Episode description

From academia at Imperial College and the Royal College of Art, to bringing back smiles for patients with Parkinson’s disease, Lucy Jung is the founder of Charco Neurotech.

Parkinsons’ Disease is the fastest growing neurodenerative disease in the world. Although the idea that vibration makes PD symptoms better has been around since the 19th century, it is only today that technology has caught up with ideas and Charco are building a hardware solution called CUE1 to leverage this idea. The patient sticks the small CUE1 device onto their chest (sternum) from where it sends vibrations to the patient’s body. These timed vibrations create ‘neuromodulation’ within the patient’s nervous system, helping to improve the way Parkinson’s patients feel and reducing their motor symptoms.

Alongside the medical device, Charco are building an app for symptom and medication tracking to help Parkinson’s patients and their families. Lucy touches on raising a large $10M seed round and building a team in South Korea and the UK and the cultural challenges it poses. We also discuss testing the product prior to general global release, supply chain issues in the pandemic, co-creating solutions with the Parkinson’s patient community and the regulations required to get a medical device to market globally.

Building a hardware company in healthtech is hard and Charco are tackling this challenge head on. I hope you enjoy this conversation.