Andrew Cameron, FeelTect - Spotlight Interview | LSI USA ‘23

Transcription

Nick Talamantes  0:14  

Andrew, thank you so much for joining me in the LSI studio.

Andrew Cameron  0:17  

Thanks very much, Nick.

Nick Talamantes  0:18  

Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you're doing FeelTect.

Andrew Cameron  0:20  

So FeelTect is developing connected health technology for wound care. So we're developing a wearable device to measure the pressure during compression therapy. We're looking at trying to then have that remotely transferred. And that's going to allow us to sort of monitor the treatment that venous leg ulcer patient patients are getting.

Nick Talamantes  0:40  

So how are patients with venous leg ulcerations being monitored today? Is it all visually? 

Andrew Cameron  0:47  

Yeah, that's it. It's intuition, I think. So there's a lack of evidence that's being applied

Nick Talamantes  0:53  

In what is your technology, providing that's not currently being given to the providers that are managing these patients?

Andrew Cameron  1:01  

Venous leg ulcers, the first point of treatment for them is always compression therapy, it helps to overcome the underlying venous insufficiency, it restores the blood flow, and then that ultimately heals the wound. The problem is that if you apply compression too tight, it's dangerous and too loose, it's ineffective. So what we're trying to do is allow for the correct amount of pressure to be applied during the application.

Nick Talamantes  1:26  

Why don't you tell me a little bit about what the technology actually is? And how does it work when used in combination with compression therapy.

Andrew Cameron  1:33  

So it's a wearable device, it has a sensing arm, it has three pressure sensing regions, and that goes beneath the bandage. Then on the outside, we have an electronics clip. So the electronics clip is transmitting signals wirelessly to a mobile app, and then that transmits to a cloud. And you can remotely monitor on a web based dashboard.

Nick Talamantes  1:53  

What's the dashboard look like for a provider? What sort of additional information are you providing them?

Andrew Cameron  1:59  

So at the moment, it's telling you what the pressure is. And I think that the thing is, we are not informing people like this is what pressure you should apply it, that's up to the healthcare professional, in conjunction with the negotiation with the patient, for example. So what we're allowing for is tailored treatment to each individual patient. And then over time, we'll generate enough data in the platform that we can then start to sort of say, well, this is what pressure works, this is what doesn't work. And then then we can actually implement more alerts to help, you know, guide that compression. 

Nick Talamantes  2:33  

How long does compression therapy typically take to be managed properly? 

Andrew Cameron  2:37  

Well, at the moment, the average healing time is 17 weeks. But with effective treatment, it's been shown that the average healing time can drop down to 12 weeks. So at the moment, like, you know, what we're looking to do is have a 30% reduction in healing time. The other big issue is that these patients are being treated twice a week, you know, with obligatory visits, if we had something that was able to tell, you know, which patients need to be treated, and when that's going to be a big impact on reducing those patient visits,

Nick Talamantes  3:04  

So your technology is really optimizing the current standard of care for these patients.

Andrew Cameron  3:10  

That's it. And it's also changing the scope of who can actually apply that compression. I think that at the moment, you know, a lot of times the nurses may not have been trained in compression therapy to begin with. But this is something that helps to upskill those those nurses but also empowers the patients to actually take that on board themselves. And the benefit there is that like, you know, if you do have a swelling reduction, and you do have a loss of pressure, therefore a loss of efficacy, having the patients that care is take that compression on board themselves and reapply it, you have a much faster healing time.

Nick Talamantes  3:43  

You're really empowering both stakeholders in this scenario here with your technology, which is great. I am just curious, what happens when venous leg ulcerations are not managed properly?

Andrew Cameron  3:57  

Like improper application of treatment for these patients results in a 20 fold increase in hospitalization. You know, it's for much more serious conditions like sepsis, for example. So not only is it sort of a risk to delayed healing, but it's a risk to being exacerbated, and then turning into something much more serious that cost a lot more money and a lot more threat to the patient.

Nick Talamantes  4:19  

What stage are you guys at as a company? Are you already commercial? Could you give me a sense for when this technology or where this technology is available?

Andrew Cameron  4:29  

Yeah, so we we raised our seed round in 2021. And that allowed us to go through design for manufacturing verification validation testing. We have registered with the FDA as a Class I 510 K exempt product. We've submitted our CE mark. And what we're looking at now is conducting our first patient study in the Veterans Health Administration in Florida. So that's a 30 patients study that's about to start recruitment this month. Yeah, we're not commercial yet but we're very close to so. We're expecting by quarter 3 2023 we'll actually be, you know, starting with our beachhead customers to commercialize the technology.

Nick Talamantes  5:07  

How many patients are currently dealing with this problem? Give us a sense of this magnitude.

Andrew Cameron  5:12  

So globally, about 11 and a half million in the USA, it's about a million. So Europe 2.9 mil? Yeah, it's, it's a big problem. And I think that like, you know, it's one of these things that will only get worse with an aging population with like, you know, obesity, for example, is another comorbidity. Yeah, it's, it's, it's growing. And like, for example, the last five years, the number of venous leg ulcers in the UK actually doubled. The problem is that the healing rate for those patients actually decreased by 20%. And I think a lot of that has to do with like, there's more patients, but less nurses to actually, you know, treat them.

Nick Talamantes  5:53  

you're not able to properly manage them. And as a result, people are going to the wayside and not getting the treatment that they need. With improper compression therapy, is there a chance that the ulceration recurs?

Andrew Cameron  6:07  

Yeah, it's like a, I mean, the recurrence rate is massive 70% of patients will come back in within three months. And I think that like, you know, compression is very effective for managing the open wound. But there is a need then for wearing maintenance stockings, for example, to continue helping that underlying problem of venous insufficiency, even after the wound is closed. And sometimes these patients will then go on to get interventional treatments. So for example, venous ablation procedures, but compression is always the first line treatment for these particular patients.

Nick Talamantes  6:43  

Is there then a potential application of your technology in these compression socks or other devices that there are other products that patients are using to manage their? 

Andrew Cameron  6:53  

Well the big problem with reoccurrence is that it's a non compliance issue. And it's not that we want to sort of be big brother to these patients, but it is worth like, you know, understanding if a patient is complying with their maintenance therapy, and if not like, then actually talk to them understand why. So this is something that could be used to, you know, identify those issues with compliance, and then negotiate a concordance with that patient.

Nick Talamantes  7:18  

What brings you to LSI this year?

Andrew Cameron  7:20  

So yeah, we're looking for investment at the moment, we have a 2.5 million pre Series A round open, we have about a million and a half committed, but what we're really looking for is, you know, a US investor to come on board, you know, and help us guide into the US market. You know, it's a big opportunity for us, and we see it like, you know, as our first focus. But having that value added investment will only help us to sort of be successful.

Nick Talamantes  7:49  

Are there other companies doing similar remote monitoring of compression therapy? Are you guys a pioneer? Would you say in this in this market?  there's

Andrew Cameron  7:57  

Yeah, there's other technologies that I guess measure compression, you know, they're kind of mostly used in clinical trials, or sometimes training scenarios. But there is no technology that's currently monitoring, compression therapy effectively, and none that's being used routinely in clinical practice. I think, you know, our biggest competitor is to do nothing. And what we're trying to do is sort of overcome that by showing people, this actually can have a big impact on improving the standard of care. And there is evidence behind what we're doing, we're not changing a mechanism of action here. We're just helping the implementation of something that's already known.

Nick Talamantes  8:34  

Yeah, that clinical evidence is critical these days, I believe in making sure that the right stakeholders react positively to your product when it's introduced to them.

Andrew Cameron  8:46  

You know, it's very important for us, I mean, like, as a class one technology, the regulatory barriers for us a quite low, but it doesn't negate the need to do you know, rigorous clinical validation for the adoption of the technology, you know, reimbursement, all those kinds of things that are still very important for us to show that this can have a significant impact, not just to the patient themselves, but to healthcare systems, and the reduction in cost of these these wounds, because that is the big problem with them that, you know, they might not be the thing that like kills a patient, but often they're the thing that a patient will die with. And, you know, at the moment, the amount of money that's being spent on them is phenomenal. In the UK, the cost of treating venous leg ulcers alone equates to much as 40% of all cancers combined. So you know that there's a huge burden on the healthcare system to

Nick Talamantes  9:40  

Andrew, I want to thank you for stopping by the studio today. It's been a pleasure to learn about what you're doing.

Andrew Cameron  9:46  

Thanks a lot Nick. Really appreciate it.