Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Adam Mendelsohn - CEO & Co-Founder Vivani Medical at BIO Boston 2025

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Adam Mendelsohn - CEO & Co-Founder Vivani Medical at BIO Boston 2025 · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:04
  So we're here in Boston at Bio for the Bio Hub, and I have Adam
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  Mendelssohn with me, who's the CEO of Avani Medical.
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  How are you? I'm doing great, Max, how are
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  you? Yeah, it's.
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  Great to have you. First of all, just give a bit of
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  context on yourself who you are sure what you're doing here.
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  Yeah. So I'm Adam Mendelsohn.
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  I'm the CEO of Avani Medical. As you said, I'm here at Bio to
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  meet with potential partners and other people in the sector and
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  to give a presentation tomorrow morning in which I will be
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  providing an outline of what we are doing at Avani Medical.
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  Myself, I have a primarily a technical background.
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  The company was a spin out from a bioengineering PhD program
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  that I completed a number of years ago.
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  And we've been working on a brand new drug delivery
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  technology which enables an implant like this, a very small
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  implant that goes under the skin to provide steady and continuous
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  levels of medicine over many months to try to improve upon a
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  real challenge in people not taking their medicine as
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  prescribed for chronic diseases generally, starting initially
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  with medications for type 2 diabetes and obesity.
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  The GLP one class that everyone is very familiar with because of
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  the success of Ozempic and Manjaro and Zepbound and some of
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  the other brands that are out there.
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  And we're really excited to potentially be able to offer a
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  highly differentiated solution that we think can help people
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  achieve the potential benefits that these molecules are capable
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  of without having to worry about remembering to take a medicine
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  on a frequent basis. Yeah.
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  Just talk us through the journey so far, but how you started, how
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  you've gotten to this point. Yeah.
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  So we started out with business plan competitions during
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  Graduate School and we ended up sharing first place in the UC
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  Berkeley business plan competition a number of years
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  ago. At a time when the idea was an
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  exercise. We didn't think we were actually
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  going to start a company, but we ended up, because of that
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  competition, winning. We ended up competing in other
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  competitions both domestically and internationally and won or
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  placed in most of them. And got the confidence once we
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  finished the degree to start a company.
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  Initially in the basement of the bioengineering building on UC
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  Berkeley campus with two desks and one bench and three people.
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  And slowly but surely finding our way into a somewhat bigger
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  incubator off campus and eventually into our own
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  facility. And over time, building a team
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  of seasoned executives with deep experience in all of the
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  functional areas that are necessary for growing a biotech
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  company. But it's been a long, rewarding
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  and adventurous journey to get to get to get to this point.
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  Yeah. And just in terms of the
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  market's been tough at the moment, that journey won't have
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  come without its challenges, I imagine.
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  Sure, yeah. How do you deal like mindset
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  wise, like going through those particular challenges, how do
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  you deal with them? Maybe give you an example of a
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  couple that that stick out. I mean, there are definitely
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  have been times throughout the history of our company when I
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  have wondered, you know, we don't have the result that we
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  had hoped to achieve or you know, financing can be
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  challenging. And if it we've been able to
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  persevere, keep our head down, figure out what's the next best
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  step to work on. And each time we've been able to
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  succeed in that next step, which is unlocked the opportunity to
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  continue to move forward. And it's just been like that one
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  after the other, after the other, staying alive, continuing
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  to make progress, continuing to persevere.
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  Now we're in a very good position with where we are with
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  our development and our team. I, I suspect that the future
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  will bring similar challenges because we still have a ways to
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  go before we have a product on the market and generating
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  revenue and being profitable. But it does take this mindset of
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  being committed, dedicated, and at the end of the day,
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  reactionary, flexible, smart and able to navigate all the
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  challenges that come your way and stay standing and continuing
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  to make progress. What would that be your message
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  to other people who struggle from the start of to to becoming
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  more established? I, I so, so I think that there
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  are two things that that one should think about. 1 is, does
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  it still make sense if you take a fresh start, look at where you
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  are based on what you've learned along the journey?
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  Does moving forward still make sense with everything that's
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  happened in the past being sunk cost?
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  And then if it does, yes. Then two, being willing to
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  persevere and continue to make progress and continue to move
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  forward. There are very few examples of,
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  of ventures of my friends and others who have started where
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  what they set out to do initially just worked right.
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  You set out to do something, then you get a more deep
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  expertise in what you're working on.
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  And, you know, you find a spot where hopefully you get the
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  traction and you can move forward or you don't, right.
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  So being honest with yourself along the way.
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  But then if there is the next step forward, yeah, could
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  continue to make the progress. And you know, fortune favors the
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  bold. So you have to try and be
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  willing to fail in order to have the chance to succeed.
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  And that's certainly a mantra that I think I try to live by.
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  The other one is I'd rather regret the things that I did
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  instead of regretting the things that I did not do.
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  Yeah, So do. And at least you tried and you
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  had the opportunity and maybe you'll succeed.
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  Yeah. No, I love that.
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  And you've had some big milestones recently.
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  So we've started a first clinical study, which has been a
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  long journey to bring this brand new technology into humans.
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  And we're excited to learn how the technology performs to gain
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  insights into the future development of that program and
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  future applications of the pipeline and hopefully confirm
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  the safety and tolerability of the device.
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  That'll be a big important first step in the clinical development
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  phase of our company. In addition to that, we also
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  have been generating really exciting new data with one of
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  our pipeline programs, which is delivering semiglutide, which is
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  the drug that's in Ozempic And we go over, we go V the big
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  blockbuster products that are out there.
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  We've now shown six months with a single implant of really
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  compelling weight loss preclinically, and we're excited
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  to chart the path for that program to move forward into the
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  clinic and how else we can apply this technology to newer, latest
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  and greatest molecules that are out there.
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  We think there's a big opportunity to free people from
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  the burden of remembering to continuously take their
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  medication, which only about 50% of people do on a regular basis.
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  The data is surprising to most people because maybe you and I
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  probably take our medicine regularly, but there's a large
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  segment of people that don't, and they suffer consequences
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  from lost opportunity for efficacy.
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  But also, in the case of GLP ones, when you stop taking your
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  medicine, the drug levels go down, and when they come back
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  up, that's when people experience the gastrointestinal
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  side effects of the treatment. So we want to avoid lapses in
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  exposure, avoid missed doses so that people can reap the
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  benefits of these treatments without having to suffer
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  unnecessary tolerability consequences that inevitably
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  happened for the 50% of people that don't take their medicine
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  regularly. So having this option, we think
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  can be compelling, differentiated and attractive to
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  really all the stakeholders that are involved with an
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  individual's care. Yeah.
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  And what, what's next do you guys like when you look at the
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  big picture, what's what's? To come, yeah.
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  So I mean we're the first trial is a is an early phase one
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  trial, you know, studying the technology and it will be very
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  important in our development path.
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  But ultimately moving that into what could be an efficacy
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  oriented study and finding collaborators with whom we can
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  work to continue to advance our pipeline programs forward as
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  well as finding new applications, new molecules.
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  You know, GLP 1 is where we're starting because the opportunity
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  is so compelling in our view. The clinical need is so is so
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  dire, but the technology is a platform and we do think that it
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  can be applied across a wide range of molecules and disease
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  areas and we want to make it available as broadly as we
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  possibly can. And that's as I look at the next
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  two or three years where I anticipate spending more of our
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  time both advancing the clinical program with GLP ones and
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  looking at these other applications of the platform
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  technology I love. That and I think it just I think
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  people rarely do this exercise, but if you like sit and see
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  where you put come from what you've achieved so far.
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  I know that's sometimes a tough thing because you've got so far
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  to go in a long journey, but like, you must be incredibly
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  proud. When I take the time to take a
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  step back and I get out of the the weeds and the details of the
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  last challenge that we just overcame and you know, all of
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  the stress that was associated with that, yes.
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  When I take that time to take a step back and say, look where
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  we've come, look at all that we've done in all these years,
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  it really is incredible. But then you got to get back to
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  work. You got to go back, dive down
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  into the weeds again and overcome the next obstacles and
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  pave the road for the future obstacles that are yet to come
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  for the team to be able to succeed.
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  But yes, you're right. Every once in a while, getting
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  out of there and and, and taking a moment to get some
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  perspective. Yeah.
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  All right. This is.
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  Beneficial All right, so thanks so much for coming on It's been.
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  Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
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  It's a great, great conversation.