Latest / Zero Friction / Building The Future of Early Eye Disease Detection Kasia Hein-Peters, MD || Zero Friction Podcast
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- Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Well welcome Zero Friction Podcast Nation. Terry Kucholuc is here and I have a wonderful guest today, Kasha Hein Peters MD. She is the CEO of Evoke Technologies, which is a unique eye technology that does some incredible things from a a diagnostic perspective. Kasha's background though, before we go there, she's a trained psychiatrist from Communist Poland. and she actually helped launch Prozac back in Central East Europe. So with that, I'm gonna let Kasha give us a little background on her journey in the medical and med tech space, and we'll get started on talking about a book as well. So welcome to the podcast, Kasha. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Thank you very much for the invitation. I'm really happy to be here and have the opportunity to talk with you. So what do you think from my background would be the most interesting for your listeners? Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Well, I think a couple of things. I think your your personal background, just the fact that you you grew up in in communist Poland number one, we don't get that very often on the podcast. But tell us about like your journey from being a doctor and then what made you make that pivot into the indu the industry side of the business to go work for Lily and then how did you go from like, you know, Prozac into the eye care business as well. So tell us a little bit about that. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Okay, so yes, I was a young practicing psychiatrist in the early 90s in Poland. And this was the time of enormous changes as we just got out of the communist dictatorship. But we needed to transform the entire country and the economy and everything to become a real country and have a viable economy as opposed to what we had before. So not every field was moving with the same speed. And since the health care was owned by the government at that time, was moving very slow. And I was already noticing one thing about myself is that slow is not really the thing that excites me. So I decided at that time to join the pharmaceutical industry. And it was not necessarily at that time a definitive decision. I didn't know how long I would stay with the pharma industry. But I said, really seems to be a little bit more expensive a bit more innovation, moving faster. You know, I tried to expand my horizons and I joined Eli Lilly because Eli Lilly was launching Prozac, their famous anti-depressant medication back at that time. And as a psychiatrist, I was able to create the right messages, the right marketing campaign, even though I had to learn everything about business because obviously I knew nothing about how to do that. So there's a lot of learning involved in that as well. And sometimes people ask me why I stayed with the industry then and didn't come back to practicing medicine. And my answer to this is that I realized at some point that I actually have a much bigger impact on people's lives and the improvement of patient lives if I work for the industry than if I worked as an individual practicing physician, because I can help millions of patients. And as opposed to maybe thousands of patients and I was a practicing physician. And this impact actually made me staying in the industry And then my path led to different therapy areas, it led to different companies. Then I worked for Merck, worked for Novartis, Sanofi, and finally for Terumo, which is the medtech company. But I'd like to say also that the eye lies very close to the brain and the retina, is the other side of our eye, is actually part of the brain. So I don't feel like being in Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Ha ha ha. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: the ophthalmology area is so far away from the brain that I really liked initially and that's why I became a psychiatrist. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's true, you know, and and so the the I guess the eyes are the window to the brain, correct? So I think you're Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: And the eyes are the window to the brain and, you know, looking at retina and checking the retina function, we not only can see ocular diseases, we actually can see neurodegenerative diseases as well. And that will be probably for us at EVOKE, it may be the next frontier that we'll try to conquer once we, know, do what we are supposed to do right now. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: So tell me a little bit about like Evoke by itself and its company, its technology, and then what problems or solutions is it designed to either create or solve? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Evoke Technologies was set up by our founder Daniel Lindgren and I want to mention his name because he is really behind all the technologies that we develop and he's been in this field for a long time having some other companies in the past. But what is very interesting about ophthalmology and optometry nowadays is that it's a very highly sophisticated field from the technological perspective. There lots of diagnostic tools and the major problem with those tools is that they most of them, the vast majority, look at the structure of the eye. So you need to have some damage in your structure for these tests to actually say, yeah, there is a disease in there. But the function of retina, coming back just to retina, the function of retina is impaired sometimes three years before any structural damage occurs. So a patient, for example, may come to an optometrist or ophthalmologist with some very vague complaints like, you know, that I don't think I see so well at night, or I really don't like driving at night anymore. And they do the tests that are currently available and part of standard of care. they say, well, I don't see anything. Just come in one year, right? So there is this wait and see approach to people who start having some problems with the retina and only when the structural damage occurs. then we can diagnose and then it's sometimes a little late for treatments that truly prevent vision loss. So we really are here to promote functional tests because they are the earliest alarm. of the retina dysfunction for whatever reason. So the Twilight Dark Adaptometer, which is the device that we currently have on the market, it's a device that diagnoses night vision loss, actually does not diagnose any particular disease, but it does, and it's the power of it because it says to a doctor that the patient's symptoms are objective. It gives a doctor very precision, very precise read. of what the problem is and then it triggers additional tests to find out what is actually the cause of it. And there multiple causes of retinal dysfunction. The most common is the age-related macular degeneration, but it could be the beginnings of diabetic retinopathy. It could be some vitamin deficiencies, vitamin A, vitamin E. Even zinc deficiency may cause some retinal dysfunction. Could be drug toxicity. There are some drugs like hydroxychloroquine that causes eretina toxicity. So there are multiple reasons why eretina may not function as well as it used to and we don't have to wait until the structural damage occurs to basically help the patient. Now if this is truly an early AMD there are some interventions that can be helpful like there are some dietary supplements that have been actually proven in clinical trials to work. There's an emerging science on the technology called photocopier biomodulation that potentially can help in these patients. there are many things that can be done early on to prevent the disease progression or to slow down significantly the disease progression. And they are currently not done because these functional tests are a very small percentage of practices actually have any dark adaptometry device. And even if they do, they don't always deploy them to these patients with very early symptomatology. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: And so what's the impact when that doesn't happen? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Well, if it doesn't happen, then again, a patient comes after a year, the symptoms still continue. And then at some point... one year afterwards, two, three, the structural damage starts occurring. And then some of these interventions are recommended, but they are not sufficient so the disease progresses. And finally, a patient has an option of getting some eye injections with the drugs that are being developed for AMD or geographic atrophy. But this is an advanced state. Now, a patient who starts losing vision is becoming increasingly dependent on others and that's very very painful for people not to be independent and It's also very dangerous for them because when they don't see well they trip over things You know, for example somebody doesn't you know has this night vision loss and they walk out of their house into the garden at night and they trip over something that they don't see, know, or like, you know, we talked the last time about my grandfather like My grandfather died because he had AMD and he walked on the street in front of the car because he didn't see it. So, and he was so adamant of not losing his independence that he was very, very eager to still walk on his own despite his vision loss. So, Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Right. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: you he died as a result of that. you see that the vision loss can kill people actually if they are not really careful and if they're not surrounded by others who can help them in every situation. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: So what does it is there current there are current technologies out there today serving this purpose? Are you coming into a market that exists? Are you creating a market? what what Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: I think it's a little bit of both because the market does exist. There are dark adaptometry devices on the market and there are two types. One is the desktop device, but it does require a dark room. So very few practices actually have it. And the second one, it's a kind of a Google-based device that was launched several years ago, but it actually was launched at a very high price. $50,000 per device. So Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: very few practices actually purchase them because obviously the optometrists and ophthalmologists know that the technology will continue to change. They will have to renew it after a few years. And sometimes they just don't see the return on investment with the device that costs so much. So we think our assessment is that only 5 % of kind of primary eye care practices currently have any dark adaptation device. So this is the established market, but 95 % don't. So we are really, in fact, we are building the market with these 95 % primary ICAR practices. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Got it. And so your price your price point comes into the marketplace. I'm I'm guessing it's commercially viable, right? So it's a it's a is this a a Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: profitable diagnostic tool? Is this break even? Do they get the bill extra for it? So what's the you know Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: So we are, our device which has a price below $10,000. So the difference in price is huge and this is because of the way how our device is built. It's a high quality device, but it's built in a way that eliminates a lot of cost. And therefore, it's still highly profitable for us, but it's Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Right. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: way more affordable for the clinics. And that was the goal. Because our goal is really to expand this diagnosis, diagnostic abilities with the dark adaptation. or Daniel build it from the beginning with the affordability in mind. And so there is a device then because the data go to the cloud and this is very important because the cloud allows longitudinal monitoring of the same patient, the analytics Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: available will allow a doctor to actually compare the patient results over time. And that's important when a patient was given some therapeutic interventions and we want to see if the disease progresses or not, or if the therapies that were given actually improve the patient vision. this longitudinal analytics sit in the cloud. So we also charge some amount for the subscription for the cloud. And then because the The also has an eye mask that's put inside to create the dark room inside the goggles. So we also charge for these masks as we send them to the practices for their use. So there are kind of the three components. The biggest, of course, is the device itself. The other two are relatively minor. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: And the and the practice itself can bill for the procedure, right? So they they Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes, the dark adaptometry is reimbursable in patients who have either risk factors or already are diagnosed with some diseases like diabetes, for example, or early AMD. But there is a code for it, 92 to 84, and several practices that adopted the device, already seeing that actually created a new revenue stream for them. Because not only Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Great. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: The rest itself in appropriate patients of course is reimbursable, but it also triggers some additional tests that will help to diagnose the reasons for night vision loss. Because Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: the dark adaptation test does not diagnose any particular disease. So it triggers Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Got it. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: additional tests as well, and then it triggers therapeutic interventions. So all in all, we believe, and it has been confirmed with a few first clients that we have, that the return on investment can be quite easily achieved within the first year after purchasing the device, which we think is actually Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Wow. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: a great value proposition for the practice. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: So now that you have the device and it's very close to being in the market, we're pivoting towards a commercial launch anytime soon? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: So we actually launched it on a, we call it controlled release because it's a limited launch. We launched it at this point with the key opinion leaders who also will participate in collecting some real world evidence. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's exciting. That's always good. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes, because what we actually discuss, you this clinical path of patients who are diagnosed with night vision loss and the reimbursability of it and the clinical interventions, we would like to collect this information in kind of a real world evidence environment so that we can then show others, you know, how this actually works in practice so that they can see how their practice may benefit from it. So we launched this program with a with a number of Kyopinio leaders and we are getting ready for two things basically. One is the fundraising. We are approaching our seed round. And the second one is Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Yeah. Right? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: a little bigger commercial launch. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. And what does that look like? How do you think you launched the product? do you have a sales team today? Do you have an infrastructure or you starting from scratch, you're going to distributor networks, or you know, like what what where where do you go? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: No, we don't. So our idea is to find a distributor first. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: But again, because the device requires some market development, it must be someone who is actually able to do it. And sometimes distributors are more... probably better in selling into established markets rather than developing new markets. That's at least my experience, but we are looking for some who have more vision for their own growth and the ability to do a little bit more marketing and sales of a new device like that. Not just put it in the catalogue and send the catalogue to their clients, right? Or not only put it on their website and until people ask for it. So I think the selection of the right distributor is a very important aspect for us. So I think that's the first step. And from the marketing perspective, I think there are basically two things that need to happen. One, there must be medical education about night vision loss and dark adaptation, because as we said, 95 % of clinics don't have a device. So even though every optometrist and every ophthalmologist learned about about night vision loss and dark adaptation during their studies and residency. If they don't practice this on the everyday basis, certain things may, you know, got lost over the years. So I think there must be some medical education and this we will do through some established channels in ophthalmology. So we are thinking about working with a few providers of continuous medical education to make sure that it is high quality delivered by opinion leaders who know the subject and then it gives us access. to multiple optometrists and ophthalmologists who already attend some of these events, both online and offline. So that's one, this is a big effort. And the second one is to complement the sales efforts with the digital marketing efforts, right? So Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Right. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: classical digital marketing, you know, we need to be visible in places online where ophthalmologists and optometrists go. have a convincing message platform. So all this is currently in the development. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's excellent. And you know, building calculators, business models, all kind of things like that in terms of Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes, exactly. So return on investment calculator is already something that we have, it's I would say it's a bit it will sit on our website, for example. So, we any practice can go through the ROI calculator and see based on their reimbursement levels and their patient population. They can actually see if this device is financially viable for them or not. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's great. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: And it never happened yet that it wasn't, by the way. Because again, we build it for affordability. So it's very unlikely that it wouldn't be financially viable. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's excellent. And you got the price point where it's simple, right? It's Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: easy to bring in. you know, you're gonna pack it full with education and informational experience for your users, which is gonna translate well for patients. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yep. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: be supporting a distributor channel. That's another and that's you know, it's your you know, it keeps it keeps some of the expenses on the light side too. Like so you know, there's advantages and disadvantages to that distributor dealer model. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Exactly. we, know, with a small company like ours, think, or starting at this point, I think that going through the distribution Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Sure. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: channel is probably better than trying to hire our own sales team, which I think eventually will happen down the road, but not not immediately. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Well it makes good sense and you know, like I said, it keeps it light and you know sometimes even there's new models too that have sales organizations for hire. They're like ten ninety-nine, so you you you don't pay them salaries, you you hire a sales team that comes in and sells your product, and Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Mm-hmm. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: if they don't sell, they don't get paid. and then it kind of Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: That could be an option too. You know, that could be an option too. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: You know, so so just some really interesting what I would call low friction options that, you know, don't require hiring, don't require taking on the the W two component of the employee. you still want to make sure that you train and that you have to build the content and the materials for the sales enablement piece and the marketing piece, but you actually are contracting your sales team and so and it's pretty easy to build that cost into your sales structure because it's variable in nature. It's not a fixed cost and you know, so it reduces your risk of cash burn that is not creating cash as well. So that's the nice thing that if the cash isn't getting created, the the the expense for selling the product is not generated as well. And so those are Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Exactly, yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: those are good things as well. So you know, I'll be happy to to chat about that later. I've got a few friends in the in that do that as particular space and and it works really well for Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: I would like to understand a little better how this would work because yes, I know Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Yeah. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: that these salespeople exist and I would really like to get a little bit more educated about this opportunity because this sounds good Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Yeah. Good. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: too. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: It does. It's interesting. know, the eye business is so specialized too. That's the other piece too. I think the eye business is a very sort of particular business. and I've I've worked with plenty of people in the cardiovascular side that that were actually in the eye business. And you know, so Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Interesting. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: I I know it's a very you know, it's a it's a very tight industry as well. So Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: It is a tight industry and there's highly specialized. So we see very many service providers who work only for this industry. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Got it. well good. So commercially coming out next, getting ready to go. And what do you think the biggest friction points for you in launching the product are gonna be? Have you sort of predicted or have you done any sort of battle planning to kind of see how things are gonna work? And what do you think is gonna be you know the easy part of the launch and what's gonna be the challenging part of the launch if you look at it? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: You know, I actually think that the, Maybe the challenging part, although not something that I see will stop us, is actually the need for education about night vision loss and dark adaptometry. And not only because it's not so broadly used, but we already start discovering some misconceptions. For example, people link dark adaptation test only with age-related macular degeneration, which, yes, it does cause night vision loss, but it's by no means the only disease that causes night vision loss. So I think that this is probably the biggest friction point for a relatively small company like us. But I think also that the... And I don't think there is anything that I would call an easy part because it's never easy to launch a new product in healthcare. Right? So I don't think there is really something that I will call easy. I think what's really easy is we have, we really have a very clear mission. And we are also well aligned around this mission that there are no frictions inside the company. And Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: That's good. I mean Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: that sometimes is also a barrier, right? There are companies that people work in silos and then these different teams fight with one another. I've read through a few of those in my core work. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: the team has an aligned purpose and mission and they're all moving in the same direction is always a Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes, Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: good thing, right? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: that's good thing. I think the only easy thing here is that we all move into the same direction and we are very well aligned. Doesn't mean that we always have the same point of view, doesn't mean that we don't argue, but I think we are very well aligned in what needs to happen next and what needs to be done next. And I think from this point of view, that's the easy part, our internal mission and vision alignment. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Right. And then you you take it to market and then you think you you know what's gonna happen and then you know, then the reality of the world sets in and you learn new things, you have to adapt to new things and that's where the friction begins, right? Is when you get it to market and you start figuring out where it's easy, where it works well, where it doesn't work well. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: you have your your launch kind of built out and mapped out in your brain in terms of where you go first, second and third yet and is that Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: We do. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Sort of Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: we actually started, I actually started when I became the CEO, I started from developing a very classical go-to-market strategy, which was already there partially in the company. But I think I am someone who is putting this on paper now. So we did look at different market segments. So we started from market segmentation, very classical exercise, decided on which targets, which specific market segments should be our priority targets. That's how we landed on primary eye care because they have patients that are early enough in their disease development with this early symptomatology that actually is very good. They're very good candidates for dark adaptation tests. There's another group of people who are basically retina researchers. They also use dark adaptation but for a different reason. So we can kind of have our primary and secondary target. We also have targets some other basically everyone who's doing primary eye care is the great candidate for this dark adaptation device. And then we started looking at drivers and barriers in these segments. We started looking at the needs that they have and what are the of the product outcomes that we can offer to meet these needs. And as you know, in the healthcare space, was always clinical need. There's always economical need, operational and experiential. So we kind of work around these four and build our value proposition around this and then started developing our messages. kind of we went as far as kind of building some key message pillars because now we know and a message pillar is basically a theme that we need to cover with these audiences. So we are currently have identified a series of these themes that are important for them and we have to build our medical education and our product promotion around these themes. So we went as far as understanding those. I think that we're relatively fast with developing a proper marketing campaign. It's important because Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Good. So what Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: then we need to train salespeople how to talk about the product, what to focus on, Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Course. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: right? What is important for the audience from the point of view of this particular product? Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: You know, and that's w you know, like one of those things where that used to be a really big challenge, getting people trained consistently. you know, back when I started learning i i it was all done in perp person and you had to fly in and it cost a lot of money and you took people out of the field for one or two or three weeks depending on how long training I mean, you did it with Project, I'm sure. You remember the days when you right? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: all definitely all face to face, know, flying flying around the world sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: And so now, you know, you can build your scripts, you can have AI generate it, you can have AI avatars do the training, you know, Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Mm-hmm. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: from a an asynchronous perspective online, and you Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: can monitor it, you can quiz it, you can score it, you can, you know, there's so many different wonderful things in today's age that at least that part of the heavy lifting of training has become much still means you have to build the training content and the material, but That's the hard part. Then you just fill it into the channel and then you can monitor it and go. So that must be something that you're very excited about. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: because that'll make it go fast. That's that's one thing that you know you can measure it, monitor it, and those are always fun things. And when do you anticipate when do you anticipate Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: I also... Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: like the green day of go? Like when's go day, do you think? I know you're you're raising the funds, you need to get the money to Fun the launch, but like when do you think that's all gonna happen? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: You know, I actually think it's going happen very soon because we are officially starting our seed round with me going to an investor meeting next week, toward Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: the end of the next week. And I think that I am working with our marketing agency on some messaging and outreach, which should be done within the next two weeks. So I would like to say that over summer, we should actually launch the product properly. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Wow, that's so exciting. Good for you. That's congratulations. That's a big that's a big milestone in that Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: And just talking about AI, what I'm really excited about is what AI can also do for customers. Because we are also looking at creating a sophisticated AI chatbot to actually talk with physicians about this dark adaptometry and night vision loss. So a medical education delivered by a chatbot. They can ask questions. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Not only that, yeah. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: They can ask questions, can get answers. Because we have compiled already so much information about these topics that just feeding properly a chat bot with this information creates a knowledge center. And I think that's I'm so very excited about. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: And even feed it to ChatGPT or or even feed it to ChatGPT or Gemini as well. Because you know, the one thing that we're starting to learn is that consumers are using answer engine search optimization more than Google these days. So you still go to Google, but if you notice when you go into Google, Gemini pops in and you Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: know AI is becoming a bigger part of that search. And I just went and Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Sure. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: purchased a computer the other day that I actually gave ChatGPT my specs. They gave Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Mm-hmm. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: me three models to go look for. So, Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: you know, that whole concept of people, you know, used to have medical ailment and ailments and they would go to Google to get the information. And now chat and chat GPT and Claud Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: and Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: and Gemini and all these other AI tools are becoming prominent information providers on next steps for patients and that's another really interesting angle. So Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: That's true. That's true. so I think that eventually we also have some very early materials for patients that can be delivered through the primary ICAR clinics. But I think that people will be looking for this information online as well. And we need to, we definitely will be Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Everywhere. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: doing something around that. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: So this it for those people in LinkedIn looking and if you're in a restaurant trying to read the menu in dark light, this is this is a device that can actually help diagnose the problem, right? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes, if people feel that their night vision somehow declined, I think they really need to do something about it because it may be the earliest alarm of something happening with retina. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: how ma how often are you in a restaurant when you see somebody pull their phone out and look at the menu Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: You Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: with a light? So I mean I I'm I I've done it, so Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: You know, I do it. So I did obviously the test and my dark adaptation is good. But I still do it. think I'm doing this because I'm becoming a bit of a short, you know, Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Okay. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: I need the reading glasses, for example. So either I get the glasses or I use my phone and take the menu, you know, away from me. But yes, I think that might be the problem. And the biggest problem is really driving at night. You know, people who don't adapt well to darkness. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Yeah, it's dangerous. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: then, you know, the twilight comes in the evening and before they adapt to darkness, there is this 20, 30 minutes when they actually don't see well. That's really the problem. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Well good. Well, I've certainly enjoyed our day today. I have one more question for you, and it's a question that I like to ask all my guests, and sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not, but today I remember to ask it is that so Kasha, you know, current day Kasha goes back and meets twenty-two-year-old Kasha back in communist Poland. What is Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yes. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: the one piece of advice you would give your current day self to your twenty-two-year-old self? Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: You know, I would basically tell myself back then that I should prepare for the change because we did not expect any change happening politically or economically and yet it happened. And then it upended our lives completely in a good way in my case. So I actually, and we were not... getting ready in any way for the change. the advice I would have given my younger self was that first and foremost, you need to prepare for many, many changes that will happen in your life. So don't think that any decision is final. There are no final decisions. That's one. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Yeah. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: And the second one I would say probably don't think... Following up on this, there's no final decision. Don't think that what you've chosen right now is the end of the story. So don't don't Threat too much around, know, do you choose a or do you choose B? You can choose A and then you can abandon it and still go to B, right? Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Right. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: We had this feeling that every choice is final, like I will not be able to go back and revisit. That's the advice I would give myself. You can always go back and revisit. You can always change. You can always pivot. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Well, and you've done it throughout your entire life and your career has been nothing but success and pivot and change and pivot and change and pivot and change and Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Exactly. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: you know, and you certainly have you know, you've given yourself that advice and you've lived it as well. So that's wonderful. So so Kasha, great to meet you today. Thank you so much. We wish Evoke a very successful launch and I look forward to staying close to you and and figuring out if there's any ways that I can be of assistance and support as you take this novel new diagnostic tool to Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Mm-hmm. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: a market where now physicians can, you know, viably use it in their practice. And that's that's Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Yeah. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: always a great way to transform the way care is delivered. So thank you. Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Thank you very much for having me. Terry Coutsolioutsosdav: Good luck on your trip, by the way. Go get Kasia Hein-Peters, MD: Thanks. Thanks.