TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Chay: welcome to the Open Loop podcast. I'm joined today by Ken Nelson, someone I've exchanged a message with over the years, a couple of messages here and there, and I think we reconnected recently about a post I made about Epitel actually in particular, which we'll get into. But I usually like to do a little introduction for my guests, but you've got such a robust and illustrious career behind you, Ken. I'd like you to introduce yourself and then we can start at the beginning and work up from there.
Ken Nelson: Sure, no, I appreciate it thanks for having me on the podcast, Chay. I love the focus that you have in the neuro space. I think it's a really interesting one, especially when you talk about the heart and the brain and so much that goes between those two really important organs. So for me, I actually started out in corporate finance. So i came out of Vanderbilt down in Nashville and went to Atlanta, Georgia in corporate finance, worked for a couple of Fortune 100 companies in finance. then decided to get into the software space, the startup software space. So that's kind of where I started in startups. And then the catalyst for me getting into healthcare and getting into cardiac was really nine 11. I grew up with New York city and kind of grew up in New Jersey with New York as our city and going up into the twin towers and spending time even on the top of the towers and restaurant called windows on the world. so very meaningful place for me and my family. And when that happened, I remember sitting in a cubicle for a software company in Atlanta startup. The first tower had been hit and then I watched the second tower get hit live stream. And I just had this epiphany of. What am I doing with my life sitting in a cubicle, not really feeling like I was making a difference in the world? And so I decided to explore the medical world and the medical device world. And my older brother told me to take a look at orthopedics and cardiac. And when I looked at cardiac and learned what an implantable pacemaker did and implantable defibrillator did, became absolutely fascinated with these little computers. that were implanted in the chest, that the reps could be in the procedure with the physicians kind of helping and guiding them and consulting them. through those procedures and I felt like I would really feel like I was a part of helping to improve and save lives. And so I eventually convinced Guidant to bring me on and they eventually got acquired by Boston Scientific. So I started in cardiac rhythm management, kind of worked my way from finance, convinced them to give me a shot in sales. They moved me to Dallas, Texas in 2005. And so I've been here ever since. was with Guidant / Boston Scientific for just under 10 years. So I was there post the acquisition by Boston Scientific. And then I spent the next dozen or so years recruiting, building. developing the teams and cultures that launched and commercialized what became three of the four biggest players in the world in cardiac digital health and remote patient monitoring. The first was a startup called iRhythm, which eventually went public. The second was a company called Cardionet, which we changed the name to biotelemetry and took them to something like, I don't know, 300 or 400 million. They eventually got acquired. by Philips for just under three billion and then kind of did that for five years or so was looking to go do something totally different. And my father-in-law passed away from sudden cardiac death. So that's a whole other story unto itself. But that led to Paul Violette, the old COO of Boston Scientific, coming to me one day and saying, hey, do you want to disrupt this space again with Dr. Gust Bardy and this patch that he's developed in the space that we think is really different? I initially said no, but
Chay: Hmm.
Ken Nelson: Paul was a legend and someone I really looked up to. I took the time to meet him and Gust and really look at the technology and it was different. so joined that team, built a sales and marketing team to relaunch that product. three years later, the fourth biggest player in the space and sold it to Hillrom, which a few weeks later got acquired by Baxter. So a heck of a run of three of these companies in a row that have done really well with the people
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: that built them. So I had some great people that I worked with to make all that happen and really feel fortunate to have had that kind of a track record in the same space with some just amazing people, some of which you helped me build two or three of those companies. and helping me build companies I'm on on boards of today, including epitel. So that was that. And then more recently, I've joined a handful of public and private company boards and as well as a couple of different venture funds. I work through Nelson Jennings Ventures, a venture partner for Star 51 Capital and our anchor investors are Mayo Clinic and Abbott. And then I do a lot of work with AHA, American Heart Association, Heart Rhythm Society, HRX, which is the digital health component of Heart Rhythm Society, HeartX, which is a cardiac focused startup accelerator, and then MedTech Innovator, which is the largest medtech digital health AI enabled device startup accelerator in the world. a little bit of a long intro, but just a
Chay: I love it.
Ken Nelson: lot that I'm involved with on the cardiac innovation ecosystem side.
Chay: Yeah. It's like different stages of the career, right? That have taken you to where you are today. And I think most people would probably experience maybe one exit in their career at most. You had a really, really good run of three back to back from the sounds of it.
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: I mean, before we kind of get into that, I'd love to know that transition into medical devices, because you mentioned, obviously,
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: you joined Boston, or it was Guidant before Boston,
Ken Nelson: Sure.
Chay: but you joined in the
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finance side. So like your background in finance, that's a logical
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: step, I suppose. I mean, how was that journey? like I know you mentioned it's not easy is it
Ken Nelson: Yeah, so for anybody who experienced 9/11 I mean, it was very emotional event for, for so many of us, especially people who grew up or were living in New York or in that tri-state area or the Northeast in general or spent a lot of time in New York. And so I really stepped back and over a couple of week period, I wrote a five-year personal and professional plan about what I wanted to do with my life personally and professionally and just started to execute on that plan. And part of that plan was to get into one of the pacemaker companies, a good job in whatever role that they put me in, build strong relationships with sales leadership, and then convince somebody to give me a shot in sales. And so that's exactly what I did. I got promoted a couple of times in Atlanta on the finance side, built really strong relationships along the way with sales leadership. And then eventually a couple of years in, they started to give me offers to go into the field. I had to move away from Atlanta to do it. But that's what got me the shot in the field and guy named Roger Owens gave me my first shot in sales. Another guy had given me an offer named Sean Burke to come to Charleston. now runs sales, I think for the EP division nationally for Boston Scientific. Roger's running a commercial for a company called Ultromics. And so just got really lucky getting into Guidant where they had an amazing culture. I owe a lot to the leadership there and the mentors I had there really built the foundation for everything I did after Guidant and I modeled a lot of the cultures and just the general mindset of the sales teams and commercial teams and the companies in general around what I experienced and learned at Guidant and Boston Scientific after that. So it's just a great, great experience.
Chay: Yeah, there's a lot of amazing companies that have come out of the big three med tech firms. I was talking about in the neuro side, even the cardiac stuff like the Abbots, and Boston's and Medtronics, right? There's a lot of great, great leaders who have come out of those over the last 10, 20 years or so. I mean, what was the transition to iRhythm like afterwards as well?
Ken Nelson: Yeah, so I had, my Boss and Boss's boss, my area vice president, divisional vice president, went from Guidant, or guess Boston Scientific at that point, over to St. Jude Medical, which was another pacemaker company. They have since been acquired by Abbott, so that's known as Abbott now, their pacemaker division. And at the time, St. Jude was making investment in iRhythm. They wanted to have somebody that they knew to build out the commercial team for iRhythm, but also build a strategic partnership between iRhythm and the St. Jude sales organization and marketing organization. So I became that person and just loved
it and went to all their fellows education meetings, all their physician education meetings and just tried to integrate our teams with theirs as much as possible. And that really helped fuel our early growth at iRhythm. And so it was interesting. At the time, there were people who said, I can't believe you're giving up your medical device career in the pacemaker world to go do monitoring. Like, why would you do that? Such a
Chay: You
Ken Nelson: dumb move. You're quitting on medical devices.
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: And so it's fun to look back and that was You know that changed my whole career trajectory and led to all these other things by in a way taking a risk, but also another way seeing the vision that the founder Uday Kumar had for iRhythm and I believed in it and I felt like that technology was going to be a game changer for longer term ECG or cardiac monitoring in the same way that today as a board member for Epitel I feel like Epitel is absolutely changing the standard of care in EEG monitoring or brainwave monitoring. They've got the first FDA cleared long-term EEG patch monitors, which can be worn anywhere at any time for up to 30 days. So they have inpatient clearance too, but really the competitive advantage that company has is outpatient clearance up to 30 days. And a lot of patients can do their normal everyday activities while wearing those EEG patches, whereas every other product patients typically don't like to wear for more than a couple hours at a time.
Chay: Yeah, one of the things we've spoken about before, isn't it, about the comparisons between the cardiac space and the neuro space and the pacemaker market versus the neuromodulation market and the similarities in technology and how the accessibility to patients is always sort of mirrored, I think, in the cardiac space. And now we're seeing it with the ECG and the EEG stuff. We're seeing a huge eruption of EEG technology as well. So I think, again, 100-year-old technology has been around for a very, very long time and we're starting to make sense of it now because of modern software developments. AI and deep learning tools, like really, really fascinating stuff that's going on there. I mean, what's that? How do you view those markets? And because obviously, you've got a really robust background in
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: cardiac. Like, how do you see the neuro space growing? And obviously, epitel is like a microcosm for wider industry.
Ken Nelson: Yeah, it's not in all areas, but in some areas of cardiac, I feel like they're leading the charge and they've been trailblazers from an outpatient monitoring front. going back to the early days of Holter monitoring, but even implantable pacemaker monitoring, they're kind of pioneers in the space for remote monitoring. And so you're starting to see neuro and some of these other disease areas follow suit to what cardiac kind of started. And so in the neuro world now, so in cardiac, you've seen these pure AI companies, so companies like AccurKardia, which are doing AI of ECGs or in companies like Echo IQ that are doing AI of echo and able to detect things like aortic stenosis and heart failure. You're starting to see similar things happening in the neuro world with some of the neuro diagnostics or neuro imaging and applying AI on top of those things we're applying AI on top of EEGs. And what can that not only diagnose, but what can that predict is going to happen in the future. So I really see the cardiac space. It was somewhat of a trailblazer. And now you're starting to see the neuro space and not, not in all areas, but in some areas kind of follow suit. it's, they blazed a trail to follow and there's learning points from that cardiac space of all the mistakes that have been made and learning points that have happened that I think it will happen much faster in the EEG and neuro world because of those learning. And so that's why
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: it's been great working with Epitel and seeing what that company is doing to just completely change the standard of care and the monitoring of brainwaves for epilepsy.
Chay: Yeah, and there's a lot of companies as well doing multiple things as well, neuro and cardiac too. Obviously, we're talking about Boston, you know, have a big neuromodulation division. I've invested heavily over the last year or so as well in multiple, a couple of years ago with Axonics, right? It's a neuromodulation and neurology investment, but obviously still in the cardiac space, same with Abbott. But also, I mean, I know you've worked at Biotronik previously as well, who are huge in the
Ken Nelson: Yes, yep.
Chay: cardiac space, but they've launched the Biotronic Neuro, getting into the spinal cord stimulation space. So there's clearly some business models. these large corporates and looking at
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: and understanding that it's repeatable. But there's also neuromodulation and know more maybe more modern brain treatments and brain focus technologies as well. So but yeah what are your thoughts on that neuromodulation market then? Is that something that you've worked in previously
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: or is that slightly separate?
Ken Nelson: Yes. So, I've spent a couple years, helping and invested in a few times, a company called StimCardio, which came out of
Chay: Yes.
Ken Nelson: Israel and now has a U S headquarters. And they've got a wearable watch that can not only detect arrhythmias and atrial fibrillation and the precursors to atrial fibrillation, but it treats those precursors to AFib to prevent the AFib from coming back through neuromodulation stimulation. So think about a non-invasive wearable on the wrist that can detect the arrhythmias but treat them through neuromodulation stimulation. And that's median nerve to vagus nerve. So just total game changer. And we think about disruptive technology that's going to change the standard of care. StimCardio will absolutely change the standard of care in the treatment of atrial
fibrillation, both pre-ablation and post-ablation. So it'll prevent certain patients from even having to have an ablation and others who end up needing one, it will hopefully prevent a large subset from having to have a secondary or third ablation. So just fascinating technology and neuromodulation.
Chay: I think the wearable space is getting so big, isn't it? It's fascinating. I
Ken Nelson: it is.
Chay: think there's a huge shift in mentality, I think, around what our expectation is around wearing medical technology, like wearing, you know, I've headphones in now, right? But then there's also Oura rings and all these sort of things. And then obviously I think that bleeding into medical technology just becomes more and more normal. And we'll soon, I think, have technologies which do multiple different things, wristwatch ring, things like that, all talking to each other, all monitoring health and all being able to be proactive. I mean, you have to see the wearable. neuromodulation device in the cardiac space, it's pretty interesting, right, to talk about it from
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: the peripheral nerve space is growing massively. It's really, really exciting stuff, man. Yeah.
Ken Nelson: Absolutely.
Chay: Is that something that you thought would be the case in the cardiac space from the years in it?
Ken Nelson: Yeah, I mean, I'm a big believer that multi-parameter vital signs monitors and biomarker monitors, technology like. sensor bio and SmartCardia, I think those are the future. I think you're going to start to see massive growth and explosive growth in these areas as the technology starts to get clinical grade FDA clearances. Some have them already, others still are adding additional vital signs into their monitors and getting those cleared. But the industry is evolving from single parameter monitors to multi parameter vital signs and biomarker monitors, it will get to the point where they're starting to monitor and provide the ability to manage. chronic conditions and in some cases, multiple overlapping chronic conditions. And so you're going to get a much more comprehensive overview of the human body from these wearables. And so it's just an amazing time to be in healthcare. And then when you think about all this data that's coming in, how do they filter that to only be actionable data that gets to the caretaker, the physician or the nurse or whoever that caretaker is that needs to take the action, but also taking that data and then over time, being able to make predictive, apply predictive analytics to it, to where preventative medicine is becoming a reality. It's already starting to happen. So everything that they've been talking about for the last 10, 20 plus years,
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: it's happening now. And with the advancement of AI and the rapid acceleration of AI, these things are coming to reality much, quicker.
Chay: Yeah, it's a combination of like the remote patient monitoring space, right? And needing technology in order
to not have patients in, taking up hospital beds, for instance, but then also having technology which is intelligent enough and reading deeper and more accurate data. And I think this is one of the things that people talk about the EEG a lot too. You it's that constant debate about implantable versus wearable. I mean, EEG's been around for a long time. As we just said, there's implantable EEG device, the NeuroPace have an EEG component to their, you know, RNS system. It's amazing technology, but yeah, like the future is always about the patient experience, isn't it? Like, how do we improve that? How do we keep people out of the operating room? Like, some cases you have to absolutely, you know, operate an implant and that's absolutely vital. But yeah, the majority of people want a sort of wearable. i mean, EEGs, to jump to the epitel stuff, obviously there's a huge array of technologies out there right now. I'd love to know more about what epitel are working on specifically, how does it differentiate? You mentioned FDA approval, like what's the access
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: for patients like?
Ken Nelson: Yeah, so that can be worn up to 30 days. i think right now on average is probably being worn somewhere in the seven to 10 days. But you know, you'd have to talk to the commercial people to get a better understanding
Chay: Yeah, yeah.
Ken Nelson: of that. You know, they've got a couple AI algorithms that are FDA cleared. I'm not sure what's okay to talk about in terms of future things that they're working on. But what I can tell you is if you think about brainwave monitoring in general, right now, we've been highly focused on epilepsy and so EEG monitoring related to epilepsy. But if you really look at and step back a minute and look at EEG monitoring, there's applications for stroke and post stroke monitoring. There's applications
Chay: Mm.
Ken Nelson: for post sudden cardiac arrest. I think it's in the guidelines that you should, the patient, anybody who gets a sudden cardiac arrest should have EEG monitoring post sudden cardiac ARREST which would make sense. Somebody has an arrest like, or even a heart attack. There could be brain function that's impacted. And so having an EEG test right after that happening makes total sense. think historically, there's not been a lot of compliance to that because there hasn't been an easy EEG to utilize. And so now that we have something like Epitel, that could totally change the game in those areas. So I could see those as areas that we go to in the future, but just in general, because they're used for EEG monitoring, there's indications around those things now. I mean, those areas would make sense. Pediatrics is an area that we're also focused on. I think we've been public about that, but there's other really cool things that they've got in the pipeline that I'm just not sure if I can talk about.
Chay: Yeah, sure. No, that makes sense. It's like so much you can do. look, to take a step back, there's all the
body signal reading technologies out there right now. Fantastic, right? Like we, read an article about this recently where we sort of wake up and check our phone and see how we've slept. We've got all this data, heart rate, temperature, and so forth. the brain is like the final frontier, isn't it? And I think there's so much we don't understand about it. And the hardest part is trying to explain to people what we do understand about it.
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: in a logical way. You know, I think again, personalized treatment, personalized analysis of brain activities, interesting. There's a company out there actually, I think they're called SynchNeuro, who are doing glucose monitoring through EEGs.
Ken Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Chay: Again, amazing. I think we're just like scratching the surface, the tip of the iceberg, to use another phrase, is where we are with EEG at the moment. So you guys are looking at multiple indications, which is amazing. It's the quality of the data.
Ken Nelson: Yeah, and you know, I don't know how often you do this, it could be interesting to get the founder, Mark Lehmkuhle of Epitel, because he's got a great story of why he started the company and how he did it. his initial funding, I think they raised something like $14 million in grant money, nondilutive funding. It's just
Chay: Right, well.
Ken Nelson: not many people were able to do it. So that alone is fascinating. But his passion for making this happen really is just an incredible story. So he could be an interesting guest and maybe even having him on with Steve Pacelli and Steve was the head of Dexcom Ventures previously and he led investment in Epitel and he's now the CEO of Epitel and he liked the company so much after investing in it that he's now CEO. And so you've got people like them involved. You've got people like James Landis who helped me build. three different companies in the past. He's running commercial. He's hired a bunch of reps that have helped us build companies in the past and their commercial ramp has been fantastic. i mean, they are growing significantly month over month and they're hitting the numbers that they've set out to hit. So really happy with what the company is doing commercially, leadership's executing and it's great to see that they are really starting to change the standard of care. in brainwave monitoring, just like iRhythm changed the standard of care in ECG monitoring.
Chay: Yeah, that's amazing. the hardest part is getting it front of the right people, isn't it? And having access to it as well. So what's the sort of commercial strategy here then? Who are we directly getting it front of? It's hospital settings, clinics and so forth? Or what's the angle?
Ken Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. So epileptologists right now are who we're targeting. the physicians who monitor EEGs for epilepsy patients, suspected epilepsy patients. So that's who we're targeting now. Eventually, stroke neurologists will likely be a target. But that's our current focus. We've tried to stay laser focused just to build out that specific market. We feel like there's low hanging fruit there, especially in the outpatient market. And we've got the only technology that's cleared to do that. So we're really excited about what the future holds for Epitel.
Chay: Yeah, really, really exciting. I mean, there's so much, as I mentioned, know, like scratching the surface right now of what's going on and what the potential is. And I feel like every sort of like three to six months, there's like new technology out there which allows us to take things further. It's like the miniaturization of stuff, the expansion of different indications, understanding the brain in a slightly different way.
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: 2026 seems to be like the year where we're like, everyone's doubling down on trying to understand what the hell's going on in our head. And like I said, it's the Final Frontier.
Ken Nelson: Yeah,
Chay: you
Ken Nelson: part of the challenge is you're collecting all this data and so what you represent on the reports that you give to the physician are really important. That summary page, that first page of the report, becomes a critical piece of your product. That's really the product for physicians. When you think about the monitoring companies like the iRhythms and biotelemetries of the world, that cover page, we spent so much time developing that summary cover page for iRhythm and the first couple of pages after that, so that physicians can get a really quick understanding of how deeply do they need to look into this patient? What do they need to look at? Where do they need to target? Otherwise, if you're just giving lots of information without helping to give the actionable information, it just gets very time consuming. So that's a critical part of this type of business.
Chay: Yeah, and it also raises a question too about, I think we touched on this yesterday when we had a quick chat about the brain foundational model space. you know, there's, this is essentially accumulating data on the brain, understanding the brain, machine learning, deep learning, other tools allow us to use that data, interpret it, and then create an understanding of an individual's brain, but also like a collective brain database.
Ken Nelson: Right.
Chay: And we're this really interesting world right now where there are lots of companies who are building foundational models for the brain around like, emotion and depression and various different angles to look at it from and you guys are very focused on the epilepsy space right now. I think we touched on it yesterday when we spoke about there's like some TMS companies that have been accumulating data for about 30 or 40 years now and
Ken Nelson: Right.
Chay: their angle is like we're gonna use the data to expedite regulatory processes so we can get access to wider indications. Amazing. But we've also got this interesting world of brain foundational models and we're going like what we do with
that data? There's an ethics conversation, there's also like a everyday use, commercial usage of it, like who gets a hand in it, what does it mean? Is that something that you guys are having conversations about at Epitel about what this data means for the greater good?
Ken Nelson: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. think we're always kind of following the emerging innovation in the neuro space and how we might be able to integrate into what we're doing or there are partnerships that need to be explored. So yeah, I'm fascinated by all of it, including the implantable devices. I talked to a company earlier today with kind of an implantable. It's kind of just under the skin, not necessarily deep inside the body, but for longer term monitoring of EEG is longer than 30 days for a subset of those patients. And so that could be a potential partner down the road. And so it's really interesting to watch the emerging innovation and being part of the American Heart Association, which really is focused on not only the heart, but also the brain. they're American Heart and American Stroke Association. So they're heart and brain focused. They have a partnership with MedTech Innovator. So we do an annual heart and brain accelerator. And then through MedTech Innovator, I mean, they get 2000 plus startups around the world that apply to get into that program every year. And there's just a significant number of heart and brain related startups. So we see a lot of cool emerging companies in the neuropace both implantable and non-invasive.
Chay: Yeah, it's a really, really exciting market, isn't it? I just feel like I write a lot about this and I've got the newsletter and I'm constantly trying to keep track of what's going on. There's just
Ken Nelson: Right.
Chay: so many new companies all the time and every now and then you'll hear about a spin-off from a government body or a
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: pre-seed round for a company that's building an EEG wearable direct-to-consumer device because again, I think that's also an interesting frontier, isn't it? Where it's like this one thing having patients who will need to understand what's happening with their brain if they suffer epileptic seizures, for instance, but another thing going What's the general public think of this? Is this the where the future lies? You know, does it really add value? I think a conversation I always have is are we losing the ability to listen to our body? But the brain is an interesting one, isn't it? Because we're sort of
Ken Nelson: this.
Chay: We get foggy headed, we can't concentrate, we're exhausted, we're tired, and it's often, well, what's going on in the head? And conversations I always have are, is it a chemical problem or is it an electrical problem? And then, EEG reading is, I think, in the future, kind of a component of a neuro-stimulation, a closed-loop wearable
Ken Nelson: What are
Chay: that we're all gonna be using at some point,
Ken Nelson: Think about pro golfers and think about guys
that they'll say, he's having head games or he's in his head so he's not playing
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: well today. So they could be a master player. It'd be fascinating to see what's happening to their brain waves on the
Chay: Right?
Ken Nelson: days that they're doing really well and the days that they're falling apart. Like what is it?
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: And did something lead up to that in the days before? We'll be able to know these things in the future. If players
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: are starting to wear these technologies, which they are. I mean, look at
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: Formula One, they're wearing all kinds of sensors to see how they can get a leg up within the cars themselves and within the drivers. And so
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: you're going to start to see more and more of that in professional collegiate and eventually high school sports. So it's happening, but
Chay: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Ken Nelson: it's going to become way more and more mainstream to do that sort of thing.
Chay: It's going to become the norm, isn't it? We think you've been like, look at your background managing sales teams too. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's like, hey, look, you missed quota this quarter.
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: Here's what your Oura Ring and EEG reader told us about your performance. Maybe get some more sleep before the big pitch next time sort of thing.
Ken Nelson: Yeah, exactly.
Chay: But it's interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly, we're seeing people already talking about it, but like with the Oura Rings and other, I mentioned Oura just because it's the most popular, right? But there's
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: like, there's other devices available. And people are already talking about spikes in stress throughout the day and what your body does after you eat too close to bedtime. We're starting to get really, people like Bryan Johnson for instance, a huge inspiration. Yeah.
Ken Nelson: Yeah. Even the order in which you eat certain things or eating vegetables prior to eating protein, like that stuff all matters. And we're going to get more and more educated on how do you optimize performance and energy levels and everything else by the body sensors that we're wearing.
Chay: Yeah. Then there's also the impact on like, you know, things like epileptic seizures and whatnot as well. we'll start to, you know, this is the way that I guess all the data accumulates and becomes really useful, doesn't it? Like what triggers certain things and yeah, the impact.
Ken Nelson: Well, I think about it, we can get to the point where we can titrate medication or do other things because we're kind of tipped off that the patient's on a pathway to having a seizure and we're able to prevent that seizure. that's really, really powerful. So I think in the back of everyone's heads, that's where people are trying to get.
Chay: Yeah, it's really exciting. And like it seems to be an eruption in epilepsy technology at the moment as well, right? I
think we've had a lot of implantable devices over the years and I think the medication to prevent seizures is actually pretty good. It's the timing of the medication and understanding what's going on in an individual's brain, which is like the final hurdle, I think really to
Ken Nelson: Yes.
Chay: regain some control to people. And yeah, it's like often the form factor, I think in neurotech and obviously it's med tech in general and cardiac space too. You mentioned the watch before. That's really the exciting bit is that the miniaturization the wearability of stuff The access to on a day-to-day basis is really unique
Ken Nelson: And with Epitel, I mean, it's literally two sensors here and then two back here behind the ears. So most patients don't need to shave their head at all. It's comfortable.
Chay: Amazing.
Ken Nelson: They can sleep like that. And a lot of these other technologies, it's a helmet or all these wires on their head. There's no comfort level. They can't sleep with that. It's just not patient friendly at all.
Chay: Yeah, unnecessary. Yeah, yeah. It's all about more access to patients, everything about medical devices, how do we get in front of more people,
Ken Nelson: Yeah, it's about is the patient going to wear it longer? I mean, it's when you think about patch monitors for ECG, when they came out with patches. patients were actually wearing them longer, so you're finding more information. It's the same thing with epitel, patients will actually wear them longer, so your yield of capturing stuff is gonna be higher because they're wearing it for seven, 10, 15 days. And that's important if it's too unpatient friendly that patients aren't gonna wear it, then it's not a useful tool.
Chay: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you're involved in a lot of different companies.
Ken Nelson: Yeah.
Chay: think board of directors for a number of different medical device companies. What excites you about the companies you work with at the moment? Like, I'd love for you to give us a little snapshot of what the future looks like for you as well, Ken.
Ken Nelson: Sure, so I'm on three public companies, Echo IQ out of Sydney, Australia. We just raised 110 million a few weeks ago that company is just on a nice run. Another company is a Acarix out of Sweden and they've got a device that does a coronary artery disease or a CADScor by putting it on the chest and then HeartBeam, which is a card you put on the chest and right now it does synthesize 12 lead and that can do cardiac monitoring and we're working on a heart attack detection through that same synthesized 12. That part's not FDA cleared yet, but from the public company standpoint, those are the ones I'm working on and those are exciting. Some of the more recent ones I've gotten involved with are some of the other ones I've been on the board of, Happitech another company I've invested in, I mentioned earlier, StimCardio, which is the watch that detects but also treats atrial fibrillation. That one's a game changer. A company called SmartCardia which is a vital signs patch company, and collaborating with them on their advisory board. Another one that I think will happen in the neuro space, there's a company called Octagos, which takes all the implantable pacemaker data from all the players. integrates it into one common platform, bidirectionally integrates with the electronic health record so they can get medication data, et cetera, on those patients in addition to all their implantable device data. And now they're integrating the external patch company. So they're starting to get that data too. So you start to think about one repository, one place you can go to with all of this information becomes a valuable resource and valuable picture of that particular cardiac patient, I think the same is gonna happen in the neuro space. so
Chay: Mmm.
Ken Nelson: look to see something like what Octagos is doing on the cardiac side to happen in neuro or maybe companies like Octagos start to transition and that becomes another business unit for them is the neuro space
Chay: Yeah.
Ken Nelson: or other disease states. I think that's interesting as well.
Chay: It's really exciting actually, spoke to a few people recently who were talking about building aggregated neuro data platforms. And I think the main thing is getting more access to that, right? The epitels out there, there's the wearable consumer devices too. There will be a point in the future when everyone has some sort of neuro data tool. And what do you do with that data then? Yeah, everyone's gonna have a different platform, you want the data to talk to each other, also to aggregate that with cardiac data and also Oura Ring data and having a really, really three-dimensional image.
Ken Nelson: Exactly.
Chay: It's going to be amazing, isn't it? We're just kind of scratching the surface in the neurotech stuff, aren't we?
Ken Nelson: We're just starting to get there. So it's exciting. think cardiacs had a jumpstart, but you're starting to see neuro and other areas catch up, which is really exciting.
Chay: Yeah. Well, Ken, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking the time. I know you're a busy man. I'm an international man of mystery, too. Look at these companies, They're based all over the world. But thank you so much for your time. It's been really great to learn about it all.
Ken Nelson: Awesome. Hey, thanks for the opportunity, Chay, and appreciate you having me on.