Today we’re talking with Alex Leyn, co-founder, President & CEO of digital health startup Aterica. They make smartphone-connected EpiPen cases that remind patients to carry their EpiPen and alert family members when the EpiPen is not used.
Before Aterica, Leyn was Principal at Coreal Technologies, and even before that – co-founder, COO and VP of Hardware Engineering at Avvasi. He holds B.A.Sc. of Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo.
Here’s what Leyn had to say…
What sets you apart from competitors?
Aterica’s technical team consists of professionals from many disciplines, including biochemistry, mechanical and electrical engineering, industrial design, medicine, and cloud and mobile software, so this allows us to look at a problem from any angle. Veta anaphylaxis and food allergy support system is unique because of its multi-tiered system approach. Individuals and families living with anaphylaxis know that every second counts and an app alone is not going to save them – EpiPens saves them. Our Veta support system includes a smart case and an app because keeping a life-saving epinephrine auto-injector close by and in good working order is the only way to provide safety and reassurance to families living with anaphylaxis.
What’s Aterica’s back story? Why an EpiPen?
Back in 2012, a small team of multi-disciplinary experts formed to take part in the Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, a competition designed to stimulate innovation and integration of personal diagnostic and health monitoring technologies. While preparing for the competition, we gained critical insights and observed multiple unfilled needs that had the potential to positively impact the lives of millions immediately. As a result, we put the competition aside and focused our efforts on delivering innovative and supportive tools to improve the lives of families living with anaphylaxis.
We started in the anaphylaxis and food allergy domain because it is a very serious health issue that affects millions directly and many more indirectly. We’ve also seen a significant increase in serious allergies in the both developed and developing countries.
Our initial focus is on the EpiPen-brand auto-injector because of its leading market share and the likelihood that we could impact more families. Design and manufacturing required for Veta takes significant time and resources, so we prioritized Veta smart case for EpiPen so that we could offer maximum flexibility to our customers as quickly as possible. The demand for other auto-injector smart cases has been great, so we have other brands on our development roadmap.
Can you share some numbers? How many users do you have?
Currently, we are in a pre-order stage. We plan to start shipping in fall 2015 to our North American customers.
Since launching Veta at CES 2015 in early January, we have received interest and pre-orders from 72 different countries around the world. As we get closer to our ship date, we may be able to share some numbers.
We can share that the response to our product launch was overwhelming. Not only have the pre-orders flooded in, but we have received so many sincere heart-felt thanks from parents everywhere for inventing Veta and sharing some very personal stories about how Veta will make a difference in their lives. Once Veta is in the hands of the families who need it, they can use our network to support one another.
What’s the next step for the product?
Our primary focus right now is on the manufacturing efforts for Veta for EpiPen. We are also making plans for future versions of Veta, such as Veta for Auvi-Q, twin auto-injector cases, etc. Our list is long and we really want to help families living with anaphylaxis as soon as we possibly can.
Where do you see the company going from here?
Veta has been our immediate focus, but we have other products actively in development, specifically targeted in the anaphylaxis and food allergy domain.
Beyond that, our vision is to safely push digital health innovation in a direction that directly improves the quality of people’s lives. We want individuals and families to be able to actively manage their health on their own terms. We feel very strongly about that and it is a core philosophy at Aterica.
Where do you see the mobile health industry going?
We see mobile health technologies becoming more and more personalized for individuals, continuing to grow in popularity as more companies solve previously inaccessible problems through intuitive and near-invisible designs. More and more solutions will include miniature sensors, greater mobile and cloud computing power, creative collection and use of biomarkers, rapid prototyping, design with 3D printing, and smaller and more accessible power-solutions. An example of a great catalyst has been the Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE contest that was formative for Aterica and many other companies. This creates an opportunity to create insight and solutions in ways not previously imagined. We expect an explosion of creativity in personalized digital health solutions over the next decade
How long are we from seeing modern mobile health technologies going mainstream?
As one metric of early adopters of modern health technology, we have followed customers who purchase health trackers. The imminent introduction of Apple Watch later this year is another significant indication that mobile health is going mainstream. Over the next 24 to 36 months, we believe that creative companies will unveil personal health solutions beyond using the wrist as the primary data input; these include clothing, bedding, and other miniature devices. Google’s X Life Sciences team is actively researching the use of biomarkers to identify cancers in pills that you swallow, and there are hundreds of research and product teams working on these advanced biomarker-based detection methods that will emerge over the next five years.