What was your inspiration to found Relavo?
I started Relavo when I was a biomedical engineering student at Johns Hopkins University. While at school there, I was chosen to lead a design team a group of eight undergrads who were tasked with identifying a clinical need and developing a solution for it. Through this assignment, I recruited my now co-founders and we learned about the issue of peritonitis or infection in peritoneal dialysis from Doctor Alicia New, Chief of Pediatric Nephrology.
When I learned about this problem I was equally interested and confused about why this hadn’t been solved before since dialysis was something that impacted so many people worldwide and usually healthcare related infections are such a hot topic. The fact that this hadn’t been solved before is really what drew me in. What led me to continue working on it and to found Relavo the company – what really got me committed – was the fact that my aunt had started dialysis around that same time. She started with in-center hemodialysis, and I didn’t even know that home treatment was an option. When I learned that home therapy not only existed but was just better for patient health outcomes and their quality of life, as well as cheaper to the healthcare system, it seemed like such a no brainer that this was a space that I would like to make a big impact.
How is the future of home dialysis evolving?
Home dialysis really is the future of chronic kidney care at least until there are major leaps forward in kidney transplantation. The barriers today to greater home dialysis use are solvable problems, infection risk being the largest barrier. It’s well known that home treatment is better for patients both their health outcomes and quality of life and is also better for the healthcare payment system as it’s cheaper than in-center dialysis. Because all the incentives are well aligned across stakeholders it’s hard to see a future where home dialysis doesn’t become much more widely used.
Aside from dialysis, there’s also a ton of great work being done to improve kidney transplant accessibility through procedures like xenografts to artificial kidneys. I hope these prove successful, and those can scale to a point where people no longer need dialysis. In reality we are still quite a way out. As long as people need dialysis I think that they should be able to get their care at home to maintain their freedom and independence and just get better health care.
What has been the biggest challenge of bringing the technology to market?
Our biggest challenge so far has been the cost constraints from the Medicare dialysis bundle. We’ve been working hard to simplify our product design so that our COGs and pricing make economic sense to both us and to our potential customers, the dialysis clinics. The Medicare bundle is certainly still a challenge as it creates pretty narrow cost margins for dialysis clinics that can be tough on innovation. Although there has definitely been progress on this front through some new Medicare payment models like the ESRD treatment choices model that provides new financial incentives around home treatment it’s still pretty well agreed upon by the kidney community that the Medicare bundle really needs an overhaul if kidney failure patients are going to see life changing innovations.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
I would tell an aspiring healthcare entrepreneur that you’re going to hear the word “no” probably hundreds if not thousands of times and that you will want to take it personally. Every “no” that you get isn’t an indictment on you personally and it’s really just one person’s opinion it doesn’t mean that your product is doomed or that you’re a bad leader. I think most entrepreneurs see their company and their innovation as their baby in a lot of ways, so I would also tell entrepreneurs to remember that you’re still a person outside of your company and it’s so important to stay grounded in that to really maintain your own mental health and keep your motivation going.
What do you like to do when you are not working on Relavo?
When I’m not working on Relavo, I love to cook and try new restaurants. I’m really interested in all things food! I’ve recently been very into trying new recipes and expanding my cooking repertoire and preparing more foods from different cuisines. I live in New York with some of the best restaurants in the world, so I love to use my free time to check off on my bucket list of restaurants that I want to try. Outside of food, I also enjoy working out at the gym and spending time with family and friends in the city.
What keeps you going in the tough times?
What inspires me and keeps me going when when things are getting tough is knowing that there are patients out there who are waiting for our technology. Every week we get messages through our website from patients asking if our product is available. When we talk to them on the phone and conduct customer interviews we hear how big an impact this could have this could have made for them. It’s really inspiring for us to hear them say that if they had a product like ours they would still be on PD today and that they could have stopped their transition to in center dialysis.
