made a lot of sense. And then I'm just get to pivot and I'm just focused really on on getting the blood loss, the surgical blood loss product
Chay Carter: We often see businesses get to a certain point and the original CEO is not the person to take it any further and often that means different things for that CEO, maybe a board seat, whatever. But for yourself, you're staying on board and taking more of a commercial mind to it. Is that your role going forward for Spark?
Daniel: That is, and you know, I've raised thirty-five million for the company. We got two FDA indications. But we had our last board meeting the other day and I wasn't having to run it and it was really nice. It was it was I I got to sit back and I had one slide that I had to worry about. So I'm happy to pa pass a torch. Anya's a fantastic hire. I think our investors will be very rewarded with her taking us into the next phase of this journey.
Chay Carter: Hahaha exciting as well from her perspective all the stuff that you guys have built is three business lines essentially and probably probably more in the pipeline I mean yeah Unbode is really fascinating actually just because I think the women the women's held their neurotech crossover which we're seeing more and more of there's a few companies out there doing really exciting things it's again like I think the best ideas often seem like the most obvious ones and I feel like the creation of Unbode and the technology there and Amy too I've had the luxury of having a chat with her a
Daniel: Exactly.
Chay Carter: over there, some of them deeply passionate about that market. it's a really, and also Alejandro too, I had the pleasure of bumping into him in the line for a happy hour going to a saluda after Nan's drink in 2023. So there you go, I've had some weird connections. Maybe we crossed paths, it was the end of the evening, who knows. But that's really, really exciting. mean, what is the short, medium and long term look like for you guys now?
Daniel: I think I was at that event. I was at that event too, I'm pretty sure, yeah.
Chay Carter: so many things going on, lots of new leadership coming in. What's the immediate need for you guys and what does 2027 and onwards look like?
Daniel: Yeah, really the goal is to spend the next twelve to fifteen months hitting several major milestones, own body growth, regulate clear regulatory pathway for the neural tourniquet, leading to the submission to the FDA for an approval for neural tourniquet for surgical bleeding. with those milestones, raise a series B, and that's why we need someone with onious connections and experience. And because we are venture back now, but we're kinda gonna be a bigger play with that series B to really launch the neural tourniquet the right way at the end of 2027. If if you think about this, this product sh should be attached to every surgery that has, like I said, blood loss, ooze, anything where we can reduce length of stay or transfusions, it's just gonna be a huge cost savings. Probably don't know in the American healthcare system, but probably British as well. A surgery, such as total hip replacement, is paid on a fixed DRG. Maybe the insurance company pays the hospital $72,000, and that includes surgery, all the supplies for the surgery, and two days of recovery before they're discharged. And if you need a transfusion blood, that's $1,250 a bag. And so it's like if you needed four bags of blood or two, that's pure profit loss. so the value proposition is huge to use this device on all these surgeries and then length of stay, if you can just get the patient out of the hospital six to eight hours early earlier and turn that bed, you're paid on a fixed you know, a fixed price. it's all upside for the the healthcare systems. And I I would probably assume it's similar like that in in in England.
Chay Carter: Yeah, Well, yeah, all over Europe as well, I think. It's a continent of almost like 100 % insurance, but what comes with that is complex insurance policies and, like you said, time in bed, it all matters. So, yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting how the business has evolved into this from when I first started tracking you guys a few years ago and looking at the opioid space and then seeing own body and now seeing this. It's really impressive to see how it's changed, but also a testament to you guys too and your innovation and how you constantly bring in new products to the market and running new clinical trials. It's quite impressive.
Daniel: You know, we founded this on a clinical first mentality. Of course, both my co-founders are neuroscientists, so you know, th that is the focus. But you know, we do really good science. really that that is the frustrating thing with the wellness devices. They don't have the clinical studies to back them up or they're not real. That is the frustration with some of our the acupuncture devices that they don't continue to move the science forward. So
Chay Carter: Yeah
Daniel: We've wanted that to be our our defining attribute, when people think of Spark is that we we've moved the science forward.
Chay Carter: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, there have been so many companies that have hanged their hats on an indication or a technology and it's really refreshing to see you guys looking at things from a very, very broad perspective. know Chris does amazing work for you guys too. I've had the pleasure of chatting to him a couple of times, but what do you see? There's so many changes happening in Neurotech all the time and maybe this is a nice sort of closing question, but form factor changes all the time. spoke about it. says non-invasive, we spoke about direct to consumer stuff, I think there's a big push for more clinical validity within the direct to consumer market. Obviously Vegas nerve indications are growing. time and so the treatments are expanding massively and what comes with that is new companies, new funding and so forth but we've also got this eruption of break-computer interfaces and closed-loop technology now more so than before, know, reading and reacting. What do you think the future holds for the neurotech industry and what kind of excites you? What niche little weird corner of neurotech and there are many of them are you particularly excited about?
Daniel: Yeah, I think the closed loop thing is something everybody wants to add. it's on everyone's roadmap. If it's not, it should be. we're getting I remember I was doing brain computer interface before it was called brain computer interface. We were just trying to do deep brain stimulation with local field potentials within the brain to figure out if we're stimulating the right part of the STN and to move amplitude. so Twenty years ago we were saying we need we need that closed loop. I think the closed loop for Kala Health on their wristband really helped their reimbursement strategy. if I remember those talks by Renee. And I think it's gonna be critical. Is is it just though are all those recordings coming from Apple Watch and your Whoop device and all this? Or are they custom sensors as part of our solution? I think there'll be a whole hybrid of decisions along those lines because you know. Do you reinvent the wheel now that everybody's got their digital health monitoring on board or their oral ring? you know, those are the kind of things we're discussing here. It's like aura ring already does heart rate variability really well. Like if they have that, do we need to build a new heart rate variability monitor? So those are those are some of the I think challenges of reinventing a wheel, but you then don't owe the data. I don't know. I'm kinda rambling here, but it's the few
Chay Carter: Yeah. No, no. Well, think like form factors key, isn't it as well? Like I think there's always like eruption of EEG technology as well. I'm trying to make sense of what's going on in our brain. think machine learning has kind of caught up with some of the readings, but also I hear a lot of people say like, is EEG even the best technology to read, you know, signals, brain signals? Is it the best way to go about it? Is something, is that even gonna change? I mean, it's already a hundred year old technology. And you think about like, what are we,
Daniel: Yeah, truth. Right. Exactly.
Chay Carter: doing. So yeah I think there's, it's always interesting in neurotech and then it's like a microcosm of a larger debate of existing technology exists and how do we get the most out of existing technology but also at the same time where's the innovation happening on new technologies and how... The reason we're using existing technology is we know it works, it's pretty been approved to some degree versus, yeah, I think this BCI conversation at the moment where we're reading brain signals, we're processing them, we're decoding them, and we're putting it on an app. That is a Breakabooter interface. It doesn't have to be an implantable neuro stimulator or controlling a mouse cursor on a screen. It could be many, many different formats. But yeah, we'll see. It's a weird and wonderful time to be in the market.
Daniel: Yeah. I love it. I it's exciting and it like I said, now twenty whatever years ago, I sat there in that training room, learning the the gait control theory of spinal cord stem and I was just fell in love with it. And it's it's cool to see how far it's like it's evolved and become more commonplace.
Chay Carter: Yeah, the spinal cord stimulation marker is probably another long conversation for another day.
Daniel: I am so happy not to be in it. Who needs I'll say all the contrary. Who needs seven companies killing each other for s for for a handful of pain docs? It's yeah. I I when we were starting Spark, I said the one thing I'm gonna say is we're not a pain company. You know, we we're an addiction company or whatever. I was like, it's just too many pain companies.
Chay Carter: Yeah. I wrote an article about this recently and it's just it took me bloody ages to get it right to so many companies a little bit of innovation happening some really really cool things but it's one of those things where you go this is a really established multi-billion dollar business that's great let's just let it be its own thing maybe it just needs to be run by three maybe Boston need to keep buying people and build a big portfolio and then I Medtronic dispense 600 million on on SBR so again a conversation for another day but it's a fascinating space yeah
Daniel: Yeah.
Chay Carter: I always think about who are the, what are the other industries that are kind of catching up? mean, was over a hundred million recently invested in the urology market and the sacral nerve, tibial nerve.
Daniel: I think I think the big win, I think the big win for neurotechnology, especially wearables, is ResMed's purchase of Noctrix Health for Restless Leg Syndrome. So going from CPAP and sleep to this other quality of sleep, and that's a three hundred and seventy million dollar exit. the wearable market needed to point to a win.
Chay Carter: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, the sleep space in neuromod in hyperglossal nerve stimulation is fascinating. mean, obviously dominated by Inspire, but we've got this Nixo emergence happening and they're gaining some traction. But obviously let's not forget leaving Nova too. Entering, yeah. I that had to be playing around in that sleep mode. That was an acquisition as well, wasn't it?
Daniel: Even though it's yeah. Yeah. And I was there I forgot the name it was the company from San Diego, but yes.
Chay Carter: Yeah, I mean, all these small markets are growing massively now. So in the epilepsy market, not just the implantable, leaving over a neuro pace market, now we're seeing more and more more wearable devices that are more about seizure detection. There's a lot of collaborations going on with pharma. So alerting patients when to take medication. But then there's a lot of time in neurotech, there's... a patient population that is underserved by the pharmaceutical industry, like mental health, instance, only tackles a portion of that, and neurodegenerative is probably the worst. So seeing these growing markets in that space, but then, so again, it's either an implant or it's a, there's not that many wearable take-home devices in neurotech yet that are FDA approved, and think that's what's fascinating about it. We're gonna see more and more and more of that. Here's a device, take it home. Yeah, there's a few approvals happen, right, I think in the,
Daniel: They're definitely coming though, yeah.
Chay Carter: space but yeah we'll see there's a lot going on.
Daniel: Absolutely. It's a hot time.
Chay Carter: Yeah, thank you so much for the time. Where can people find out more about Spark? What's the website?
Daniel: sparkbiomedical dot com. go to the science section and look at all the clinical studies we have going. It is an impressive list of areas we're exploring.
Chay Carter: site to see what else you grow into over the years to come. Thanks very much Daniel, I appreciate your time.
Daniel: All right, thank you so much.
Daniel: Yeah, thank you for having me on. like you said, I'm Daniel Powell. I'm one of the co-founders of Spark Biomedical. I've been doing med device and specifically neuromodulation for about the last 22 years of my career. before that I was a consultant doing all kinds of things, even was a Y2K consultant back in the day.
Chay Carter: I mean I started my career as an investment banking recruiter and did lot of business analysis and project management recruitment back in the early 2000s so very familiar with that world. I mean how did you make the leap from a KPMG consultant to a medical device executive?
Daniel: So I had my first midlife crisis and decided to open an internet gaming cafe. This was how long ago this was. And the director of electrical engineering for Saint Jude Medical would come in on his lunch break to play games and we got to talking and I needed to get a job because I was losing money hand over fist and there was an opening in at St. Jude Medical Neuro and I beat all odds and got a job there and Never looked back.
Chay Carter: That's incredible. Gaming Cafe. You don't hear about them too often anymore.
Daniel: So went out of a professional career, opened a retail stop, was standing there on my feet all day selling video game time to kids, and then got back into soaps. I always had an entrepreneurial interest.
Chay Carter: fantastic I mean so I've been the the neuromod space from from a gaming cafes is quite the leap I mean what was that that learning curve like what did you know about it actually before going into it was it completely fresh
Daniel: It it was really interesting because I I thought I was gonna have a real steep learning curve. and so do the you know, the interviewers, you're like, I don't know. but I had a strong software background, I'd done development, one of my previous careers was at KPMG and my job was to go into a new business, drop a team into whatever environment, and we had to figure out the unmet need and come up with a solution. And so it just used those same skills. when I joined, I was a software analyst first, which means I was defining software requirements, designing the interface, stuff I had done before I built apps and or before they were app software. actually built some bookie software once upon my you know, so for off Vegas betting. so I came in knowing how to like elicit requirements. And then build solutions to meet those requirements. And that's really where the matchup. And then learning the science, I just fell in love with it. It was just, you know, understanding how we're putting electricity into the nervous system that's affecting organ function. I would say I just couldn't get enough of it and I've just, you know, was in a mood to learn and apply the science compared to my technical abilities.
Chay Carter: It's interesting, isn't it? feel like everybody who gets their first exposure to neurotech or neuromodulation, I suppose, in its first iteration, sort of gets obsessed with it immediately. And just like this is insane how it actually works. And I think even now, I've had conversations like this recently where you talk to people about what neuromodulation is, spinal cord simulation, but even further, deep brain simulation, been around for decades, people still haven't heard of it and still think it's science fiction. of implanting electrical stimulators is bizarre.
Daniel: Yeah, I remember going to I was in Dusseldorf, Germany for the 30th anniversary of DBS, and that was 15 years ago. So yeah, it's still so I I originally was in the software department and working on the spinal cord stem system. I actually got inventor of the year with a couple of others where we developed a new way to move the stimulation field up and down a percutaneous lead. And then the DBS group grabbed me, brought me over to marketing to do upstream marketing and I got to launch DBS Europe and just see I it was just such an incredible time in my career. I was young, energetic. I didn't mind sitting for twelve hours on coach from Dallas to London. And I got to see hospital systems all over Europe and Australia You go from the blinders of I only know how the US works to in two years seeing, you know, three dozen countries. It was really cool.
Chay Carter: I love that. it's still a bit of a struggle I think in Europe too with some of the neuromod accessibility to patients, but it's growing all the time. And I actually spoke to somebody recently in India who was saying they're doing sort of a thousand DPS procedures a year right now. And it's just a huge, huge uptick. Yeah, it's madness I think. But yeah, was really, really exciting time globally for the business considering where it came from. We were talking 20 years ago. You did seven years at St. Jude. Did it turn into Abbott then?
Daniel: my goodness.
Chay Carter: you were there for that change.
Daniel: No, I I was there right after A and S became St. Jude. so I was part of that cultural transition. but I was out before Abbott. But there was always rumors. It was like Johnson Johnson's gonna buy us, Abbott's gonna buy us. It was always the rumor mill that there was a plan to roll that up. Yeah, yeah.
Chay Carter: jumped over to leaving over again I a pretty nervous Vegas nerve simulation that's for the third like major pillar in neuromodulation how was that change
Daniel: pretty interesting. culturally the companies were pretty similar. They were small, we still had that small neuromod. One of the success stories, ANS was one of the great startup success stories. Cyberonics at the time, great success story. continuing trying to grow and trying to add a second indication, of course Cybronic struggled with losing depression and then pivoting into sleep apnea. but there was a profound change in how the disease state looked. So spinal cord stem, did it make your pain go away? It's subjective, but you know the stimulation's happening and yes, but DBS was exciting, like you're in the DBS operating room. Standing right next to the surgeon, there's a hole in somebody's head, you can literally see their brain, they put the wire in. The patient is awake, their hands are shaking, you turn on electricity, their hands go steady, and they can sign their name for the first time. And you and the doctor are like, this works. You know, this is just so objective. Going into epilepsy, it was like, we're gonna put this thing in your neck, and you're gonna slowly have less seizures over the next two to three years. And it's like, so, you know, so you're still having seizures. and we would try to sell they were shorter seizures, they were less impactful, your recovery time was better. Every seizure is a minor piece of brain damage, right? it's an electrical storm in your head that goes off. And so the doctor and patient belief was really a a bigger uphill battle just for that disease state. And and then you get into what every neuromodulation Company has a challenge with, you know, I'll just give them one more pill. I'll just try one more drug combo. And so you're always up against a very easy script to convince to switch to the implant. So that was really eye-opening. And when we were starting Spargo, it was something I was like, I don't want to be in such subjective indications, subjective effectiveness. And the first time I saw somebody detoxing off an acu p electroacupuncture detox, and in thirty minutes they go from just like in distress, sweating, you know, high anxiety to and thirty minutes later they're laughing and smiling and you're like, That works. That is profound. So I I love stuff that I mean it seems kind of obvious, but profound clinical effects.
Chay Carter: Yeah, I mean, it's quite the jump from leaving over to Spark, right? mean, it's vagus def simulation at Spark, non-invasive, different indication. I mean, tell us about that transition from the implantable neuromod space, which obviously serves a purpose, right? The implantable sector will always exist, extreme indications, extreme needs from patients, but there's this big push towards wearable, non-invasive. Now, tell me about that journey for you from that to where we are now.
Daniel: Yeah, so when I was at Cyberonics, we had an investment in a German auricular neurostem company that I made fun of and said, that'll never work. So we'll set the stage. I was not a believer. but I met what would become my two co-founders, Dr. Naveed Kadaparos and Dr. Alejandro Kovalin, both neuroscientists, and they were combining their knowledge of vagus nerve stem and trigeminal st stem.
Chay Carter: You
Daniel: There was a Alejandro had a hypothesis that you put these two together and you're gonna get an outsized effect. And what really started making them believers was like Naveed's work was in stroke stroke recovery, what became microtransponder, so upper limb stroke recovery, vagus nerve using neuroplasticity. And these groups out of Cambridge were reproducing his implanted work with a wearable. So he was, you know, he was starting to become a believer and go, I need to look at this. Alejandro built the monarch system which stimulates the trigenital nerve now on market for ADHD. So he was already a believer. And they talked me into it. And remember the first time they were putting it like this prototype earpiece on me. And Naveed was like, You have really nice ears. And I was like, That's a weird world I'm getting into, but thank you. and now, you know, I never meant to get into a business where I have to touch people's ears all the time, but I did. It's it's like I'm gonna touch your ear now. Just
Chay Carter: You
Daniel: Here we go. Yeah, yeah.
Chay Carter: That's how we all get you everywhere, right? That's it. I love that. mean, tell us bit more about the technology itself. What does it look like? yeah, mean, the opioid withdrawal space is almost something that's really, really obvious to some degree. That's something, know, the withdrawal symptoms. Targeting that, is it the first company to have targeted that with the neuro simulator? What does the landscape look like?
Daniel: Yeah, so we were not the first. Before us came an acupuncture system. And if you go back before electroacupuncture, which you might remember the P STEM device out of Austria that kind of had a sordid history because of reimbursement. but if you go back to the eighties, like everybody had an ant that had an acupuncture needle in their ear trying to quit smoking, and they would wiggle it to alleviate the withdrawal and the cravings. so We're just picking up something that the Chinese figured out six thousand years ago. so you know, progress to electroacupuncture and then progress to us, which is, you know, transcutaneous versus percutaneous. So ours is a hydrogel that goes on the ear at those nerve endings. It's it's all hitting those same nerve endings. one of the unique challenges that makes our system special is the trigeminal nerve speaks a different language than the vagus nerve, specifically in frequencies. So we actually built a dual stem engine that can stimulate independently the vagus nerve at 15 or 30 hertz, and independently the trigeminal nerve at 100 hertz. So that kind of makes the electronics a little more complex. And but yeah, we we hit the trigeminal nerve. At this little divot right in front of your ear. If you've ever rubbed your temple area or this while you're stressed, you're actually releasing endorphins, which is part of the mechanism of action. And then we used to target the cymbicontia, this little area right above your ear canal. it's really difficult to hit, ears are really greasy. And one of our big inventions, it sounds so crazy to say an invention, but we've we move the lead behind the ear on the mastoid. It's a branch of the vagus nerve coming out of the cranium called the Arnold's nerve. And so now our earpiece is this nice horseshoe. Super easy to put on. And I'll say years of having something that was inside the ear was a pain and getting out of the ear has been a a good pivot.
Chay Carter: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I feel like the vagus nerve simulation market, I that's only part of what you do, but it's, I wrote an article about this recently, just there's so many different indications being focused on it and different areas of the body where you can simulate it too. And obviously, leaving over is a good example. We've got depression studies, they've got epilepsy studies, they've got yourself, obviously, there's anti-anxiety, wearables. Vegas nerve simulator you can buy on Amazon you know let's not get into the questionable no let's not let's not question the clinical validity of those there's a lot there isn't any but let's talk about yeah this Vegas nerve
Daniel: Yeah. I don't I don't like those. Yeah, I don't like Well and so this and it does sound ridiculous. You're like, how how can this one nerve affect all those items? So you go down to what the two or three fundamental things we know the vagus nerve modulates. And so we'll start with the autonomic system. the fight or flight versus rest and digest. And if you think of any time you're stuck in kind of a high fight or flight, you're cranking out cortisol, you're having stress, and that ripples into all kinds of diseases. And so in withdrawal is extreme fight or flight. You literally believe you're gonna die if you don't use again because you it's a disorder in the amygdala, it's balancing all these things. And so anytime you increase parasympathetic tone and reduce sympathetic tone, and you improve fight or flight, anxiety, stress, depression, PTSD, anything that you can kind of draw back to that autonomic disruption is gonna get better. So that's kind of one why it works on so many things. my sister used the device and she had a disease called Renault's disease where your fingers get real cold. And she's like, My Renauds went away. And I asked Alejandro, why did this happen? He goes, That's an autonomic disorder, and you're fixing the autonomics. So at our heart, we're an autonomics company. The other component that we've seen come out of the Feinstein Institute and all Kevin Tracy's work is the inflammation. We just recently saw SetPoint Medical finally get an FDA indication for rheumatoid arthritis. Well, that's all that work out of the Feinstein Institute, and that's sending the signal not to the center of the brain and the brainstem, but down the vagus nerve, which comes out of your cranial. It's your only cranial nerve that comes out of the head. And it goes and touches every organ, most importantly the spleen. And through a cascade of neurotransmitters, you have an systemic inflammation reduction. Well, anytime you reduce inflammation, how many diseases get better? So and that was one of the things we always hypothesized at cyberonics for epilepsy is, you know, were we interrupting the seizure or are we actually reducing inflammation that stops the seizures? Because we know for epilepsy, if you go on a pure keto diet and reduce all inflammation, you can actually stop all seizures. The problem is you eat one wrong thing, you come out of ketosis and you have a horrible seizure, so it's not as popular. so that's why you see so many disease states around the vagus nerve. being treated it's fix inflammation, fix autonomics and a lot of things get better.
Chay Carter: really interesting. It's fascinating market. there's so much potential out there isn't there? think and I feel like we're just we're just kind of getting started on it. I think the accessibility to different neurotechnologies too is a really fundamental piece and I think a large part of that comes to the communication of what the technology actually does and you know how does the everyday person understand that. I think the first thing that people often try and do is prescribe. as the drug treatment is always the first place to go. But I do feel like there's this almost slow, it's like a slow turning cruise ship at the moment of this understanding of what's happening in neuro technology, how stimulating various parts of the body can alleviate various ailments. And I feel like what you guys are building in relation to, yeah, like withdrawals for instance, is a really, I wouldn't say every day, but really understandable. cause and effect really of what's going on. mean, how's it going with the expansion of the business and the expansion to patients? What's that journey been like? Because no one has an easy time in neurotech getting their device in front of people.
Daniel: No. the problem with addiction is it tends to take all your money away. All right. it's very expensive. So very we're highly dependent on reimbursement. So we're still working on reimbursement for a wider commercial rollout. on this journey, though, we discovered or we were contacted by the Feinstein Institute, ke like I mentioned, Kevin Tracy, on a new novel application in hemostasis. So 24 years ago. So so long story short, still limited rollout for addiction. We're focusing on things like the VA, county programs that can pay for it that aren't dependent on reimbursement. Most of our efforts now are going towards this new novel hemostasis application that was discovered. It was a DARPA project 24 years ago. And the other thing that's go so when when they were studying the white blood cells for inflammation, they noticed changes to the platelets. And they're like, okay, we're affecting platelet behavior as well. And so they came up with this idea called the neural tourniquet, which was can we control hemostasis with the nervous system? And the long story short is you can, and you can stimulate a head of a wound, prime the platelets that are housed in the spleen, and you get a fifty percent reduction in blood loss. A huge, huge market here. So soldiers can use this before going on the battlefield, and literally we did a A large mammal study with a a 25% liver lobectomy, unsurvivable wound, stimulated before the surgery, and the unsurvivable wound became survivable. I mean it it's profound. So think anything that needs a transfusion, any surgery with a drain tube for blood that increases length of stay, any non-compressible hemorrhage, GI bleed, postpartum hemorrhage, things that you can't put a gel or a tourniquet on.
Chay Carter: Yeah.
Daniel: And you want to prevent blood loss, specifically transfusions, this has a fit. So we're really excited. We're getting that, we're doing our final clinical study. again, we consistently show a 50% reduction in blood loss every application we do. so we're highly focused on bringing that to market. And I'll get back to what I love doing, which is selling to hospitals and doctors versus rehab clinics. and that'll be the majority of our focus. We're not abandoning addiction, it's just
Chay Carter: interesting because we haven't
Daniel: Yeah, it's always gonna be a tough.
Chay Carter: Well, you guys have got some interesting things going on at the moment, right? Obviously apart from this, we've got a new CEO come in recently, Anya Kramer. We've also got OnBody as well, which is sort of the spinoff. Not really sure where to start here. Should we start with OnBody and how that came to life? Because that's maybe not as recent as Anya's appointment.
Daniel: Yeah, you know, what started off is we were just trying to prove the neural tourniquet worked and we were trying to figure out a clinical model that didn't require us to be in the surgical suite measuring blood loss or doing worse estimated blood loss. And so one of our hematologist advisors suggested we look at heavy menstrual bleeding, specifically women with von Willebrand disease, which is a clotting disorder. And we went and ran a pilot study. Saw enormous results, 57% reduction in blood loss, menstrual blood loss, 50% reduction in cramps, which that's your autonomic system effect, improvements in mood, that's your endorphin release from from the trigeminal nerve. and so it was we decided that we actually had a unique women's health opportunity here. And so we created a sub-company totally focused on women's health and to advance this. So it's on market as own body and selling as a wellness device, but we will get an FDA indication for that and the goal is to make it over the counter and not require prescription. And then recently, like you said, bringing in a new CEO has IPO experience under her belt, multiple exits, you know, looking at all these opportunities and starting to make some exit deals with some of our IP just made a lot of sense. And then I'm just get to pivot and I'm just focused really on on getting the blood loss, the surgical blood loss product
Chay Carter: We often see businesses get to a certain point and the original CEO is not the person to take it any further and often that means different things for that CEO, maybe a board seat, whatever. But for yourself, you're staying on board and taking more of a commercial mind to it. Is that your role going forward for Spark?
Daniel: That is, and you know, I've raised thirty-five million for the company. We got two FDA indications. But we had our last board meeting the other day and I wasn't having to run it and it was really nice. It was it was I I got to sit back and I had one slide that I had to worry about. So I'm happy to pa pass a torch. Anya's a fantastic hire. I think our investors will be very rewarded with her taking us into the next phase of this journey.
Chay Carter: Hahaha exciting as well from her perspective all the stuff that you guys have built is three business lines essentially and probably probably more in the pipeline I mean yeah Unbode is really fascinating actually just because I think the women the women's held their neurotech crossover which we're seeing more and more of there's a few companies out there doing really exciting things it's again like I think the best ideas often seem like the most obvious ones and I feel like the creation of Unbode and the technology there and Amy too I've had the luxury of having a chat with her a
Daniel: Exactly.
Chay Carter: over there, some of them deeply passionate about that market. it's a really, and also Alejandro too, I had the pleasure of bumping into him in the line for a happy hour going to a saluda after Nan's drink in 2023. So there you go, I've had some weird connections. Maybe we crossed paths, it was the end of the evening, who knows. But that's really, really exciting. mean, what is the short, medium and long term look like for you guys now?
Daniel: I think I was at that event. I was at that event too, I'm pretty sure, yeah.
Chay Carter: so many things going on, lots of new leadership coming in. What's the immediate need for you guys and what does 2027 and onwards look like?
Daniel: Yeah, really the goal is to spend the next twelve to fifteen months hitting several major milestones, own body growth, regulate clear regulatory pathway for the neural tourniquet, leading to the submission to the FDA for an approval for neural tourniquet for surgical bleeding. with those milestones, raise a series B, and that's why we need someone with onious connections and experience. And because we are venture back now, but we're kinda gonna be a bigger play with that series B to really launch the neural tourniquet the right way at the end of 2027. If if you think about this, this product sh should be attached to every surgery that has, like I said, blood loss, ooze, anything where we can reduce length of stay or transfusions, it's just gonna be a huge cost savings. Probably don't know in the American healthcare system, but probably British as well. A surgery, such as total hip replacement, is paid on a fixed DRG. Maybe the insurance company pays the hospital $72,000, and that includes surgery, all the supplies for the surgery, and two days of recovery before they're discharged. And if you need a transfusion blood, that's $1,250 a bag. And so it's like if you needed four bags of blood or two, that's pure profit loss. so the value proposition is huge to use this device on all these surgeries and then length of stay, if you can just get the patient out of the hospital six to eight hours early earlier and turn that bed, you're paid on a fixed you know, a fixed price. it's all upside for the the healthcare systems. And I I would probably assume it's similar like that in in in England.
Chay Carter: Yeah, Well, yeah, all over Europe as well, I think. It's a continent of almost like 100 % insurance, but what comes with that is complex insurance policies and, like you said, time in bed, it all matters. So, yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting how the business has evolved into this from when I first started tracking you guys a few years ago and looking at the opioid space and then seeing own body and now seeing this. It's really impressive to see how it's changed, but also a testament to you guys too and your innovation and how you constantly bring in new products to the market and running new clinical trials. It's quite impressive.
Daniel: You know, we founded this on a clinical first mentality. Of course, both my co-founders are neuroscientists, so you know, th that is the focus. But you know, we do really good science. really that that is the frustrating thing with the wellness devices. They don't have the clinical studies to back them up or they're not real. That is the frustration with some of our the acupuncture devices that they don't continue to move the science forward. So
Chay Carter: Yeah
Daniel: We've wanted that to be our our defining attribute, when people think of Spark is that we we've moved the science forward.
Chay Carter: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, there have been so many companies that have hanged their hats on an indication or a technology and it's really refreshing to see you guys looking at things from a very, very broad perspective. know Chris does amazing work for you guys too. I've had the pleasure of chatting to him a couple of times, but what do you see? There's so many changes happening in Neurotech all the time and maybe this is a nice sort of closing question, but form factor changes all the time. spoke about it. says non-invasive, we spoke about direct to consumer stuff, I think there's a big push for more clinical validity within the direct to consumer market. Obviously Vegas nerve indications are growing. time and so the treatments are expanding massively and what comes with that is new companies, new funding and so forth but we've also got this eruption of break-computer interfaces and closed-loop technology now more so than before, know, reading and reacting. What do you think the future holds for the neurotech industry and what kind of excites you? What niche little weird corner of neurotech and there are many of them are you particularly excited about?
Daniel: Yeah, I think the closed loop thing is something everybody wants to add. it's on everyone's roadmap. If it's not, it should be. we're getting I remember I was doing brain computer interface before it was called brain computer interface. We were just trying to do deep brain stimulation with local field potentials within the brain to figure out if we're stimulating the right part of the STN and to move amplitude. so Twenty years ago we were saying we need we need that closed loop. I think the closed loop for Kala Health on their wristband really helped their reimbursement strategy. if I remember those talks by Renee. And I think it's gonna be critical. Is is it just though are all those recordings coming from Apple Watch and your Whoop device and all this? Or are they custom sensors as part of our solution? I think there'll be a whole hybrid of decisions along those lines because you know. Do you reinvent the wheel now that everybody's got their digital health monitoring on board or their oral ring? you know, those are the kind of things we're discussing here. It's like aura ring already does heart rate variability really well. Like if they have that, do we need to build a new heart rate variability monitor? So those are those are some of the I think challenges of reinventing a wheel, but you then don't owe the data. I don't know. I'm kinda rambling here, but it's the few
Chay Carter: Yeah. No, no. Well, think like form factors key, isn't it as well? Like I think there's always like eruption of EEG technology as well. I'm trying to make sense of what's going on in our brain. think machine learning has kind of caught up with some of the readings, but also I hear a lot of people say like, is EEG even the best technology to read, you know, signals, brain signals? Is it the best way to go about it? Is something, is that even gonna change? I mean, it's already a hundred year old technology. And you think about like, what are we,
Daniel: Yeah, truth. Right. Exactly.
Chay Carter: doing. So yeah I think there's, it's always interesting in neurotech and then it's like a microcosm of a larger debate of existing technology exists and how do we get the most out of existing technology but also at the same time where's the innovation happening on new technologies and how... The reason we're using existing technology is we know it works, it's pretty been approved to some degree versus, yeah, I think this BCI conversation at the moment where we're reading brain signals, we're processing them, we're decoding them, and we're putting it on an app. That is a Breakabooter interface. It doesn't have to be an implantable neuro stimulator or controlling a mouse cursor on a screen. It could be many, many different formats. But yeah, we'll see. It's a weird and wonderful time to be in the market.
Daniel: Yeah. I love it. I it's exciting and it like I said, now twenty whatever years ago, I sat there in that training room, learning the the gait control theory of spinal cord stem and I was just fell in love with it. And it's it's cool to see how far it's like it's evolved and become more commonplace.
Chay Carter: Yeah, the spinal cord stimulation marker is probably another long conversation for another day.
Daniel: I am so happy not to be in it. Who needs I'll say all the contrary. Who needs seven companies killing each other for s for for a handful of pain docs? It's yeah. I I when we were starting Spark, I said the one thing I'm gonna say is we're not a pain company. You know, we we're an addiction company or whatever. I was like, it's just too many pain companies.
Chay Carter: Yeah. I wrote an article about this recently and it's just it took me bloody ages to get it right to so many companies a little bit of innovation happening some really really cool things but it's one of those things where you go this is a really established multi-billion dollar business that's great let's just let it be its own thing maybe it just needs to be run by three maybe Boston need to keep buying people and build a big portfolio and then I Medtronic dispense 600 million on on SBR so again a conversation for another day but it's a fascinating space yeah
Daniel: Yeah.
Chay Carter: I always think about who are the, what are the other industries that are kind of catching up? mean, was over a hundred million recently invested in the urology market and the sacral nerve, tibial nerve.
Daniel: I think I think the big win, I think the big win for neurotechnology, especially wearables, is ResMed's purchase of Noctrix Health for Restless Leg Syndrome. So going from CPAP and sleep to this other quality of sleep, and that's a three hundred and seventy million dollar exit. the wearable market needed to point to a win.
Chay Carter: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, the sleep space in neuromod in hyperglossal nerve stimulation is fascinating. mean, obviously dominated by Inspire, but we've got this Nixo emergence happening and they're gaining some traction. But obviously let's not forget leaving Nova too. Entering, yeah. I that had to be playing around in that sleep mode. That was an acquisition as well, wasn't it?
Daniel: Even though it's yeah. Yeah. And I was there I forgot the name it was the company from San Diego, but yes.
Chay Carter: Yeah, I mean, all these small markets are growing massively now. So in the epilepsy market, not just the implantable, leaving over a neuro pace market, now we're seeing more and more more wearable devices that are more about seizure detection. There's a lot of collaborations going on with pharma. So alerting patients when to take medication. But then there's a lot of time in neurotech, there's... a patient population that is underserved by the pharmaceutical industry, like mental health, instance, only tackles a portion of that, and neurodegenerative is probably the worst. So seeing these growing markets in that space, but then, so again, it's either an implant or it's a, there's not that many wearable take-home devices in neurotech yet that are FDA approved, and think that's what's fascinating about it. We're gonna see more and more and more of that. Here's a device, take it home. Yeah, there's a few approvals happen, right, I think in the,
Daniel: They're definitely coming though, yeah.
Chay Carter: space but yeah we'll see there's a lot going on.
Daniel: Absolutely. It's a hot time.
Chay Carter: Yeah, thank you so much for the time. Where can people find out more about Spark? What's the website?
Daniel: sparkbiomedical dot com. go to the science section and look at all the clinical studies we have going. It is an impressive list of areas we're exploring.
Chay Carter: site to see what else you grow into over the years to come. Thanks very much Daniel, I appreciate your time.
Daniel: All right, thank you so much.
