Technology can help you be more efficient with many of your healthcare processes.
In this episode of Bite the Orange, we host Jared Meyers, CEO and co-founder of Augment Health, a company that helps patients know when their bladder is full and ready to evacuate without having any accidents. Even though the product is still in the pre-commercial and pre-clinical stages, its trials have earned rave reviews. He dives into how innovation is also happening in the southern part of the United States, where entrepreneurs are coming out of wonderful programs and institutions all over the region. Engineering and healthcare have a tight relationship if you know how and where to look at it.
Tune in to this short and sweet conversation about improving patient outcomes with a non-invasive device!
FULL EPISODE
BTO_Jared Mayers: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
BTO_Jared Mayers: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Welcome to Bite the Orange. Through our conversations, we create a roadmap for the future of health with the most impactful leaders in the space. This is your host, Dr. Manny Fombu. Let's make the future of healthcare a reality together.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Bite the Orange, where we talk to innovators and game changers and leaders that are transforming the future of healthcare. And so today we have a very special guest that I met, and that comes all the way down from the beautiful city of Atlanta, Georgia. And so today we have Jared Mayers from Augment Health. Welcome to the show, Jared!
Jared Mayers:
Thanks so much, Mandy. And I'm actually in Nashville now, but graduated Georgia Tech. So love Atlanta and always back there.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Perfect, even better. Nashville, we met in Atlanta. That's good, beautiful city. So with that being said, tell us something about yourself, Jared.
Jared Mayers:
Yeah. I'm Jared, CEO and co-founder of a company called Augment Health. We're helping people to know when their bladders are full after spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis so they don't have to carry around urine collection bags. And aside from that, I also love ballroom dancing and Latin social dance.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That is quite fascinating. So how did you come about this idea? You have a very cool device that connects to a phone, but give us a background around it. What inspired you?
Jared Mayers:
My co-founder and I went through Georgia Tech's biomedical engineering program, and while we were doing that between semesters, we were working pretty major roles across a few different startups, getting to see a lot of the innovative work that was being done made us, as we wrap that up, really look to figure out where we could make the next biggest impact. And it was when we started talking with urologists and eventually ventured into talking with more and more patients that we saw such a clear need that hadn't been addressed in that largely had been overlooked. And as we were really able to understand and see that problem space, the solution and the concept actually presented itself in a really clear light to us.
Jared Mayers:
Which is quite interesting, and for people that haven't actually seen what the product looks like, you basically you help eliminate urine .. bladders, right? You have a sensor device. So can you tell us how that works, so with the ideal patient, you described the ideal patient that are using your solution, and what that difficult thing is that you feel or why they can't actually pee on their own or why it's important to actually connect your device or how the device works.
Jared Mayers:
Yes, totally. So after a spinal cord injury or as multiple sclerosis or other neurodegenerative conditions progress, a person will begin to lose the nerves that connect their bladder to their brain. And what you see there is it can result in a lack of the ability to feel your bladder, to know when it's full and a lack of ability to control your bladder. And so right now, it's at least the first version of the technology. We're looking at people who are currently using an indwelling catheter, a tube to drain urine from their bladder and that let them control their bladder better. But today that's attached to a urine collection bag, which is basically a bag, it's worn on the leg. And we've heard countless numbers of stories around potential bladder health impacts as well as psychological impacts that it can have. So really what we're hoping to do is fix that sensation piece in addition to the control piece and move your in-storage back into a person's very own bladder so we can really maintain the overall health and avoid needing to carry around an extra bag because you already have a bladder to store your urine.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is quite fascinating, right? So unless you had like a spinal cord injury, you probably might not relate to this, but you could imagine why people with spinal bifida, for example, and I've been on your website and I've seen some great reviews and feedback from patients and people that have tried this. So how many devices have you currently tested on people so far?
Jared Mayers:
So we are still at the pre-commercial, pre-clinical stage with the product. We're investing a lot in research and development right now. We've also been capital efficient with it. But really what we're looking to do is wrap up some product refinements over the coming months so we can go through our regulatory process. Now we have shown it to patients as well as doctors and let them at least see how it works with their hands. That's been incredibly, incredibly impactful, but ... commercial and it'll be really exciting when we do have the chance to let someone use the device. And we've actually had people reaching out online asking if they can just give us money out of pocket to be able to use it. Unfortunately, I have to say no right now, but I can't wait until we can actually get this in people's hands.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And I think it's a very cool device, and I think it's a very critical problem that you are actually solving here. What I actually like a lot about this is the idea to non-invasively promote positive outcomes. There's a quality of life for patients, right? Bladder and kidney health and also access to care because you are really solving key pertinent issue. So have you looked at in terms of going to the market, are you thinking about a go to market strategy yet? I used to discuss this with regulatory bodies. Where, where are you guys coming as a company?
Jared Mayers:
So we've had initial interactions with regulatory experts in this space to get an idea of what that pathway will look like. And what we're really navigating is that core value proposition right now. How do we anticipate selling this and what do we anticipate selling it on because that will determine some of the regulatory questions. To date, we've identified a actually pretty low regulatory risk path to market, which wouldn't require a approval or formal filing with the FDA. And that really assumes that we have relatively low claims there. What we're assessing now is, well, do we elevate these claims because the catheter market is incredibly commoditized at this point, but the diagnostic market is where we see a lot of potential. And now with COVID, we didn't have these words before, but now we've seen the words telehealth, remote patient monitoring and even other forms of diagnostics. So we are navigating exactly what claims you want to make on the device and that will influence the regulatory pathway. That being said, in terms of the sales process and commercialization strategy, we're looking to go to urologists. I think there's a lot of talk around trying to replace doctors. We don't see that from our product standpoint. What our goal is, is to really support clinicians, help them spend more time seeing patients and less time having to sift through tons of data and collect that data.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is a great example of humans and machines partnering for better outcomes, right?
Jared Mayers:
Absolutely.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Perfect. And so with that being said, I have to point out this is quite innovative coming from you yourself, Jared, and the co-founders, Stephen Galinsky.
Jared Mayers:
Yes.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Tell us about innovation in the South. Tell us because a lot of people, when they think about innovation, automatically think, in their heads, you have to be in San Francisco or Boston, But there is a very beautiful ecosystem like in Nashville, for example, in Georgia, Georgia Tech, which is a world renowned institution for technology, to tell us about that whole infrastructure and how you got to this point. Because when I got out of school, I had no idea about starting a company, I took it years later in my career. So tell us what that infrastructure looks like, how the ecosystem in the South looks like.
Jared Mayers:
Yeah, totally. And so I'm originally from Long Island, New York, actually, so very much in that northeast region. But as I was.
Emmanuel Fombu:
... Going south.
Jared Mayers:
Yeah, exactly. I'm making a little bit of a J and now on my way back toward the coast because I went to school in Atlanta, absolutely loved my time at Georgia Tech and zooming in there a little bit, our biomedical engineering program is absolutely incredible. I think we're ranked second or third in the nation depending on the year for that undergrad program. And it really starts there. This is a program that's incredibly entrepreneurially-minded where two of our capstone design professors have either run their own companies or are currently running their own companies. So we've benefited so much from their mentorship as well as the Create X program at Georgia Tech. And that's what helped us initially get our bearings around that problem. And one of my best mentors back in the day ran a company started at at Georgia Tech. And that's where I learned a lot of what I know now about the startup space. From there, we went on to Memphis, joining 0 to 5 tens accelerator program that helped us really make that transition from, I'd say, students, undergraduates toward being true founders in a real company. And then now we're in Nashville and think, like you said, there's so much infrastructure here. Georgia Tech engineering, Emory, Vanderbilt, these are incredible institutions, we have HCA here in Nashville, we have Grady and other hospital systems in Atlanta. And what I've seen is beyond that, and then Memphis being a leading capital for ortho devices. What we really have here is all of the pieces. And we also have the populations and the groups of people who could use the most help, in some cases, especially in rural and urban communities. So I'm very excited. We need more medical device companies here in the Southeast, but we have everything that they might need and now capital might be one thing we're still working on, but there's so much opportunity here.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is quite fascinating. We met down at the Center of Global Health Innovation Summit down in Atlanta, and I did my medical training in Atlanta, I never actually realized how much innovation was done in the region. I'm meeting from this learning more about things happening in Nashville, Tennessee, for example, which I'm sure are would love to hear these kind of stories to show that innovation can come from anywhere. We have great institutions around the country producing great leaders like yourself, and you can start companies and build. So what advice would you give to a listener like a young person going to school and has an idea to solve a problem? What are some of the challenges you faced and how did you go about writing those?
Jared Mayers:
Honestly, a lot of what I benefited from was avoiding specialization early on, I would say. I studied biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, but that early on mentor that I talk about, I was working for his company doing sales development and customer success work. Totally different from engineering, right? But what ended up happening was I was working out of a WeWork in Atlanta, one day they get an offer from an accelerator and all of a sudden it's me and the two founders of the company moving to the Bay Area, working the long hours, and I learned so much from that. But then it was really being able to take the engineering mindset, being able to take that startup and sales side mindset and start putting it together. And that's where we're really able to find where we excel the most and how we're able to gain a lot of that experience that we need that you might not expect when you're at that early stage in college or at another stage in your career.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is quite fascinating about the whole ecosystem around engineers, for example, that people kind of miss, right, about engineering. And as a physician, I'll tell you that we are not trying to build any kind of business kind of piece, right, you finish school and then you turn out there. But there's something unique about going to engineering school and I spent time at MIT, for example, and then Georgia Tech, great institutions. And it's great to hear about how these companies actually grow out. And I think that there is ways of people matching. So you and your co-founder just have the same background as engineers or?
Jared Mayers:
We each have the same undergraduate degree, but I'd say between the two of us, we've definitely that's again, right, it's a single point in time and it's so beneficial because that gives us a language and that gives us our time spent at Georgia Tech, we met our first day there. So at this point, we've known each other for five years, and this company we started about three and a half ago. So we met through the program and got to interact a lot through it. But really, I mean, Stephen has been programming since he was very young, picked up PHP, has worked crazy amounts of jobs in times that you can't even think about, I think, in terms of he can do a 40 hour workweek in an hour or something, crazy guy. And so then it's been so interesting because it goes beyond just that undergraduate degree, right? There are all of these different mindsets and all of these different thought patterns. And for Stephen and I, we found that they complement each other really, really well in a way that lets us move faster. But then we can also communicate at the same level and everything. And it's less about, say, one of us is doing engineering and the other one is doing business that you might typically think of in a Silicon Valley or more generic mindset around startups. It's really okay, who's the fastest at this specific task? Cool. Let them take that over. Cool, let's move as quickly as we can without needing to rely on, oh, this person is the engineer, this person the business.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That is quite incredible. We would love to definitely keep in touch with you and then follow you throughout this journey. And I'm sure anyone listening to this podcast right now should clearly ... by your story, of what you've accomplished at your age and the experience that you've had. And I think it's quite incredible. I love the company, I love the device, I love the mission that you're trying to actually solve here. And so I definitely have to keep in touch. But in the meantime, if you want to get in contact with Jared, we'll have Jared's contact information below the show notes, on the website, so you can see that there. But once again, thanks for joining us, Jared, and we hope to have you again on the show.
Jared Mayers:
Absolutely. Thanks so much, Manny, I appreciate it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Sure. Thank you very much.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Thank you for listening to Bite the Orange. If you want to change healthcare with us, please contact us at info@EmmanuelFombu.com or you can visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com or BiteTheOrange.com. If you liked this episode and want more information about us. You can also visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com.
Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.
Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.
Sonix has many features that you'd love including secure transcription and file storage, automated translation, share transcripts, transcribe multiple languages, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
About Jared Meyers:
Jared Meyers is the co-founder of Augment Health. At Augment, they believe medical devices should augment human abilities, not just replace them.
Jared’s background spans sales, engineering, software, and machine learning. He really enjoys innovating at the intersection of user experience, business, and technology. He’s an alum of Georgia Tech's biomedical engineering program and ZeroTo510's medical device accelerator. Jared has also worked on some pretty cool projects during his time at CareerBlitz, Motus Nova, and Oncology Analytics.
He grew up playing soccer and picked up ballroom dancing a few years ago. He’s constantly tweaking systems and loves writing with fountain pens.
Things You’ll Learn:
Patients with a neurodegenerative condition usually lose the brain-bladder connection and require a urine collection bag.
The ideal technology or device must support clinicians, helping them spend more time with patients and less time dealing with data.
Innovation is usually brewed on the Coasts of the United States, but the South is becoming a promising land for this.