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Inside MEI Micro's mission to bring military-grade sensors to healthcare · StartUp Health NOW Podcast

• 0:00
  [instrumental music plays] So we have a slogan [laughs] that we use a lot, "You can't software your way to a better sensor."
• 0:09
  If I use a navigation-grade sensor and I build my software based on this high accuracy data, the end result's gonna be objectively more accurate. [instrumental music plays] Louis Ross, founder of MEI Micro.
• 0:25
  Uh, appreciate you joining us here on StartUp Health. Thanks for having me.
• 0:29
  You're working on this sensor technology typically known for use in accelerometers and in navigation, uh, but obviously we're here at, with StartUp Health talking about the application of, of this, these sorts, sorts of sensors in healthcare.
• 0:43
  So excited to hear about what you've built and why you've built it. So why don't you just start by giving us an overview. Uh, what makes MEI Micro unique?
• 0:51
  We've been working on our, uh, main process technology we call, uh, 3DS. It is used to develop the world's first navigation-grade multi-axis sensor inertial measurement platform.
• 1:04
  Essentially, the motion sensors are used to monitor, uh, and control movement and also do things like navigation. In, in this area, they represent data that would be, uh, referred to as a digital biomarker. Okay.
• 1:20
  And these digital biomarkers can consist of, like, a gait or arm swing or neck movements. Uh, some of the other MEMS technology that we have includes pressure sensor, a magnetometer, otherwise known as a digital compass.
• 1:35
  The MEMS technology has been a- around as originally military technology. It was used for guidance systems, uh, for all types of things, including rockets. And, uh, back in two, between 2007, 2010,
• 1:51
  uh, some companies, including Bosch, STMicro, uh, TDK, InvenSense, developed the first, um, consumer-grade devices, uh, that eventually went into game controllers and smartphones. Apple adopted the first, uh,
• 2:08
  gyro for smartphones. Uh- That's a great, that's a great entry point, by the way, 'cause a lot of our listeners aren't gonna, you know, be experts at MEMS or accelerometers. But if you say- Sure...
• 2:19
  like, you know, it was used in a Wii game controller, immediately we're like- That's right... okay. How do you translate that into a healthcare device? Uh, sure. The, um, biomechanics labs at universities,
• 2:30
  uh, were very interested in this technology to measure human motion. Prior to that, and, and they still do, use camera-based systems for motion.
• 2:40
  And so any lab that you, uh, go into, you will see these camera-based sensor systems that are very expensive.
• 2:48
  If you have a, an accurate enough inertial sensor, MEMS, you could start replacing those cameras with first hybrid and then straight to sensors only.
• 2:59
  So instead of going in a green room, you could take that data anywhere. Mm. Like on the playing field or on the golf course or... And of course, uh, humans move and react differently in a real game situation, right?
• 3:13
  Um, or if they're a soldier, for example. You do soldier systems, the same thing. Yeah. Even though it was used for training, uh, they also wanted to monitor the health of the subject. Mm.
• 3:24
  Whether it's an athlete or a soldier. Going back to, you know, our experience, when we were making these consumer-grade devices, we, uh, developed the first smart mouthpiece
• 3:35
  where we put our accelerometer for the first time in a mouthpiece to be used to detect concussion and impact. We were hired by the Cleveland Clinic to build a mouthpiece for them, prototype.
• 3:47
  But the MEMS sensor enabled the whole system. Okay.
• 3:50
  So you add software to that sensor, and you develop a, uh, a way to monitor, uh, concussions and impacts and swinging around to determine whether or not you were concussed.
• 4:03
  And we looked at the, um, technology that was developed 30 years prior. We looked at all the projects that were funded by the government. A lot of exotic technologies to try to get very high performance,
• 4:16
  which would be in the tactical to navigation grade. So this is, like, kind of mil spec, military grade, built in a big can, um, that were on rockets.
• 4:27
  So we said, "Well, if we could make chip-sized IMUs at a commercial foundry where they do really large volume." No one's ever done that. Hmm. So how do we get there?
• 4:38
  How can we make it at the wafer level, uh, encapsulate all six axis, and actually get to navigation grade, which is 80 to 100 times more accurate than consumer grade?
• 4:51
  And- What, what does that level of accuracy really get you in life sciences in med tech?
• 4:57
  Life science and med tech, one thing that they complain about almost right off the bat is that, well, we could develop a, a step counter really easily with these consumer-grade sensors, which is great, because didn't have that before.
• 5:11
  But if we really want to measure, uh, accurately gait and start to predict, do predictive analytics, we need more accuracy.
• 5:19
  We spent five and a half years developing a process at the commercial foundry, not at a university lab. We also were filing a lot of patents because this is a completely new area.
• 5:29
  That's a good encapsulation of the technology, the product. Let's switch gears for a little bit and talk about applications in health tech, med device, life science. I understand that you started a fund.
• 5:40
  You have a, a real heart to figure out how to get this into market, get this into the hands of other companies. Mm-hmm.
• 5:47
  So tell me about some of the applications that you would love to support, kind of some of the ways you could see this being used- Yeah... outside of what you are building at your company.
• 5:58
  Working with subject matter experts in any field... is really important for us because then we, uh, develop, uh, new approaches to the design of the MEMS to have a custom device for that particular application.
• 6:11
  So if I wanna do navigation-guided surgery, I need to interact with those subject matter experts, those surgeons that have been working for many, many years and have a intuitive feel on how to do this.
• 6:22
  So the platforms for healthcare kinda start off with like a wearable, but a medical grade wearable. So what does that mean?
• 6:32
  Um, they'll take off-the-shelf consumer grade sensors and build the software layer on top of it, and that would be their product. And they would say, "We're sensor agnostic."
• 6:44
  So you can have 10 different companies doing wearable using the same commodity off-the-shelf sensors. You're trying to make the commodity sensor better.
• 6:56
  You're trying to make up for its, uh, lack of accuracy by using the software. So we have a slogan [laughs] that we use a lot, and you can't software your way to a better sensor.
• 7:06
  If I use a navigation grade sensor that's $10,000 and I, and I build my software based on this high accuracy data, it's gonna be... The end result's gonna be objectively more accurate. Okay.
• 7:19
  So if 10, 10 companies are developing a wearable and one of them's using a navigation grade sensor, their software combination is gonna be superior to everybody else's.
• 7:30
  Now, I'm gonna play the devil's advocate for one second. Mm-hmm. In, in that, um, there are certain tools in health where accuracy, uh, is not the di- differentiator. So if...
• 7:41
  It's like if, if my step counter is off by a few steps, I'm not that sensitive to that type of accuracy. And even if my- Yeah...
• 7:49
  blood pressure, it's like th- there are things that could be maybe a half a degree off and I'm still getting the right sort of, you know, life, uh- Yeah... you know, you know, w- wellness sort of data. Yeah.
• 8:00
  So where is it the most important to have the absolute best, to pay for the top sensor? Well, yeah, so the... that is the standard response to, uh, people developing software.
• 8:12
  And, uh, what you also hear, uh, from the suppliers of these consumer grade devices, uh, nobody, uh, cares about the, uh, extra accuracy. Yeah. Which is just false.
• 8:23
  And so when you have more accuracy, you have better predictive analytics and better software, and the most advanced software now is AI machine learning. So it's always garbage in, garbage out. Mm.
• 8:36
  Less accurate data means worse results. And so if you look at a... We'll go back again to wearable. Wearable's collecting data. It's using AI machine learning for the optimum outcome, which is anomaly detection, right?
• 8:54
  You're looking for differences. So you have more accurate data, you're gonna pick out more anomalies, you're gonna be more accurate. Your predictive analytics are gonna be better.
• 9:05
  Your AI machine learning is gonna be better.
• 9:07
  When you take any wearable, IoT device, edge device, and you want accurate data, the most expensive high accuracy data you're going to get off a edge device, off a IoT device, a wearable, is the inertial data
• 9:23
  because that accurate inertial data is extremely expensive. Okay. It is $3,000 to $8,000 per access. So a ring laser gyro, fiber optic gyro that goes into a missile or a drone is expensive for a reason.
• 9:39
  Um, and you'll never use that to put on a wearable, right? So I can't take 13 Honeywell ring laser gyros and put them on a motion capture suit.
• 9:54
  First of all, they're too big and too heavy, and if you do that, you're gonna have several hundred thousand dollars worth of mocap. So question, would higher accuracy, uh, be preferred in healthcare medical, uh, space?
• 10:09
  Well, I... We haven't had anyone to say the opposite. They will make an argument that you don't need more accuracy because they don't have it. Got it. That makes sense.
• 10:19
  Uh, te- tell me more about this fund that you started and what you're hoping to invest in. Uh, we're looking to invest in companies that, uh, that we may partner with, uh, license to.
• 10:31
  So we have a combination of patents, trade secrets, knowhow, um, even, um, copyrights for our semiconductor design. So we have multiple layers of IP protection.
• 10:44
  I used to work in investment banking a long time ago, and before I got involved in startups and developing new technology, I kinda left that, left that world to, to live off the land and, and get, uh, operations experience, but also, uh, work with, uh, engineers for a long time.
• 11:06
  Uh- It sounds... It's... So it sounds like you're pretty open in terms of the applications. You want it to be- Yeah... you know, novel. You wanna, you know, own the IP.
• 11:13
  But otherwise, hey, if it's a good application for your sensors- Yeah... you could get excited about it. Yeah. We're... And, and we don't need to own the IP. We wanna help.
• 11:22
  If we invest in a company, we wanna help them build their own IP moat as well. Okay. But when you take unique complementary IP along with ours together, then again, you create more moats.
• 11:35
  If you have, um, really deep knowledge on the sensor side plus the software side, um, you're much better off. Yeah, we're, we're pretty open.
• 11:45
  Right now, we know maybe 30, 35% of the applications that we could actually develop. In other words, we're gonna come across them as we try to figure out and answer questions of...
• 12:02
  related to, like, predictive analytics, for example. You know, what, what are the anomalies? We're looking for a combination anomalies. And, and that's gonna be where a lot of gold is. Um- Yeah...
• 12:13
  can we, can we figure out and predict an injury of an athlete by taking all his motion data, and that motion data says, "Well, this person is tired."
• 12:25
  [laughs] And when you're tired, um, you're much more likely to get a, uh, ACL injury. Yeah. Right? Or you, to get concussed. That's right. And then you, uh, take action before it happens.
• 12:41
  So, you know, with dementia and being part of the Alzheimer's Moonshot program with you guys, um, and I've learned through personal experience, family members, the sooner you can detect dementia, for example,
• 12:59
  uh, the much better off you are. [laughs] You know, just preparing, you could actually change the outcome. You could stop cognitive decline by changing a few things. Not just exercise,
• 13:14
  uh, but diet, because you're aware that's, you're at the beginning, early stage. Yeah. And if you could delay it long enough, you could delay it 15, 20, 25 years and it's not gonna matter.
• 13:27
  But man, does it mean a lot if, you know, you could avoid it for, if you're 50 or 60 and you could avoid it for another 20, 30 years. Or what if you're 30 or 40, right? Yeah. So that, that really- It's a big deal...
• 13:42
  motivated.
• 13:43
  Yeah, it's a big deal, and it motivated us to, you know, we gotta get the technology out to the right people, find the right partners, subject matter experts, because we certainly are not in so many different fields and areas.
• 13:56
  And if we team up with these, those people, um, uh, we could probably do some really unique approaches. I think that's a, a beautiful note to end on.
• 14:07
  It's a call to action to folks who might be hearing this, that, uh, you are open for business and wanna support v- various endeavors with your, with your sensors and with your technology.
• 14:19
  What's the best way for people to learn more about the fund or get in contact with MEI Micro? Well, if you're a member of, uh, StartUp Health, you know, we're part of the network, and, uh- Does the fund have a...
• 14:29
  Is there, is there a way to learn more about the fund online- Yes... or is that still to come? Yes. So next month we, um, we're pretty sure we're going to light up, um, two new websites. [laughs] We're, so work on it.
• 14:42
  Yep. Um, including R&R, so R&R Ventures. We'll make sure we- But-... we link to that in the description of, of this content. Um, awesome. Well, L- Lewis, I b- I appreciate what you're working on.
• 14:54
  You know, there's been so many applications of this technology in the military and in, in entertainment, in the Wii, but for you to focus on healthcare applications and say, um, "Look, if we get these sensors into the right devices, we can catch disease decades early and give people more life to live," um, that's not just a product, that's a mission.
• 15:14
  And so I, I appreciate you dedicating your work to that. Yes, absolutely. And anyone who has the same mindset, we'd love to work with them, and at least discuss, you know, the possibility. So we're, we're open to that.
• 15:28
  And, uh, and you know, we might come up with new ideas together.
• 15:32
  So, uh, and you know, we do have a way to also kind of invest, and we wanna reach out to other, other investors, be part of their syndicate and help their project and, you know, vice versa, so. Excellent.
• 15:46
  All right, Lewis, well, let's, let's make that happen, and we appreciate getting the update today. Great. Thanks. Take care.
• 15:54
  [upbeat music] And finally, an invitation to all of the extraordinary health transformers, whether you are a startup, someone building the future of health, or whether you are an investor, funder, or buyer of the solutions out there in the marketplace, this is an invitation to you to join the StartUp Health member community.
• 16:17
  Learn more at startuphealth.com. Look forward to hopefully seeing you soon. [gentle music]