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From Google Glass to Dementia Care · EU-Startups Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 0: You are now listening to the EU Startups
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this special episode of The EU Startup's podcast!
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We're here at A-Five X Conference in Singapore by Mitation, National University of Singapore.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Throughout these next few days we'll be chatting about innovation funding, and the developing bridge between Southeast Asia and Europe.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Not to mention The Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon whose winner is going show up at our very end of this series in a special episode.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So I hope you're looking forward to hear us talking about the challenges?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the innovation And how we are all comparing when it comes to localized markets such as Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe... ...and even global challenges not to mention the lessons that can be learned from each other.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you Bavak for joining us here at the EU stars podcast.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you on.
• 1:01
  Speaker 0: Yeah my pleasure.
• 1:02
  Speaker 0: Thank You very much For uh...for that time.
• 1:04
  Speaker 0: it is good to see you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 0: Of
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: course I'm Very Much Looking forward To Our Conversation Here!
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: You Have Such A Varied Kind of Background And The Way It All Descends Up Time With Each Other Its Very Interesting But Before We Get Into It i Think its Good Idea For You Maybe Give Us Little Bit Of Background As To Who You Are What You've Done and Why You're Here.
• 1:21
  Speaker 0: Absolutely, so at the moment I'm the founder and CEO of New Days.
• 1:26
  Speaker 0: This is an artificial intelligence company that Is aiming to help people that struggle with their cognition.
• 1:32
  Speaker 0: So this is really the use of artificial intelligence To help People With Their Natural Intelligence.
• 1:38
  Speaker 0: There are a lot Of People Out There That Have Either Dementia Or The Stages Before That.
• 1:43
  Speaker 0: They Struggle With Their Cognition.
• 1:44
  Speaker 0: You Know The Scope It's Quite Large.
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  Speaker 0: The Number Of People Suffering From This Is Very Large And pharmaceutical interventions are unfortunately not available.
• 1:55
  Speaker 0: So our hope is to help people with that and push back the symptoms of the disease for them, so this what we do as an application of artificial intelligence was really not feasible to build even three years ago.
• 2:08
  Speaker 0: This has basically very recently become available.
• 2:13
  Speaker 0: If time allows, I'm happy to tell you before this what i was up to.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Well it actually is relevant because It will tie into my very first question about kind of where You come from once you've done
• 2:24
  Speaker 0: Sure.
• 2:24
  Speaker 0: so I am happy To Tell you About This and how we ended Up with this particular domain.
• 2:30
  Speaker 0: Right Before This With some overlap I Was a venture capitalist.
• 2:33
  Speaker 0: basically I was a Venture Partner at the firm called Madrona I was investing mostly in artificial intelligence healthcare and deep tech.
• 2:41
  Speaker 0: Before that, I was for a number of years vice president at Amazon in Iran an independent organization that was charted with identifying then making operational substantial new domains to the company.
• 2:55
  Speaker 0: so it's there for another year.
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  Speaker 0: during time we became a trillion dollar companies.
• 3:00
  Speaker 0: It is very interesting see growth be part scaling And one of the things I did was to lead the company into healthcare, and in the process of actually doing this.
• 3:11
  Speaker 0: This issue of cognition really showed up on our radar as these big red blinking dots that it's large.
• 3:20
  Speaker 0: many people are impacted by its an unmet needs solutions or unavailable.
• 3:26
  Speaker 0: so there is partly where you know.
• 3:29
  Speaker 0: then idea for new companies has come about.
• 3:33
  Speaker 0: Me and my co-founder also both unfortunately have a family history with these things, so both of our fathers suffered either from Alzheimer's or dementia.
• 3:43
  Speaker 0: Prior to Amazon I was at Google for quite a few years in this part of Google that is called Google X which did some of the crazier thing than at Google And i did somethings in computing ,somethings on interface between healthcare and tech at that time.
• 4:03
  Speaker 0: And one of the things I did there, which I really like was building a device that's called Google Glass.
• 4:10
  Speaker 0: so this is sort of first modern devices started with current XR and AR and VR we see in market.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I had a conversation just last week for another episode where Google Last came up and it was a company that was developing this kind of headset Visually impaired people and they talked about the inspiration Google Glass all these things.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: but you have such a varied background And in fact, you already kind of referenced this as how you ended up in dimension.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: You got it.
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  Speaker 1: You know addressing these problems?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: He's spoken about family history and all that.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna go too much on that because i think you've already touched It.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: But that does make me wonder cuz varied history you've been in venture capital Amazon google.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: do you see This As Kind Of What your experience has led to, or do you see this as a stepping stone onto something greater somewhere in the future?
• 5:06
  Speaker 0: We're really highly dedicated to make it difference.
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  Speaker 0: In this particular situation I'll just give some of the numbers and tell you why.
• 5:17
  Speaker 0: besides our family connections through this disease if you look at people over the age of sixty five eleven percent of them have dementia And on top of that, twenty-two percent of them have mild cognitive impairment which is really a euphemism because the person could be so impaired they may no longer able to pay their bills.
• 5:36
  Speaker 0: So it's actually medical diagnosis if someone has MCI.
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  Speaker 0: One third people over age sixty five require treatment for their cognition.
• 5:47
  Speaker 0: It not normal aging.
• 5:48
  Speaker 0: The number very large.
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  Speaker 0: And these conditions not only emotionally very impactful on people, they impact you know how people live their lives.
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  Speaker 0: They impact how they socialize with the loved ones and there are the rest of their social network.
• 6:04
  Speaker 0: it impacts where do they live?
• 6:06
  Speaker 0: It impacts their financials and impacts the rest after health care.
• 6:09
  Speaker 0: so this is a not simple diseases that all encompassing very broadly impacting diseases.
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  Speaker 0: So we have lotsa' people who had these situations.
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  Speaker 0: The impact on them is very large.
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  Speaker 0: And you also noticed that at the moment we don't have any pharmaceutical intervention, they can cure these diseases or stop this disease.
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  Speaker 0: and then last number I'll tell you it's uh...the cost of these diseases.
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  Speaker 0: if compared to people who are otherwise medically the same but one has MCI-one doesn't.
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  Speaker 0: the costs through US healthcare system for a person is eighteen thousand dollars more dementia.
• 6:49
  Speaker 0: that extra cost could be thirty thousand dollar per person, per year.
• 6:53
  Speaker 0: So if we don't attend to these diseases did this disease alone can actually bankrupt the US healthcare system and The rest of the world is actually following because pretty much most of the word is aging which means in absolute numbers the number of people facing These conditions are going to increase in the next few decades every year.
• 7:15
  Speaker 0: Actually it's gonna increase but tremendously till twenty fifty, and just think about the extra cost of healthcare system to take care these people.
• 7:25
  Speaker 0: So obviously you can't buy a patient in their well-being first and foremost but even financially.
• 7:31
  Speaker 0: These are urgent issues that we cannot wait.
• 7:33
  Speaker 0: We have to deal with them
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: now.
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  Speaker 1: And what's the public application been like then?
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Do You Have Relationships With Healthcare Organizations?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Is it fully?
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  Speaker 1: somebody signs up on Their Own Volition?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: What Does That Look Like?
• 7:45
  Speaker 0: Yeah, so we do have actually a number of partnerships.
• 7:49
  Speaker 0: So there are some neurologists that for example when they diagnosed the person and then will send them to us for treatment.
• 7:56
  Speaker 0: We have partnerships with caregiving organizations, partnership with senior living companies.
• 8:04
  Speaker 0: Yes!
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  Speaker 0: If you've got a lot of partnerships make our treatments as accessible as possible.
• 8:09
  Speaker 0: We operate in highly regulated space.
• 8:11
  Speaker 0: As a result We're going state-by-state in the United States, so we are not at the moment available outside of
• 8:18
  Speaker 0: U.S.,
• 8:18
  Speaker 0: where you plan to be but in the US were available six states which covers a little bit more than one third of our population.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that five years ago this kind idea wouldn't have been possible because of the advancements on AI.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I want hear about how AI has changed your approach being an entrepreneur and how you see it developing within medtech, health tech in general.
• 8:47
  Speaker 0: Yeah the impact has been tremendous.
• 8:50
  Speaker 0: because we have a pretty short time just focus on what we did.
• 8:54
  Speaker 0: so when we started looked at all randomized controlled trials clinical trial that demonstrated benefit to patients.
• 9:01
  Speaker 0: So an RCT or randomized control trial is the gold standard of medicine.
• 9:06
  Speaker 0: this is our drugs are approved for example by EFDA.
• 9:10
  Speaker 0: We found a number of interventions that really impacted patients positively, changed how they experienced the symptoms with their disease.
• 9:18
  Speaker 0: And it all turned out to be very labor intensive.
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  Speaker 0: so none of them were scalable.
• 9:24
  Speaker 0: So was an interesting situation where you had big problem.
• 9:27
  Speaker 0: You even have solution for this problem which is proven through randomized clinical trials The best standard we have in science.
• 9:35
  Speaker 0: But these solutions were never scaled because they are so labor intensive.
• 9:39
  Speaker 0: some of these treatments can take years.
• 9:41
  Speaker 0: Some of them might require a trained person to sit with the patient one-on-one in a highly personalized way multiple times a week.
• 9:48
  Speaker 0: So that's why they never scale.
• 9:49
  Speaker 0: I mean we realize that what then new Generative AI technology allows us do is to offload sound the work To be done by AI and still keep it under the supervision of human commission expert condition, so you can democratize access to these treatments.
• 10:06
  Speaker 0: That's what we do, basically some... We take something that is proven as highly manual unscalable and move a lot of the work with more repetitive part of their work to be done by AI but don't let it operate fully autonomously on its own put under guidance in control an expert human clinician who also sees this patient.
• 10:27
  Speaker 0: so combination two allows us scale these treatments and get them to many people.
• 10:32
  Speaker 0: And we absolutely could not do this three years ago because the technology wasn't there, um...and it also makes us operate self-safely with
• 10:42
  Speaker 0: confidence.".
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Do you see that relationship?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: How do you see their relationship advancing right?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Because then we've had such a large jump just in five years.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: how everything Gen AI is progressing.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: advancing in any way, or do you feel like we've got the relationship set and now it's just making sure there is a market fit?
• 11:08
  Speaker 0: I think that one of our pioneers of actually deploying this for real.
• 11:12
  Speaker 0: Our point-of view all medicine will be practiced on this form over coming years.
• 11:18
  Speaker 0: so traditional medicine has mostly human experts who interact with patients.
• 11:28
  Speaker 0: probably this is your diagnosis.
• 11:30
  Speaker 0: This what you should do, come back in two months I'll see again.
• 11:35
  Speaker 0: but it's a very human-to-human relationship which was important.
• 11:40
  Speaker 0: so our point of view that in the coming years would fundamentally change and there will be this third entity which is the AI also in quotations to the patient but not fully autonomously.
• 11:53
  Speaker 0: It would be actually an assistant to the human clinician, to the Human Provider who is really in charge and also eventually will be accountable for the outcome.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: So you see that human element as still essential?
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yes
• 12:10
  Speaker 0: Yeah so we have no plan of ever cycling out into humans.
• 12:15
  Speaker 0: Okay,
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  Speaker 1: yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Well and I want to circle back a little bit something you mentioned previously which is that your currently active in the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: U.S.,
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  Speaker 1: You're kind of rolling out on states Question then because...you know And i Want To Draw The Big Connection Here With Europe Asia In The US And The Idea Is That From What I Understand Aging population is really a larger problem in Europe and even Asia than it is the US.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So has there been thoughts of using that as kind... It seems to me, if that's more natural place to begin an application this technology into states?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Am I wrong?
• 12:50
  Speaker 0: You're right on the sense that there are tremendous needs in various Asian countries or European countries And we hope get them soon as possible Because our intervention is highly personalized and it does require long-form conversation, so one of the things... It's a neuropsychological intervention.
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  Speaker 0: So sometimes RAI needs to sit with the patient and talk for half an hour or forty five minutes.
• 13:18
  Speaker 0: It does require actually a decent amount of tuning both cultural and otherwise.
• 13:24
  Speaker 0: this not just pure language translation sure To the context stuff where we're deploying the technology.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: But it is a hope then to at least be expanding in that
• 13:35
  Speaker 0: future?
• 13:36
  Speaker 0: Absolutely, yeah absolutely.
• 13:37
  Speaker 0: you have to do that because they need this very large and we get definitely approached by people outside of
• 13:43
  Speaker 0: U.S.,
• 13:43
  Speaker 0: who want these solutions from Latin America to Europe Asia.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: What did he found them?
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  Speaker 1: kind being as start-up or small organization?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: how you approach this medical question?
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: right You know, a huge Amazon right at Google is just huge companies.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 1: Do you feel that there's elements that you can approach easier as a startup than with the big tech company?
• 14:10
  Speaker 0: You definitely have compared to... I've also been an university professor and still in a field head professor.
• 14:17
  Speaker 0: so if i compare resources for example we're gonna place like google or amazon Or young company like ours.
• 14:23
  Speaker 0: There really no comparison between these.
• 14:28
  Speaker 0: Obviously, a large company has a lot more resources they have a lot of reach and because their financial resource is also that you can hire really good people.
• 14:37
  Speaker 0: so this are all the advantages for a larger company.
• 14:42
  Speaker 0: I think it boils down to velocity of execution.
• 14:49
  Speaker 0: So either a younger company can execute fast and that's really what they have.
• 14:55
  Speaker 0: If not, it would definitely lose to the larger companies.
• 14:59
  Speaker 0: And this is our attempt to execute as fast as possible and be very focused also on one specific problem That we were trying to solve.
• 15:07
  Speaker 0: so if you're in a large platform company there are many products and may different groups.
• 15:12
  Speaker 0: In a sense, some of the very large companies are not as focused on one thing that makes it or breaks it for people in the company.
• 15:21
  Speaker 0: For young company like ours there's only one thing we do and our job is to really well be really focussed on that and execute fast possible.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Well this fast execution I think its natural bridge into another point i want talk about.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you actually mentioned this.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: You work so heavily regulated And you say that from the US, which I think some Europeans might find that funny because of comparison between European regulation and U.S regulations.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: usually seen as a U. S is much lighter.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: so do you feel like it's a crutch at all to kind making initial advancements?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Of course having complete agreement MedTech health tech should be well regulated when it gets to user or patient whatever its effecting but there being more relaxed path to get that point so innovation and execution can be done faster?
• 16:15
  Speaker 0: Yeah, I think there are some regulations that actually benefit patients.
• 16:19
  Speaker 0: We really need keep them.
• 16:21
  Speaker 0: maybe in some instances even make him stronger whether this is Europe or the US.
• 16:27
  Speaker 0: There's some regulation clearly have no benefits for a patient.
• 16:33
  Speaker 0: we should remove it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 0: A good example medical licensing in the
• 16:38
  Speaker 0: U.S.,
• 16:39
  Speaker 0: this is same for practicing medicine or neuropsychology, if you're licensed to a state of California and cannot practice in the State of Oregon that really makes no sense at all.
• 16:52
  Speaker 0: there's still one country.
• 16:53
  Speaker 0: I can't think any reason they would have someone be qualified to see patients in California but unqualified to see patient in Oregon right?
• 17:03
  Speaker 0: But their regulatory burden actually executing that and you know getting your collision license in every single state, we are at fifty FM.
• 17:12
  Speaker 0: You can imagine like what's the burden of that?
• 17:14
  Speaker 0: Sure!
• 17:14
  Speaker 0: That has zero benefit to patients.
• 17:16
  Speaker 0: it has a lot extra burdens for people who want build new things or innovate.
• 17:21
  Speaker 0: so those types of regulations should get rid off quite a few of them in the
• 17:26
  Speaker 0: U.S.,
• 17:27
  Speaker 0: you'll be surprised, so
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: yeah... That is interesting because that lot of European founders and entrepreneurs and investors I talked to mentioned that exact problem on the Europeans side.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: You know they have an issue with scaling when it comes to different countries Because at the different regulations And the different laws per country.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: So its'interesting to hear The US isn't kind this Mecca without these issues as well that also has this regulation blocks.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: That kind of need to be addressed.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: This
• 17:57
  Speaker 0: depends on a sector, but definitely in healthcare There are certain regulatory requirements.
• 18:01
  Speaker 0: that makes no sense at all because they don't benefit patients In any form okay?
• 18:05
  Speaker 0: Yeah Well
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: then to wrap up cuz we're going through the end here I think i want it just.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I Think The final logical question really To his whole conversation is Where you see dementia treatment Going forward.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I mean Is there Can it be cured?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Is there an end game insight to all of this, or are we right now just trying to find the best ways of addressing it.
• 18:28
  Speaker 0: I think that need for is immediate.
• 18:29
  Speaker 0: so we cannot... We don't have right now a drug.
• 18:33
  Speaker 0: they can cure Alzheimer's and a lot of dementia comes from Alzheimer's.
• 18:38
  Speaker 0: We do not want one.
• 18:38
  Speaker 0: that could stop at the moment.
• 18:40
  Speaker 0: doesn't mean you will give up though.
• 18:42
  Speaker 0: So absolutely must continue biological research really understand disease eventually hopefully stop and cure the disease.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So it can happen, within the realm of possibility that this could be...
• 18:56
  Speaker 0: I don't see anyone anything that tells me its impossible.
• 18:58
  Speaker 0: so hopefully you know let's say is possible.
• 19:02
  Speaker 0: but until we get there There are going to millions and millions people who cannot wait for a hypothetical cure That may come years or decades from now.
• 19:11
  Speaker 0: They need help today.
• 19:13
  Speaker 0: We have to figure out how to help them Now!
• 19:17
  Speaker 0: We're focused on that.
• 19:18
  Speaker 0: And I would say if i compare the state of you know where we are in understanding the brain and these cognitive diseases versus oncology, what's happening with cancer?
• 19:32
  Speaker 0: I think there has been tremendous amount of progress in cancer.
• 19:35
  Speaker 0: Many of them are nearly curable right now.
• 19:38
  Speaker 0: The reason is that we really understand the molecular mechanisms for cancer a lot more.
• 19:44
  Speaker 0: Sometimes we don't know actually what causes it, but if you have many tools because of how it evolves and produces symptoms.
• 19:50
  Speaker 0: We can intervene.
• 19:52
  Speaker 0: the most blunt intervention is that open a person to take a tumor out.
• 19:55
  Speaker 0: sometimes they are cured right?
• 19:57
  Speaker 0: But uh...we had many tool in our disposal even when do not want cause cancer to intervene to prevent from progressing address the symptoms as secured cuz molecular understanding.
• 20:10
  Speaker 0: biological understanding is quite advanced.
• 20:12
  Speaker 0: That is really not the case actually for many of cognitive diseases.
• 20:16
  Speaker 0: Our understanding is quite, actually further back behind cancer.
• 20:21
  Speaker 0: so my guess that it's going to take us some time before we develop a proper biological knowledge and after that we can actually produce interventions that scientifically you can address the symptoms.
• 20:33
  Speaker 0: So may takes sometime but I'm optimistic eventually will get there.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Well i look forward too it.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Thank You very much.
• 20:39
  Speaker 0: Yeah our pleasure and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: absolute pleasure to have you Wonderful.