The Company Helping Paralyzed People Move And Thrive Again - EP 64 Dave Marver

Our expertise is understanding how to stimulate the spinal cord to restore movement and other functions, and the addition of a BCI may make that more effective.

Welcome to the Core Memory Podcast. This is Ashley Vance. Thank you for joining us for another episode. We have a friend on the podcast this week. Dave Marver, CEO of Onward, is here in town in San Francisco. How are you? Doing well, Ashley. Thank you. Usually we see each other in oh I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna lean into it and then you correct me but in Losan. Lozan. You did better. Most people say Lucerne, so they confuse the city completely. Oh I always try to French it up. I'm going to go.

So we we usually meet in Switzerland. I I think I met you might have been four years ago. I think it was your uh you know, your Hello World series where you were highlighting innovation that happens. Nó, nó, nó, nó We do we do. Yes. When I was at Bloomberg doing Hello World, um and yeah, we were shooting an episode in Switzerland and I'd seen

what you guys are doing, which I I should explain to people really quick. Um uh you gu well, we're gonna get deep into I'll I'll go quick on this part and then we'll get into it. But you guys make a a spinal implant and it it does There's an external device, there's an internal device. They do different things from helping um paralyzed people move again to to regulating blood pressure and things like that.

and and now it's connecting into a a brain computer interface as well. And and this is kinda how we met. I'd I'd seen videos of of people It's miraculous stuff. People walking again. You know, it it definitely catches your attention. And so we came out and We filmed with two people, Michelle, who's a Italian gentleman. Right. And then Julie, who's who's from Belgium. Exactly. Very good French pronunciation. She's memorable.

Shoot is a memorable thing. So that was the first time we shot and then and then we've been back a couple of times and and we're kind of chasing some other other stuff now. Um and and watching how you guys The journey, the technology develops and everything.

Well, we appreciate you highlighting some of the innovation that occurs outside the Silicon Valley here, which is great. And um You know, we're very much a med tech company. Yeah. Um, our our leadership is steeped in med tech experience and our our cap table is is comprised of med tech investors. So this is great for me because I think we can accelerate and um

and pursue our our mission faster and more effectively if maybe if we incorporate some tech. So I appreciate getting some exposure here on the core memory podcast today. You come to the right place for for brain computer interfaces and all all biotech. I assume you're in town this week for JPM, which for people who don't know is this massive uh 'Cause it's like beyond biotech, but kind of biotech everything and and Yeah, it's the I feel like my headphones are slipping out the back of the

Did you ever feel that way? There we go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Gotta get the the the tech right here. Yeah, in for this JP Morgan conference, which for the last couple of decades has been the number one life science um business slash investor conference. So it's a great a great place to meet with your investment bankers and equity research analysts and and current and prospective investors and partners and uh

Um, it's sort of the best and worst of San Francisco'cause it's a beautiful city and everyone everyone is here for this conference and you can meet scores of people in just a few days. But then, you know, you try to save some money on the hotel and you're in the tenderloin and it gets super interesting, super funny. Yes. I used I used to live with the tenth. I'm I'm familiar. Um yeah, the conference looks exhausting. I

Yeah, yeah. This is I think everyone went home but me. So I'm I'm here chatting with you and it's uh what nine hour time difference with Switzerland. So I have my espresso and as we approach uh midnight body clock time, let's talk neurotech. Okay.

Okay, okay. Well we'll pump you full of caffeine and then I'll try to keep it try to keep it interesting. But um yeah, well let's let's there's all kinds of places we could go. I think w we should maybe describe Some of the tech in a little more detail because I've always found this story funny in some ways. You know, you see the videos of we've talked about this before, it's like

Just so people know, I mean, there's a woman we've been hanging out with lately, Suzanne Ed Edwards, right? I think she's she's British and Um I think she was paralyzed in her early twenties. Uh it wasn't actually a s she was surfing, but it wasn't a surfing accident. She m had this really unfortunate incident where a building collapsed and and she fell a couple of stories and then so she was paralyzed for about

even longer than fourteen or fifteen years or somewhere around there, I think. And then came to you guys, so and she gets a a spinal implant. It has electrodes on this implant. They place them on the spine. Um and then and then you guys are stimulating the spine and and we've been with her as

This is the part that I find so miraculous. It's a long period of time to not not have the use of your legs and then and then, you know, we see her walking again. We hung out with her actually she she works for Airbnb and she made a trip to San Francisco and and she was'cause we walked in Switzerland as part of her therapy and then and then out here um just by the water and everything. It's a really moving story. But

I see videos of this. We've made videos of this. I still don't feel like the public i if I just went to someone random on the street that they would know paralyzed people have even this option. I I just feel like this is not common knowledge.

Oh I fully agree. Yeah, it it is common knowledge that you can put a BCI in and you can play a video game. But I in in many respects it's perhaps more useful and impactful to help people recover use of their paralyzed limbs. Yeah. And that's that's really our mission. Um You described what is the most advanced thing in our pipeline, which is when we're combining our implanted spinal cord stimulation platform, something we call Arc IM, with an implanted brain computer interface.

I forgot to mention that Suzanne does have the the BCI as well. Yes, exactly. So she she has this um um platform, implanted platform that enables thought driven movement restoration. You know, she has the movement intention and that's um sent wirelessly to our spinochord stimulator to enable thought driven movement.

I wanna take a step, I wanna move my right foot forward. Obviously those that um intention is is she was walking before. It's it's it's kind of built in to to her her body and a little bit of muscle memory and so it and then So she's having this thought, it's being passed to the spinal device and then helping um trigger the this action. Yeah, exactly right. Um the the

I I don't wanna talk too much about that though, because I think one of my concerns is that the the whole area of BCI is a bit overhyped. Yeah. And and our population, um you've met some of them, you know, and and I wanna make sure that they have hope but realistic hope. Yeah. And one of the things I want to avoid is is these headlines, you know, paralyzed man walks again and And and this could be five or six years away and and the walking itself is not perfect.

Um we're very pleased to have this platform. We we do think it is in many respects revolutionary, but I also want to spend some time today on some of the other things that we have out that are doing really miraculous things for these people. Yeah. And that are commercially available already or will be within a couple of years. So here, I couldn't help myself as CEO. I'm trying to manage the podcast.

Well we'll go wherever you want to go, of course, but I think we can have time to cover everything and and no I th I think the We mentioned Julie. I mean well let's do her story in a second because I think it I think it really helps.

Yeah, and I shouldn't have done that. Forgive me. No, you're fine. But but you know, our our BCI is um it's a little bit different than the other BCI companies that that are talked about on this um podcast. There's a lot of discussion about Neuralink and Synchron and and even some of the I guess what are described as the second generation modalities. Like merge labs, the news that you broke today. Broke it today.

Ultra focus ultrasound. Yeah, you want to break some news? Come on, core memory, baby. Um, um, so our BCI is I'd say comparatively boring, frankly, but it's really clinically viable. Yeah. So it's um I can actually hold it up here for people that want to see it. So that's Exactly. So um this is epidural, so it's outside the dura, the lining of the brain.

And then there are 64 electrodes here that that contact the the motor cortex, the place where movement and tension originates, but through the dura. So we're not having to open up the brain and and risk infection and some of those other complications. And then so th this uh Um serves the function of the skull, that's like a titanium portion of your skull, then the scalp and the hair grow over it. So a an actual hole i is taken out of the skull and and and that fits slots right into it.

Which sounds crazy, but for a neurosurgeon that's a relatively straightforward procedure and neurosurgeons are delighted to not have to go subdural or into the brain itself. And for us, this is um like a really safe and responsible way to advance this BCI platform, this th thought driven movement platform. Um, this has been implanted in humans for eight years. And it's a French it's a sort of a French company or un uh research company?

Yeah, this is not homegrown. We exclusively uh licensed the technology to manufacture and develop and commercialize it. And it's from like the French equivalent of the Los Alamos National Labs. Okay. So it's like their nuclear agency. And then they have uh like a medical um group within. And um and we've been experimenting with this. So we think it's for us, at least our purposes, the best BCI out there today.

Just because of the safety profile. And um, and so this is what we're using to to implant humans today in the context of what's called a clinical feasibility study. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I mean I think you make a really good point, which is um In the US in Silicon Valley we've had this. BCI boom over the last it's almost like ten years to the date really since since kind of kernel was starting and Neuralink were starting. And so you had Bryant Johnson and you had Elon.

Come into this field with a bunch of money, uh a field that had been very academic and and researchy, and now we have I don't know. In the in the US, yeah. And and sometimes, you know, it I think you're right. It does get overhyped. What I've always appreciated about you guys is that um You you know, the the you were taking the most direct path to to helping people and getting this in things that that regulators weren't gonna have to

look at as this brand new device and go through all this drama and and and you know, it was it's it was a really practical, smart way to do it. I I don't wanna

put a target on you guys back. I think I've written about this before. I don't know if we've we've talked about it. But, you know, I've been at Neurlink a couple of years ago and yeah, I mean, this was one of the they were like, Well, how come onwards already in people? You know what I mean? It was driving Elon crazy. And and so Um you know, there's different paths you can choose.

Well, I I think they're they're doing good work in that they're developing really advanced platforms. But sometimes those platforms are in search of an indication or what I would call a recovery target. Whereas we clearly just as quickly as possible want to get therapies and solutions out there into the clinic and into homes where they can really help people at scale. Yeah. And so for us this is like a very viable gen one.

But it is important to note that our ARCIM device, which I'm I'm holding up here, this is our uh implanted neurostimulator, it's agnostic. So we're pairing it today with this BCI. Um, but that doesn't mean we can't partner with These other BCI companies like Precision Neuro or Synchron or Neurolink or others, we just need the data, the movement intention itself. And we can take those instructions and translate them into programming parameters for our neurostimulator, our spinal cord stimulator.

I did want to ask you about that at some point in this chat. So anyway, I'll just do it now since we were talking about I mean if you did go with precision or neuralink, let's use them instead of synchron for a minute, just because they have more horsepower. They're at the Higher channel game. They're at the very edge of the number of electrodes, how much information can be processed. So something like that, I mean, that's why that would be potentially beneficial for you. Does that help um with

It could. I mean the the channel count means there's more resolution, more data. For us, if we're trying to restore movement of the of the legs to restore mobility, we don't need that much data because you're, you know, you've got large muscle groups that you're just trying to stimulate in sequence. Whereas the the hands, the arms, the fingers, you need a lot more data, a lot more information. So more is generally better, but also you have to balance that against the degree of invasiveness.

So neuralink is fairly invasive, penetrating the brain itself. Precision neuro doesn't penetrate the brain, but it is subdural. Yeah. Um and then Synchron again is is intravascular, but then fewer channels and maybe you can't get it exactly up where you want to. But they're all working on next gen. devices and and we want to maintain relationships with all of them because if they can help us fulfill our mission, that's that's a good thing. Yeah. Okay. So th there's gonna be more of the

The spinal work that I wanna unpack just because there's there's a couple of people that we've also hung out with in Switzerland who are near and dear to my heart. Yeah, and I wanna tell a little bit about their stories. But I do wanna go back to the story of Julie really quick. So When I went on this trip, um, so there was this gentleman, Michelle, he's he's Italian. He had

the the spinal implant. He didn't have the brain um computer interface and so he would trigger actions when he wanted to walk and exercise through through an iPad, through an external Yeah, with the cliff. A clicker. And and so if if you don't have the BCI, you need this this external It essentially tells the stimulator, I'm ready for the next step. Right. So apply the stimulation, the instructions to my leg so I can take the next step.

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And then Julie w had had something quite different. I'm I at the time, I wanna say she was about twenty-three, um, at least was college age, she'd been in a PhD program and then she'd suffered this horrific accident that I don't know if I wanna get into all the details on. But it was a it was a car crash um while she was on. holiday and and so, you know, she's out on holiday with her boyfriend.

has this terrible accident, um, it gets gets paralyzed from the neck down at at uh she must have been about twenty three. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Um and then, you know, she was telling me these stories of of it because she would have these huge swings.

in blood pressure change that y Shu told me it would take her hours and hours and hours just to get out of bed each day because she would she would basically pass out, as I understood it, um during this whole process. And, you know, it I'm gonna try not to get get uh teary eyed um you know uh I she was extremely depressed by all this. I I think was I think it I well she's told me I I feel like I can share this'cause she's been open with me, you know, it's kinda borderline

suicidal or at least thinking about things like that. And and when we came to visit her, I think it was the first time she'd been back to the lab in a while. And so you guys have This device that was the same device was it was helping regulate her blood pressure and it had changed her life to the point that that uh she was back in her PhD program. I could tell the minute She walked in the door and the therapist who hadn't seen her for a while they

They w they were in tears immediately because the countenance on her face was so different from the last time they had seen her. And so I don't know, you know, this is a hard thing to explain to people because I think if you haven't been through something like this to hear about, oh, you have blood pressure issues or s you know, you b uh I would have no idea of the severity of what that's like to your day to day life, but then i

We went there to see people walk again, but I have to say I came out and Julie's story was maybe I I think the one that kinda stuck with me the most.

Well, the general public and and those who who I unfortunately don't know anyone with a spinal cord injury, they're they assume that people with spinal cord injury are just dealing with paralysis. Yeah. And loss of sensation at that and that they just wanna walk again. Yeah. But if you if you ask the community, you know, those with injuries, they prioritize other things that will help them get through the day.

Um, they want normal blood pressure. They wanna be able to go to the bathroom without having to insert a catheter every time. They wanna be able to move their bowels without waiting two hours after inserting a suppository. Yeah, you know. These things really matter and really affect their their their quality of life. And as you mentioned, just their their emotional state, their buoyancy.

And so one of the nice things about our platform is that it it has the potential to address all of those things. We just place the lead in different areas of the spinal cord that are responsible for managing or governing those different functions. This is really the genius of our of our founders, um, whom we can get to i in a moment. Um and blood pressure is very much an underappreciated

um outcome of spinal cord injury and and sometimes Parkinson's disease as well. And this is not hypertension, you know, that that a lot of folks get. This is Chronic low blood pressure, which is often tied to changes in posture. So like trying to transition from bed to the wheelchair in the morning can take an hour or two. Um, or just sitting upright or standing.

Uh the phenomenon that I like to explain is is okay, if you have normal physiology, sometimes you just get up too quickly and you you you black out for like a millisecond, but your body immediately corrects. Yeah. Their body can't correct because the signal from the brain doesn't reach the destination. So they're stuck in this. zone that they just have to kind of wait out where they're constantly fainting and lightheaded.

Moreover, because they have low blood pressure, they just don't have good blood transport and oxygenation to their brain. So they they report just feeling sluggish and they they don't think clearly, they don't see clearly. And so just elevating that blood pressure into a normal range has a a profound impact on their lives, which you saw with Julie. And indeed, um, you know, one of your guests you had a great podcast with uh Sumner Norman saying how many of the people with SCI are depressed.

Well, I mean, I was when I was listening to that I was thinking, well, a lot of that could also be low blood pressure, you know,'cause they just don't feel energetic. Yeah. And they describe when they're stimulated sort of sort of coming back to light. And indeed, you're right. Um euthanasia is an option in Belgium where Julie lives, and she was going to pursue that option if this.

If the study, if this intervention was not successful, this is bright, engaging young woman, like such a bright light. Uh PhD in arch in archaeology. And and and so this is what motivates us. I mean, we've got to succeed here. Yeah. was one of the most moving things I I've I've ever I've ever covered. I I had no idea. I remember there was a moment that was pretty funny. I the

I don't think well you weren't there that that day'cause we were kinda with the therapist and um and then Julie and Michelle went out in the hallway. That was the first time they had ever met before and I was We were filming and sometimes I get out of the way of the camera so I just kinda hide like a fly on the wall. So I was I was in the hallway, you know, just listening but I wasn't y you know, uh I wasn't being creepy or anything.

I think you'd have a hard time crossing over into creepy Ashley. That's not really in the portfolio. Appreciate that. I was just I was just off to the side and I could hear them talking and Um, it was really it was fascinating'cause they were they were comparing notes on what it felt like in their body when the implant turns on and it was just it was just really it was really fascinating. What's it like for you? And then you know, Michelle

I well I don't want to misspeak'cause it was a long time ago, but you know, he was talking about sort of like a warmth or a energy, you know, that he he gets like, Oh yeah, I get that too. And and uh it was just it was really interesting to watch them. It's interesting, we thought when we were first uh developing this this blood pressure therapy

that you know you can turn on the therapy with a smartwatch. But okay, they're just going to turn on stimulation when they feel faint or lightheaded. But all of them are using it the entire day because they're feeling more energetic and more, more normal. It's bringing them back to life. Yeah. So so we're really keen on just extending the battery life so they can, you know, they don't have to pause midday and rest and recharge the battery, you know.

These are things that we're working on as we as we continue to refine the technology. And and this therapy, by the way, is is close. So we have an IDE, so permission from the US FDA. to start a large scale trial. We're activating sites in the US as we speak, as we record this. And we hope that this is gonna be on the market helping people in twenty twenty eight. So not far away.

Okay, that's what I wanted to ask you. Like for you'cause you guys do all these different things. Um and there's there's we've been talking mostly about about implanted devices, but there's external device as well. So

Between Europe and the United States and all these different things that you guys do, where are we at in terms of What is your technology used most often for now and and what is at which stages of of approval? Yeah, and I I consider our job here in this whole ecosystem to be a translation engine, you know, bring interesting and compelling research to clinics and homes where it can actually help people.

If it just winds up in a clinical paper or some cool podcast somewhere, so what? Who cares? You know? And so that's what motivates us. And we got our first technology to market last year in 2025. And that's our external stimulator, which we call ARC EX. EX for external, holding it up here for those of you who are watching on YouTube. Wherever wherever you can catch the core memory podcast. Yeah.

All over the place. Um, and so this device connects to electrodes that are placed on the skin in in the neck area because it's the cervical spinal cord that controls hand function. So the first indication or recovery target for Arc EX is restoring

Hand strength and sensation, because that's the number one priority. If people break their necks, if they have tetraplegia, they want to use their hands so they can feed themselves, clothe themselves, go to the bathroom by themselves. So that's where we started. Okay, so that's that's so is that though would that that's the implant. This is this. This is the lead that's placed on the spinal cord. This connects to the implanted neurostimulator. This is part of the ARC IM system. Right.

So for the the external External I have it in my bag. You'll just use your imagination. Yeah, yeah. But this this device connects to a cable and then that cable connects to electrodes. Just like if you're old enough to have a have had a twelve lead electrogram. Yeah. You know, a couple of those leads or stickers. are placed on the neck.

And then so so somebody's lost the use of their their hands and or their limbs, their upper limbs. Yes. And and then it's it's giving them enough back to to start doing I I mean I we've I've seen people playing guitar. Yeah, exactly right. So most spinal cord injuries aren't what we call complete. So there's some spared connection.

between the brain and and the spinal cord, but not enough for a person to have functional movement. So we're amplifying the spinal cord on and and and and somewhat below the area of injury. So when that device is on, that external device, it allows a person to move in a what in a way they otherwise could not. Okay. Then by training, performing the movement, they recover function. It's like if you

Hope it doesn't happen. You go skiing and you b bust your knee. You've got to rehab it. And to rehab it, you have to move. Yeah. So we're enabling the movement that that enables rehab. And and And that's available in in Europe and

Yeah, so for for most of last year we we got FDA approval. It's called a de novo approval. So it's a non significant risk device for which there is no predicate. So innovative device like that. We got FDA approval and so it's been commercially available in the US all of last year. Uh I don't know when this is gonna air, but uh But we'll just say it's in scores of clinics already. And so it's broadly available. It's going do doing really well and helping people in a in a profound way.

And and then at the end of twenty twenty five we got C E Mark, which is regulatory approval in Europe. We also got what's called a five ten K, which is a an FDA approval. So we can this device can now be used in the home. Okay. And you can imagine if you have tetraplegia, it's hard to get to the clinic. Uh and so it's we we're really uh pleased that this is now available in the home where people can use it privately and conveniently.

Uh so that's that's a really uh a very important milestone for us. Yeah. The other stuff... Spinal work. Yeah, yeah. So the the for the imp so that's RKX. Commercialized, great. And we just want to scale that up, make it broadly available.

Start adding indications beyond just hand function if possible. So that's some of the stuff that we'll be doing. With Arc IM, the implanted neurostimulator, this we've used in clinical feasibility studies. So these are studies in humans. Standing and walking again. In fact, that's the reason the company was founded in twenty fifteen. blood pressure regulation, which we just discussed in the context of Julie.

Um, also there's uh an open clinical study funded by the Christopher Reeve Foundation for urinary incontinence. Okay. Or have your caregiver do it for you. Which is uh I mean it's difficult from a privacy and dignity standpoint, but also leads to a lot of infection and courses of antibiotics. So if you can avoid that with just

Turn on your smartwatch and yeah, boy, that's really uh would be fantastic. And so um that's an open study now that we're we're keen to make some progress on and learn from. Uh we're also using it for blood pressure regulation and mobility for Parkinson's disease patients. And then finally we're combining it with the BCI for upper limb and lower limb function. So all of those things.

As a company, we're we're really focused on the near term things. So commercializing Arc EX and then getting through this pivotal study for blood pressure with Arc IM because that would result in an FDA approval and broad availability. And in the meantime, we we're very fortunate that with the support of grants, we're able to advance these other pipeline indications, learn from them, see which of them have legs.

And then we'll invest in our capital in those and bring those forward in the future. And as I said, we have grant funding from the Mike from the Christopher Reeve Foundation, but also the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. US Department of Defense. Um, we've received DARPA funding in the past, European Innovation Council. And these are really, really important sources of funding. Um,'cause w we are trying to do a lot uh for a a scale up company.

Um but but the community needs us to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you know, you were you were right to just uh to uh caution me a little bit on on some of the setting expectations and things. I still feel badly about that. I didn't. No, you really shouldn't. Step up there.

You should no, you shouldn't at all. I mean so'cause I I think about this a lot and it's um You know, part of the reason w well, I'm interested in this field broadly, but then you know, when I went and saw this stuff in person, I mean there is there is this like miraculous element to it, I have to say, but then, you know not long after that, y a lot of things rush through your head and I I'm sure m more so for the patients than for me, but um

Like you can walk again, but you can't walk like you used to. You can you can take a certain number of steps. These are people that have lost a ton of muscle. You know, it's it's it's it's really hard work for Of course a lot of rehabilitation. And and um and then I what I always think about a bit is like, oh, I mean,'cause on the one hand, yes, it's like miraculous and then

I try to put myself in their shoes a little bit and it would be like it's it's like I would just be thinking of what's next? When you know, how how much further can I go? Yeah. And things like that and and so just kind of um you know, wanting more and more and more, you you kinda get in this situation where obviously I haven't gone through it, so I shouldn't speak for people but

This is what I imagine in my head. And so um I think you're right to just to like set expectations of of I I just think it's fascinating. Yeah, I feel it in a way protective of the community of people with paralysis and their families because we um um We we had sixty minutes come over. Yeah. You know, Anderson Cooper came over on it on his uh for a weekend on his vacation actually because he was fascinated by what we were doing. And and he aired the main segment.

But I implored him, please give some attention to some of these other things that that really are important to people with paralysis. And so they posted a sixty minutes overtime segment. But you'd be surprised at how, in a way, angry people are when they see things on sixty minutes of people walking and so on, because it's just um Uh until it becomes realistic and accessible for them, you know.

They they just don't want their their hopes to get up. Right. Right. So I I I feel like uh we have to develop technology for them and and help solve problems for them, but also protect their their emotions um that way. So that's where that was coming from. Hello, geniuses. Let me tell you about E1 Ventures. They are a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, a longtime supporter of this podcast, and a longtime supporter of big

Fantastic, world-changing ideas. If you have such an idea, hit up E1 Ventures or send me a note and I'll put you in touch with E1 Ventures. It's uh it's quite a quite a deal for listening to this podcast. Um, thank you again, as always, to U1 Ventures for their support.

But the good news is sh things are out, you know. First time in human history there's an FDA approved device that can improve your hand strength and sensation. Yeah. And and if you go on social media, for example, you see videos from clinics all over the United States. I've moved my finger for the first time in thirty years and and and that's what we want to do. And and the blood pressure indication is the first that we're pursuing with the implantable device because

That can impact everybody, you know, without the need for rehab and building back muscle mass and and balance and so on. So we feel like that's a really good place to start and then we can stack onto that. mobility, urinary incontinence, some of these other recovery targets. Yeah. As they become ready.

What why is it that why why do we have I again I'm sorry, I don't know what the number is, t twelve to twenty BCI startup. you guys are the clear poster child in the the spinal realm. Why like why has there been Maybe I don't know the field as well as I should, but you know, wh why does it feel like there's been less investment on the spinal side or or competition or um I mean I see why there's interest in the BCI part. Mm. But this other stuff seems so fascinating as as well. Yeah.

Okay, complex question. Yeah. You're probably like I got plenty of competition. No, no, no. I don't have a lot of competition. But I think what you're talking about is I I think the question that you're asking in a polite way is Why is so much capital flowed into these BCI platform companies, whereas we'll say an ordinary amount of capital is flowed to onward. That was more eloquent than I did. Yes, that is what I was asking.

Um so I you know, we're a European company, first of all, even though I'm American guy, you know, born and bred in the Midwest. Um So that's that's one thing. Um, we're also a listed company because when I got there in twenty twenty we had to raise capital fast and and and I listed the company, which was good. We raised three years of capital, but that really narrows the aperture. You need a

uh a fund, a VC or or growth fund that can invest in a European listed company. Having said that, we've raised a lot of money relative to other European med techs. Yeah. Um We raised about uh gosh, I'm gonna use Euros here. I hope I don't make the audience's head. We we have a smart audience. And and chat GPT. Okay. So about eighty million euros in the in the IPO in twenty twenty one and then in twenty twenty four another seven.

But that's what it takes to develop sophisticated technologies in multiple platforms like this. And we're still spending far less than other MedTech companies that that are doing um less than we are. We're we're our people are so mission driven and and they work with such intensity that we're able to do a lot with Let's go.

Um, so I think you're gonna help with that actually. Like me being here in the belly of the beast of Silicon Valley, you you're helping to expose our story to traditional tech Twenty's final uh competitors. Well I mean I I I I I don't fear competition. You know, we have a lot of expertise. And IP, by the way. Um yeah, I should mention we have over 300 issued patents and ten FDA breakthrough device designations. So like really innovative company. We've taken advantage of our first mover.

status here. But but yeah, I think a lot of people just aren't aware of us and of the opportunity. The other thing is these BCI companies, I think, have positioned themselves as platform companies. And and and whether it's for marketing purposes or whether it's substantive, you know, they they've got ties with Apple and and uh NVIDIA and so it really smells like tech.

And it has the promise of, you know, when they talk about data rates and and and augmenting human performance by fusing what you say, meet and machine. Yeah. I think you like to say. Some of them pitch themselves basically as a uh eventually a consumer technique. Exactly. Exactly. But but all of them for now are chasing locked in syndrome and ALS, which is thirty thousand people. Yeah. Okay. So

That's just not what we're about. We're not about, okay, we're building this platform that can eventually, you know, uh work with computers. We're like, can we help people with spinal cord injury and movement disabilities?

function better. Yeah. That's all we care about. And in in in the case of BCI, we think, yeah, the BCI might help us in that pursuit. Yeah. Our expertise is understanding how to stimulate the spinal cord to restore movement and other functions. And the addition of a BCI make may may make that more effective to be determined with proper clinical studies at scale, by the way. Yeah. So I just I always want to make sure we don't get overhyped here.

It's a it's a totally valid point. I I was just talking about this with oh, I'm trying to remember um the another guessed in BCI land. I mean I I I do suspect we're about to run into a problem, which is that Neuralink is undoubtedly fine because they basically have infinite capital. Um you know, but I think I think we are gonna run in this problem where there was this wave. Of these startups, to your point, all of them. really are medical devices at the moment.

a good chunk of them are trying to pitch themselves as as broader tech companies. And I think the gap between number of years of of being a medical device to that more consumery Endpoint is gonna be a very long period of time and you have to have, you know, tens of millions of dollars per year to survive that gulf. And it's just it's really hard for me to see how many the I mean, Silicon Valley has this habit of

you want to bill yourself as I'm not I'm not a car company. I'm uh I'm a technology company. And and you know, it's smart. That's how you get more money, but then Things can become difficult on uh on certain timelines. And so I I feel like there's gonna be um I think there's gonna be a lot of The wheat and the chaff are getting it. Well, I think that's one of the benefits of being a you know, we're a public company. Yeah. And and so we're listed on Euronext and and we also have a U.

But being a public company, you know, your fundamentals, your performance are exposed to scrutiny. Everything we do is is rigorously disclosed, unlike a private company, which is really, you know, you're valuing the dream or the hype or whatever number of people want to put on. Um, I'm not gonna say which CEO it was, but one of these BCI CEOs says, Oh yeah, we're gonna need five to six hundred million dollars to bring this to market. It's like okay, well you have a recording

And there'll be five or ten other recording devices. So what makes yours worth five, you know, half a billion in investment? What can it do that the others can't do? Because ultimately that's all they are is at least today recording devices. Now, again, your your former guest, um, Sumner talked about Gen two devices and that, but okay. I mean, for the next 10 years or 15 years, it's the Gen one devices that that are gonna matter. So um

Personally, I don't care how that all develops. I don't mean that in a in a in a uh coarse or cynical way. Um it's good that there are a lot of different recording platforms out there and Again, if they can record with a lot of resolution and they're less invasive and they help our platform and they help us develop therapies that help people like Julie and Michael and and Elizabeth and or or whomever, that's great. That's all we care about. Yeah.

Yeah. And when you say recording, I mean the the thought here is You would want these devices ultimately to do two things. One is to record the data out and the other is to s to stimulate to to send signal in, whether that's to to stimulate um movement or

in the more futuristic sense, which I don't think anybody fully knows how to well, I know nobody knows how to do this yet, but to to put put ideas, put put uh download kung fu, things like that. I mean you want this this bi-directional We right now we don't do any of that because we're we're only stimulating the spinal cord.

After a spinal cord injury, the spinal cord and the nervous system is really intact, but it's not receiving signals from the brain. So we're stimulating on the other side of the injury. um and sending instructions that way. Um, and that's our expertise. We use the brain recordings just to to get movement intention to make the movement restoration more natural.

Um, there are, you can envision, again, I don't want to get too complex for the audience here, but you could envision also amplifying the intent to move at source. you know, especially for incomplete injury and using that in combination with spinal cord stem, that might wind up being effective. Um and and you've had other guests that are talking about um stimulating the brain to to address uh um psychological disorders or or or maybe to address um

Epilepsy more effectively. Fine, fine. That's not our thing. Yeah, but that's that that's where things could go.

Yeah. Well and you okay, so you mentioned some of the intellectual property here and I feel like we'd be doing doing two people a disservice if we didn't talk about some of the roots of all of this. Um there's a gentleman named Gregois Courtine. Um, he's he's very charming. He's quite quite handsome, if I can say so. Yeah. What do I go ahead? She dresses better than you do. He's got something on everybody, I think I think. Um, and f you know, for a while well he he's he's he's Swiss French.

No, he would tell you he's not Swiss, he's not French, he's Bourgogna, he's from Burgundy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and he was working with mice and and Congrats. Rats and was in this BCI land and and was was doing his experiments and then kinda found out that he could he could figure out how to stimulate their spine in this this the the right way, the the right pattern that you need to to kind of control and uh the movement. And and that really was the

Oh he he he uh he gets a lot of credit for this. I mean I hope that uh that Greg War and and his principal collaborator uh Jocelyne Bloch is chief of neurosurgery at the local hospital in Los Angeles. I hope they'll win the the uh the Nobel at one at some point. Um but indeed, yeah, he while at UCLA um did a lot of work understanding how to restore the ability to walk in in a rats. And then he became a full professor at EPFL, which is like the MIT of of Switzerland.

Yeah. And uh and did a lot of additional work. But it was really when he met Jocelyne Bloch. And that he I think separated himself from a lot of neuroscientists because she enabled him to do start doing this work in human And she's a surgeon. She is she is a what's called a functional neurosurgeon. So it's a neurosurgeon that's very comfortable with device therapy and stimulation therapy. So they do a lot of deep brain stimulation implants.

pain stimulators for uh using spinal cord stimulation. So for her this is a very comfortable feel. I think the first female neurosurgeon in the Switzerland. Yeah, yeah. She's got some some moxie and some some get off. I mean she is the boss in her OR. She is and she is Also stylish. Yes, I was gonna say just just like Greg Wy, I mean she's she's like superstar, you know, very charismatic, extremely bright, just super charming. And then I I find their relationship

Fascinating. I mean they're they're like this pair, right? You've got the researcher and the surgeon bringing bringing his uh things to light, you know, di out into the real world. And and they do everything together. Does pretty much. If they get a speaking invitation at a scientific symposium or a conference, always together at the podium. Yeah, I remember when we were coming out to film, and I usually like to just have one person purely for um actually it's very pragmatic, it's just Lighting.

Lighting and and usually I'm on camera doing an interview and so having three people get Awkward, but they insisted. Yeah, it's just the chemistry and it's just it's it it it it all the magic happens when there Meanwhile it's fantastic. It is it is fantastic. But that's the origin story, is that they they determined how to stimulate the spinal cord to restore movement in people after paralysis.

But there was then no technology capable of delivering that therapy, of stimulating the spinal cord in the way that they envisioned. So they started a company to develop purpose-built technology. And that's the origin of of Arc IM and and Onward Medical. Yeah. It had a different name back then. Yeah. And uh they really are fantastic. I I've been to her house. She has the best view you could Oh yeah, right on Lake Geneva. Yeah, man, unbelievable. You got to pull.

But her husband is also a very accomplished Um kind of restorative surgeon after trauma to the face and neck. So they're they're they're a power couple in the Swiss area. He's a wonderful host when you're at the house as well. Um and okay, so you know, again, I don't want to give people false hope at all. But I mean, just as a thought exercise for a second, I mean let's let's play out the most optimistic Mm-hmm. scenario. You know when I when I see people moving again.

When I see what this technology can do, it has a limited number of electrodes at the moment. My head immediately is like, Let's do more electrodes, let's get the best BCI. What would that look like? And then what's the next step after that? I mean, is that even possible? here or are we already kind of tapping out the best that that you can do or or w when you're i totally don't want to overhype this, but like when your mind's eye is looking at where this goes.

What do you see in ten, twenty, thirty years?

Well, first, I mean if you're a person with paralysis and you have um impaired upper extremity function, there are clinics in the US you can go to and Very likely you can get some response. That's the really good news. And that's never been the case in human And then within a couple of years if you have some blood pressure dysregulation, we hope that that's the same.

as well or you can participate in the ongoing clinical study. So those are a couple of options that have, again, never been available before that can truly help you. Like life life changing. Yeah. And then we want to follow that with clinical studies for mobility with and without. Think you're asking now me now to fast forward, but thanks for letting me ground No, no, no. But um RBCI now is what I would describe as an MVP, minimally viable product.

even though we're highly innovating around the therapy. We we try to use sort of proven technology that we know, because this is implanted, it's a very hostile environment, we know it's it's it's gonna work. You know, it's a responsible way to introduce new technology. Especially in these folks who who have some fragility to them.

by nature. But you can certainly envision. Um because right now the system has an an outboard computer and you know th it's gotta communicate things wirelessly to the computer which uses AI to determine where and the and so on and so forth. We'd like to have a fully implanted system, very low latency, you know, operates at the same speed as your as your nervous system. And and all of that is possible in the future.

I I think again, taking the responsible approach, we know we can restore movement with spinal cord stimulation. We think the addition of the BCI will make that movement restoration more effective. We have to do large scale studies to confirm that. Um, but the addition of the BCI has to offer enough incremental advantage to justify a brain surgery.

The risk and expense. So I mean we gotta put the the the patients or the people first, you know, and not fall in love with the technology. Am I hopeful and do I expect the BCI technology is gonna be impactful? Absolutely, but we gotta demonstrate that.

And what about just on the spinal implant itself? I remember There was a point in time when when Like I mentioned, Elon was paying attention to what you guys were doing and suddenly Neuralink got very interested in a spinal implant and and I would have discussions with their researchers and they're like, Well, we think you should go deeper into the spine and and uh Neurlink always

Well, it's to come deeper, which comes with all these cost benefit type things where yes, you get closer and closer to the motor neurons, to the neurons, but you're you're doing more damage to the tissue and and increasing the risk. But that was that was their general feeling at the time. I hang out in Erling a lot. They don't tell me everything, but I don't hear them talking about spinal stuff as much anymore. Mm-hmm. But is there you know, is there a path where

even just on the spinal implant. Like does it make a difference if we add tons more electrodes, if we if if we do take the risk and we go deeper, or are you of the opinion that um there's a little benefit? First of all, uh You're perfectly welcome to hang out at Onward. I think we probably have better coffee and better food. And uh and we have mountains nearby. So, you know, gr grab your bride and your kids and come on over. You guys do. Have like the best you are in the best spot.

Yeah, I mean right in the center of Lausanne with the cathedral. Um in any case, as I said before.

Yeah. I mean, if you're a technologist, you can start really pushing things forward. But I'm a med tech guy. I know things can fail. Implants can fail. Yeah. And that has catastrophic consequences because you have to explant devices and you have to expose people to another surgical procedure. So this is why I said, yes, we're innovating around the therapy, how we deliver stimulation and where, but the hardware itself is not revolutionary. You know, this looks a lot like a pacemaker.

And and this looks a lot like leads that are used for pain. We talked about it really quick, but that that is gonna get installed like a pacemaker. Yeah, but in the in the abdomen, the flank. Exactly right. A small pocket is made under the skill. And then this dispatches electrical impulses through this lead. And then this lead has several platinum iridium electrodes. Yeah, wait, can you flip it around for a second? Why don't you hold it out?

And and depending on where we put these electrodes, um actually I wanna go here, then that is is controlling the functions we're talking about. I like for Julie for blood pressure. Professor Courteen has found the exact spot in the spinal cord that controls vascular resistance. So if a person has low blood pressure, stimulate.

The the blood vessels constrict and therefore increase blood pressure to a more normal range. So we want to put this lead in that thoracic spinal cord region in a very precise. Way. This lead looks a lot like leads that are used to manage pain today. So implanted in hundreds of thousands of people.

Our lead is a bit wider, the electrodes are placed a bit differently because we're trying to capture a different part of the nervous system, but we know this platform is proven and durable and is unlikely to fracture or break. So this is where you get the med tech mentality versus the tech mentality. Okay, yeah, and I buttted in, but I mean that's what you were kinda saying is is that you know this work. This is r so okay. Okay, so I hear what you're saying, but like

Oh yeah, but let me answer your question. Would we benefit from more electrodes? Absolutely. Um, do you want to penetrate the spinal cord? Absolutely not. You know, you don't want to do anything to interrupt conduction that way. So I I don't want to speak for what happened at Neuralnik. I I know nothing about what's going on within those those four walls. But um but their fundamental technology, this robotically delivered uh penetrating thread thing. Yeah.

Ain't gonna work in a spinal cord. Okay. So they would've have to develop a a new platform for spinal cord stem. navigate our IP and know-how and so on. I think if anything, if they were interested in restoring movement in in this population, they would just partner with us and they would send us their signals or instructions and then we would use those to inform our sponsors. Okay. Okay. So okay, so you grew up in the Midwest.

You were Oh now we're doing the bio. We are. Isn't the bio supposed to be up front, Ashley? with, you know, oh yeah. All right. Okay. The You worked in in biotech land. You were at Medtronic for a number of years and then and then a couple of other companies and then and then end up at Onward. I know you'd lived in Europe in the past and you enjoy it there.

when I go there sometime okay,'cause, you know, when I was filming the episode and as part of getting to know you guys, it's been really cool to go to the to the universities in Switzerland, um, E Pf L. And and C C T H and and uh oh no, D T H E T H I'm sorry. And um it's been really cool. I mean it's they Really impressive researchers, facilities, um, incredible. You know, the the country is putting all this money into science. It's it's especially in biotech, medicine, robotics. Yeah.

Incredibly impressive. However, you know, there is a feeling I get. I mean, it's just slower, it's just a little less aggressive. It's um and I'm not this isn't necessarily like Swiss specific. I I c I kinda get this. Just Europe in general. Yeah, it's a responsibility.

I think the Europe's universities and and the research ecosystem is outstanding. You can get uh university degree for one or two thousand euros a year tuition and you can continue and uh even get your your your PhD without incurring massive student debt that's gonna hamstring you for decades like I have. Um uh so all that is good. And also the um the local governments do support fledgling enterprises and the universities are also supportive and they they use like the Stanford model.

and they distribute royalties back to the department and the professor. The the real gap there is it just isn't the same access to innovation capital. There is not the well developed V V C community. Um and so, um That that takes a lot of time. Why? Is that I I think about this all the time. I mean, there are a lot of rich people in Switzerland. There really are.

By Europe in general. In general, right. You know, in Switzerland, even like when we were making the decision where to where to go public, the Swiss stock market is called the I said, hey, you know, let's check out the six. I called UBS. I said, hey, what do you know what do you think? We, you know, we're here and we've got something really innovative. And and the six is basically uh an exchange for cash flow generating business.

Like Nestle, Novartis, uh um companies like that. Um, so it just it isn't part of the mindset. Um, and that's cultural, all through that Dach region, which is like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, they want safe, stable investments. you get a little bit more um entrepreneurial attitude in in the Benelux. A little bit more in Scandinavia and the UK, but that's really it. And then also people by their nature are just more conservative.

uh more risk averse. Maybe that comes from having world wars on their territory. I really don't know what is the origin of that psychology. Um, and so I I uh we try to actually hire Americans for our leadership team that are comfortable living and working in Europe. So we have that risk-taking urgency drive. Um, but we also were respectful of the European mentality. And so it can be hard to recruit leaders uh who who are that way.

Yeah, I mean I I think about this a lot because I make at tech travel shows to go visit all these places and then the the UK, you're right, they take a little more risk. It's it it's it is shocking to me when you y I the fantastic researchers I have met from Cambridge and Oxford who are doing Imperial. That you could compare with anywhere in the world. And then I start taking off the startup that have come out of all of this. And and you do okay if you're in pharma, really. Uh

Yeah. A lot of exit via M and A. Yeah, but then, you know, outside of that it's it's like it's like Dyson and Arm and then Oh, in tech. Yeah, and and you're kinda done and it's it's this seems almost impossible to me, or it's just such a self own on some some level. Um, although

You're right. I mean I mean, it's a nice way of life there. People aren't just sort of like working themselves to death and falling into all this debt and everything here. But I I always I did wonder, like, as an American who's been going back and forth and lived both lives and you're trying to compete against the valley to some degree and you're trying to push this this tech forward. Like do you find it frustrating or

No, actually people at OnWork work extremely hard. Yeah. Um, but I think you know, that's not because of me necessarily, so because I'm some great leader. I I think it's uh if this was an ordinary company, they wouldn't do it. But um they see that what you've seen with Julie and and Michael and all the others whom we're helping and they

They are really driven by the mission. And uh so they work weekends, they work nights. I would put up, uh, put the onward team up against any company in the world in terms of uh commitment and and and workload and and work velocity. You know, last year alone we had uh two FDA approvals, a European approval, an IDE, uh uh a financing. I mean we get a lot done with 120 people.

Um, but that's just, you know, that's that's all intrinsic. That's the want-to, um, which maybe is more natural in Silicon Valley than it is in Europe, but it doesn't mean it can't happen in Europe. It's happening here at Onward. Yeah.

When you when you did the sixty minutes piece, does that still have as notable of a impact as it might have ten or fifteen years ago? I have no idea of like the reach of of sixty minutes. Yeah, yeah. Uh so uh uh more people saw it than you would think. Okay. And and actually with us, uh our investors like that. Yeah. You know, it's just okay, this European company's getting attention at a on a global stage. Um it really can go all the way. Um

So uh it's certainly beneficial, but I mean it's not like back in the day when one third of the US uh of the Americans watch watch CBS news and watch their cronkite, you know, everything is very much fragmented. Yeah. Um, I mean you're gonna build that kind of following here at core memory, but not everybody's gonna do that. Hopefully even bigger. You know, there's I mean I know they run their their overtime and everything on YouTube. Yeah, yeah.

I think it's more of a following on YouTube than it does. meant this in a very genuine way of what was the first hand experience of doing this in twenty twenty five. The honest the the thing that really surprised me about sixty minutes if you want to talk about that is I think they've had so much scrutiny and the lawsuits They fact check. I I mean we probably had not exaggerating thirty phone calls. after the filming, asking question after question.

And then they validated that from multiple people. Me, they'd asked the same questions of Greg War and and the patients whom they interviewed. Like this was uh next level. And I've done quite a bit of media in my day with this and other companies. NBC News, CNN, whatever. This was next level the level fact checking and diligence. Which is burdensome for the company, I could tell you. It it does take a lot of time. That that's that's encouraging, I feel like.

Yeah, no, it's it's it was h high integrity. I hope I don't uh anger half the population by saying that. Yeah. They they did it in in a in a really rigorous way. Yeah. And you think I mean you ah, I don't want to put any pressure on people. You mentioned the Nobel Prize for for Gregois Jocelyn. Um you think you think that is in the right?

I do because they're they're they're they're making so many discoveries that that are are going to impact people with movement disabilities. It's not just this. They they have many other things. They've got a biological repair initiative there. identifying the the neurons responsible for movement restoration and and other functions. So they're they're really trying to understand the mechanisms down to a cellular level. Yeah. And um

And so I hope they get it. They they deserve it. Uh But uh, you know, I think our job is to help them scale what they're doing.

How much attention do you pay to things like that that Facebook the meta device that's come out where It originated with a startup called Control Labs, which had a a watch like device that sits on your wrist and it's looking at your motor neuron activity and now they've translated this into some consumer watch. I've been following this for years. I mean, the idea that um you could control your computer in different wa your your computing devices in different ways um in the years.

coming. I mean, do you think do you think stuff like that I don't know, do you think about this stuff? Do you do you think it's it it's also kind of maybe being oversold or do you think um just knowing what you know about this technology and the body that these things make sense?

Um, so I think you have to be super focused to to run a company like this and make it successful. So all I care about is technologies that can help the people that we're trying to serve and and everything else is is noise and a distraction. That's why I mean it's I it's genuinely helpful to listen to your podcast because I hear about things I otherwise wouldn't hear about.

Um, but um that I am not um a category expert at all. I'm an onward expert. Yeah, yeah. And I'm a I'm a uh uh and and I and I learn whatever I can from the clinicians in my field and talking to the the patients and their families. That's that's that's where I that's the most productive consuming of information and thought processing that I do. Yeah. I waste time with sports and hiking. Have you gotten into European sports?

Um you know rugby's pretty cool. Yeah. Rugby's pretty cool. That's super entertaining. There's the soccer, the football. I mean I I don't have a lot of time for that. You know, when I if I'm not working, I try to just Stay fit. Let's do some hiking. It's just maintain energy and stamina and try to be a good husband. We well, you are fit. You're I remember you're always biking to our meetings and and things like like this.

Yeah. I try to walk wherever I can. I try to avoid elevators and escalators and and uh and then Lausanne as you know is very hilly and Uh I'm the reason I'm hesitating is I don't want to drop the chalet word. An insider inside joke for prior to the recording, but you know, we we are close to the mountains and so it's it's it's easy to get out in nature and forest bathe, which is really important and and um and get the heart beating.

Okay, well I wanna be respectful of your time. If um somebody were to visit Switzerland. I don't know. You have any special spots that that might not be obvious to the usual tourists? Uh well Switzerland's really interesting. It's one, well, let's say half German and one quarter French and one quarter Italian. So it depends up sort of where you what you dig. Um I personally like the southern half, which is the French and Italian influence, because you get the

orderliness and cleanliness and efficiency of Switzerland, but a little bit better food, a little bit more joie de vive. Um so for me that's that's a bit more interesting. So where, like Lugano or Exactly. Yeah, of course. That's the spot. Lugano is fantastic if you want Italian food and and Switzerland where everything works. But Lausanne is also amazing. That's uh this small-ish city that has everything that you would want.

Yeah, yeah. I've I've been to Lugano. I hung out with Jürgen Schmidhuber. Do you know who he is? No, but I wish I had his name. That's a cool name. Wow. So you're gonna He's he's a AI godfather. He i i he It was maybe two or three years ago there were three guys that won the Turing Award, which is kind of computer sciences Nobel Prize, is Jeff Hinton, um, Jan Lacoon and Yashua Bengio.

And then y Jürgen Schmidt Huber, there was a controversy that he was he was left out of this because He's been working in Lugano for for decades and coming up with all sorts of AI advances and then he sort of comically um at conferences is not shy about when somebody else is presenting a paper about standing up in the audience. Challenging it in front of everything.

Like I invented this twenty-five years ago. You're not you're not citing it correctly. He's very German. He's very Yeah. You need to cite everything and it's it's called being Schmidhuberd. I I went to Lugato and I hung out with him for two days. It was one of the most interesting fun Two days of my life and so I'm a a soft spot for Lugato. We th there's a research institute there. Um there's some sort of like aperitif or liqueur that is made out of artichokes, Synax.

I think it is. And uh it was this rich Italian who came up with this and then he created like a AI robotics institute on the back of all this. The wealth. Yeah. It was just such a weird story. This whole thing. I loved it, every every bit of it. So anyway, then I got a soft spot for Switzerland. And then I I got to uh I went to Zermat. Yeah. Yeah. Place to ski. Yeah. Yeah, I did a helicopter simulator. It was invented by a Swiss startup and I did that.

For a couple of hours and then we went to Zermot and I got to fly an actual helicopter around the Matterhorn o off my two hours of training. Boring life of Ashley Vance. Switzerland is already very uh very It's high on you. Yes. Yeah. Um well thank you so much for coming on. I I do hope that um If anyone hears this, you know, obviously who I hope somebody hears it.

Well people will hear this, but I I anyone who's who's listening who knows somebody um who could benefit from this type of technology actually I I do hope the word word gets around.

By the way, we do have a registry on the website if people are interested in learning more or potentially participating in one of our studies. They can complete that and And indicate what their interests are and then they give our us permission to then share that information with one of the investigational sites who will then assess their suitability for the research protocols.

Is it just on the onward side or that is fantastic to know. Um, so well, thank you so much for coming out. I'm glad um I'm sorry you had to suffer through the frivolity of JPM, but I'm glad it was an excuse to bring you out. Five commands. Yeah, well. Yeah, I appreciate it. And our website will be on your on in the notes, but it's o nwd.com. So it's onward, but not all spelled out. It's ownwd.com.

We will put a link. But yeah, no, that is that is good to know. And and well thank you. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. I enjoyed it. Yeah. I'll come back if you if you'll have me. We w we will absolutely and then we will we will have to have Gregois Jocelyn on here or I'll have to go We'll have to we'll have to just take the cameras to them. Um They Yeah.

For sure. I don't know what you'd have to do. I think they probably share one mic. Yes. You'd have to modify the the whole production here to to add another share. But I think you're right. They would make it easier. They would just share the question. Um, thanks so much. Thanks Ashley. Core Memory Podcast is hosted by me, Ashley Vance, and or Kylie Robison, or both of us together. It is produced by me and David Nicholson. Our theme song is Mercer and I'm not sure. And the show is edited always.

John Swortland. Thank you so much to Brex and Ewan Ventures for all your support, and thank you most of all to everybody for listening. We love you, please leave us a like, a review, a subscribe. Thank you.