your heart related to that but also your brain. Uh so they're the priority areas. So what that means is when we dehydrate the blood maintains its set point for quite some time — and then drops off only when you're massively dehydrated. So where it gets its fluid from is primarily the biggest water tank in the body which is the skin. — So the skin is this water reservoir. It rips fluid from the skin and puts it into the blood and keeps the blood going as long as possible. So that means the skin is a dynamic system, but it's also a lead indicator. It's actually giving you a much better readout for hydration

than than what blood does. [music] Good. So hello Mark and welcome to Impulse. I'm I'm glad we can find a new suitable time for the two of us to have this conversation. Um sometimes not easy to manage time zones. Um as in this case, you are located in Brisbane in Australia and I'm sitting here in Zurich, Switzerland. So there's a couple of hours separating us. Um before we start, I'd like to thank Rachel um you know, who put us in touch and made this episode possible. She also made me aware of the pioneering pioneering work you've been doing, you know, throughout your career as a biomedical engineer and most recently, you know, on devices that

interact with our skin to deliver drugs or vaccines, but also to sense biomarkers and physiological parameters um like our our hydration levels that we're going to talk about. So, I find uh you know the field of variables very fascinating. Um we've had previous guests on the show pushing the boundaries of this space as well. I'm thinking about Matum Autoto from Wings. I'm thinking about Leo Grrenstein from Liam on glucose measurement and Esme Damigedi from Accensio as well. So I'm looking forward to you know learning more about your activities with where Optimo the the avenue it opens for the measurement of hydration levels um the underlying technology and you know the

applications it might have in our everyday life uh in medicine uh or in sports. Um but before we you know we dive into it and for those who might be hearing you for the first time um I will invite you Mark to present yourself. — Oh uh thank you and it's a pleasure to be connecting in from you from Brisbane Australia. Uh so hi my name is Mark Kendall. I'm a biomedical engineer and uh I've been working within the field as a biomedical engineer for about 27 years. uh now by and large I've been creating technologies for global healthcare uh that put things into the skin in terms of delivery uh but also uh

removing or not removing but reading signals uh from the skin uh as well and um quite often that's replacing the needle and syringe at the same time — you know I was when I was preparing the episode so I I looked at the there's like I will put the the note in the description the TED conference that you did which was on the nanop patch was this delivery mechanism um that's painfree and also the interesting aspect is that it's it aims to deliver vaccines in a dry form and not liquid and so you get rid of the cold chain problem um I think it's probably an interesting background to to our conversation so for

those who want to have a look I I'll strongly recommend it and when I was looking at the you know information about what you're doing with verbimo um which focuses on you know measuring hydration I was thinking you know it's it seems to be like a I mean it's an obvious let's say parameter of our body and an important one because it's about know the amount of water in our body and yet it's very hard to to measure or like to selfassess. So you know you have the you have these apps where it tells you hey you should drink x amount of water every every you know once an hour or

whatever but it never knows exactly how much water you have in your body and it's it's really hard and then I looked at okay what are the ways we can measure this and one easy way is like you just measure your weight one ways I think you measure like the is it the transparency urine or something like very difficult methods to and I think another thing is like osmolarity like serum osmolarity which which requires a blood sample. So these are all like complicated methods and I was a bit shocked that there's actually not any simple way to to to measure it and um and so my first question was you know where does your

idea come from to to measure this and what what is like the fundamental let's say challenge we have nowadays when it comes to hydration measurement that you're trying to to address. — Yeah, it's a great it's a great insight uh that you've made. Uh so hydration is a massive problem and uh until recently uh many people have not quite realized uh the the scale of the problem. Uh to give you a little bit of context uh about half of half of humanity is mildly

dehydrated, right? but for a long period of time and it's been discovered by others. It's not by it's not from the work from my company but by others uh that that's putting the body under a deep form of stress kind of like um like inflammation does as well and it's leading to a reduction in people's life expectancy up to about four years uh or so that long-term stress. And so it affects everything we do. And it's interesting, we we almost take water for granted because it's just a basic working unit for us. So we don't talk about oxygen as one example, but we need oxygen. We need oxygen to live, right?

— And our body does a pretty good job at at doing we have to think about breathing really, but we do need to think about taking water in and water is a fundamental working unit as well. So it's so important. It's actually uh there's some in the the the medical community are positioning hydration as being the next vital sign, right? So there's five vital signs right now as to be the next one. Uh or a lot of people are arguing for it to be that. So that that's kind of the scale of the the problem. And uh we can talk about it in many different contexts like surgery is one example. when you go into

anesthesia, you have a drop in blood pressure. And if you have a low case of hydration levels, that causes such a degree of problems that it affects about 20% of all surgeries that that take place. So it's a big deal. So yeah, your insight is very good that given that the current approaches are very very rudimentary. Uh so uh how heavy you are is imprecise. So much depends on whether you're needing to go to the toilet or not. All these things very difficult to measure. And then usually when you think of diagnostics, blood draws are usually the gold standard. But in in the case of hydration, even blood draws don't work

very well. And the reason why is the is the way the body dehydrates and that's you asked about how uh we came into this insight for uh using microelerodes uh to accessing the skin. So the starting point I'll talk about the limitations of the needle in a moment but uh the starting point is deep domain knowledge with the skin. Uh so I've been working with the skin for about 27 years now and studying the skin and being a student uh of of the skin from many different points of view whether it's the immune system whether it's the mechanical properties of the skin but also hydration. uh so uh more than 20 years ago I

published a paper looking at the effects of uh hydration levels on the mechanical properties of the skin in the in the journal investigative dermatology. Now I was doing it for entirely different reasons. But when uh I was creating where optimo and we're looking at what kind of things we might be able to read and how we might go about that with um our micro electrodes. There's the bloodborne biomarkers and yes uh our sensor uh conceptually can be used for those. Uh but there's something elegant about how hydration works in the skin and the reason why is this. This is what we're tapping into. Uh the reason why is uh when we dehydrate, we don't dehydrate

uniformly through the body. — Mhm. — It's kind of like a lot of things in life, there's priority areas the body tries to keep right for as long as possible. Can you guess what the the priority things that the body tries to maintain as long as possible? — Stand. — Uh no, think think about organs. Think about organs in the body — or work kind of things. or it's like probably with blood or — Yeah. Yeah. — So blood, your heart related to that

also your brain. Uh so they're the priority areas. So what that means is when we dehydrate, the blood maintains its set point for quite some time — and then drops off only when you're massively dehydrated. — So where it gets its fluid from is primarily the biggest water tank in the body, which is the skin. Mhm. — So the skin is this water reservoir. It rips fluid from the skin and puts it into the blood and keeps the blood going as long as possible. So that means the skin is a dynamic system, but it's also a lead indicator. It's actually giving you a much better readout for hydration than than what blood does. And so we

identified that, but we also found that within the skin, there's just one location that's the most sensitive of them all. And that's just below the surface of the skin. It's called the the viable lipidmis. And that's great because you don't have to go very far with this microelerode. It's just a hair's width into the skin. So to cut a long story short, unlike a lot of things in life where blood draws are usually pretty good and you're trying to compare against them, here it's the flip where already in our clinical trials, uh we've we've shown that our sensor, a microwaveable sensor, is outperforming gold standard blood draws uh for the the dehydration states

that we've been testing. And how much of the work that you were doing with the nanop patched inform let's say the the design and the way um the wear optimum device functions. — Yeah I think the way my brain works it's pardon the pun it's quite fluid. So um so I've been pulling a body of knowledge over 27 years. So, as one example, uh, step one as a biomedical engineer was when I was over at Oxford, uh, with a gene gun technology, uh, to fire microparticles into the skin with handheld rockets, 1500 miles an hour. And so, uh, that's how I entered the field. Uh, my PhD was in in rockets uh,

a long time ago. And so there was all the science associated with that. And then that led to me creating the the needle-free vaccine delivery patch. And the stimulus for that was a core from Bill Gates, Bill and Meinda Gates Foundation for better vaccines for the developing world. So I used my knowledge to work that particular problem and that led to the nanop patch. And then down the line uh with my body of knowledge as a founder of the field of micro needles I could see suddenly uh around this time these these guys or early versions of apple wattishes were coming out and I could immediately see there was again an

amazing unmet need and opportunity for gaining access to the skins signals. So uh I was just using what I know. So it was at that stage 18 years of knowledge uh that was being deployed. — Interesting. And so you were showing me just before we started the recording, you know, the the device itself. So maybe you can you can you you'll be able to share it again. And — of course — it really looks like Yeah, it looks like a patch because you cannot see any needles on on it, you know. So it seems — that's right. — The thing about micro electrodes is they're micro. So yeah, you can't you

can't really uh see them, but you can see the form factor there. So from this side, it looks very much like a CGM uh continuous glucose monitor. Uh what we're producing in this instance is a CHM hydration continuous hydration monitor. But of course, the big difference here is there's no there's no needle as at all. And our platform is uh

deployable to to many biomarkers uh beyond uh hydration. But hydration is a huge problem in its own right. — Exactly. And so what is the principle of the device or let's say the yeah the mechanism by which you're able to measure hydration hydration levels. So how it works is uh of course the the microelerodes that we we can't really see but uh they they reach into that layer of skin I was telling you about before the the vital dermis of the skin and we do a bened bio impedance sweep within the skin. So we pull out ultra high fidelity signals from the skin at different frequencies and what we've done is we've been

training algorithms a key machine learning model. — Yeah. So through our clinical trial, it learns hydration state for different types of signals and pulls out hyperparameters. So it learns what type of signal translates into what level of hydration. — And what we've done is we've tested that against a signal where it's never seen the person before and it's never seen it doesn't know what what the level of hydration is. And uh we have a uh an

assessment where we're getting an ROC uh of 72. So that's a receiver operator characteristic. So it's a that's a very good number and it's much better than uh the blood draws which is about 65. — Mhm. And is it a then a continuous measure of the aggression level or is it like you know measuring a certain threshold of you are hydrated, you are dehydrated and just informing the user of the difference. No, it's the level of hydration. So, a good way of thinking about uh what the product will will be is like the experience with uh the readout for a continuous glucose monitor where you can see your level as a

function of time. We'll be doing the same kind of thing. A big difference is that uh we've needed to create our own uh digital biomarker for hydration. — Yeah. That was up until the the metric ring. — Yeah. Up until what we're doing, there was no way of directly monitoring hydration. There's attempts out there. There's uh parties that are are trying to sweat to monitor hydration. Sweat doesn't work because it's not correlated with your hydration level at all. As one example, you could be dry, not sweating at all and dehydrated. But even when you are sweating, it's poorly correlated. And of course, people are trying to use light-based approaches uh to monitor

hydration. But uh the skin's such an amazing barrier uh light based approaches don't don't work. There's many many issues associated with that. So uh our assessment is that we have the only wearable on the planet that genuinely monitors hydration. And uh to your point where you mentioned you know hydration is not let's say uh evenly distributed across the body like y is the idea to just wear one of your device somewhere and have a local let's say measurement of hydration levels or you know when I was looking at the the device and when you made the comparison with CGM also CGM for those who've never tried like you usually wear

it on like a shoulder or at the back of your arm — and and that's it. So it gives you the overall interpretation of your glucose levels based on one measurement site. Is the idea for where optimo the same? So just wearing one device at one place informing about your general — umation levels. — Uh yes, that that is the idea. In our in our clinical studies, we had the sensors on multiple sites. — Yeah. — And we've not observed any discernable difference uh in sight to sight variability, which is great. Uh so that opens up uh what I'm calling the traditional sites on offer for people to use. So those can include here or it can

include the wrist. Uh but we've we've even tested on uh just above the ankle uh as as one example uh the chest as as another thighs. So we have all of those possibilities uh on offer. So I think that the challenge you know with these um wearables and you referred uh you know to the CGM device um where the measurement operates you know in the interstitial fluid um what's always tricky is the the ratio between the the signal and the noise um and I you know I

could also imagine that when you have a device that sits on the skin like like yours there's also potentially you know um interferences when it comes to you know sweat to movement to uh variations or individual variations in terms of you know skin properties between people. Um so how is this you know managed from your end? — Yeah, it's quite elegant. Uh we we've what we've done is we've worked with the strengths of the skin if you like. So traditionally when we think about wearables in the context of of health and and medicine we're comparing against blood and how well blood works. And by and large, there's some downsides about

working with the skin. You might have a lower concentration or a lag, things that are late. It's skin's usually what's called a lag indicator compared to what's happening in the body. Here we've turned it around entirely where the skin's a lead indicator. So because the skin is this water tank that rips fluid away so rapidly so early uh it

gives us a rapid readout for for hydration. And so as a result of that it's direct measurement of hydration with the ISF where it's the interstial fluid. The interstial fluid is an asset here where we're not trying to back out and compare against what's happening at other parts of the body. it is the change of the interstitial fluid that you're actually directly measuring. And so by doing that, we're bypassing the other attempts uh that people are trying with hydration monitoring as well. So as

one example, a sweat measurement doesn't really work. A sweat's not correlated with hydration. We could be dry. I could be dehydrated right now. I'm not sweating. But even when I am sweating, dehydrate, it's not correlated with hydration. and light-based approaches like what's used in uh today's smart watches. Again, uh it's limited by the skin's barrier function, how dark your skin is, movement artifacts. In contrast, our approach is not um uh impeded by those those things. — And how long can the device be worn? Because you know, having tried uh the CGM devices myself, I think it's limited to a measurement of 14 days. That's probably related to the way the the the

sensor works which is a enzyatic reaction um at the needle level. — Um in your case is it can it be worn for the same long period of time? Can it be worn longer? Is there like a limit? — So conceptually it can run longer than CGMs because there's no chemistry reaction take place. — Uh we've not formally tested that at this point in time. uh clinical trials we've tested by and large about one day of use. Uh however, conceptually we think uh the the sensor could run out for uh perhaps a month or so, maybe 30 days. — And it's not it's not the chemistry that's dictating that. It's actually the

skin itself is changing over time. It starts sloughing off. So we think it could be as a result of that as opposed to anything else. — Mhm. And the use case would really be to wear it like you know on a on a continuous basis like I mean obviously for going back to the the parallel with CGM where you have diabetic patients who really need to have that information all the time. Um do you think for let's say everyday life or I mentioned applications in you know in medicine in everyday life in sports um how do you think we should actually use use the device? I think uh I think it should be

adaptive. That's that's how we're looking at it. So uh in in day-to-day uh activity when it's not uh exertion, it's not exercise and you're going through a medical a major medical event by and large your changes in hydration happen quite gradually. So what that means is you could be sampling for argument sake every 10 minutes or every 15 minutes what whatever that is. But it's only when you start seeing more rapid changes in hydration then that sensing rate can start increasing time for measurement. But conceptually it it it can be continuous monitoring. It's what we've been doing in our clinical trials. We've uh pulled out we've been sampling every second uh

hundreds of data points uh from from the sensor and pulling out about a billion data points from our clinical trial. And how do you see you know if we imagine ourselves like having the the possibility to have that very um detailed insight about high hydration level and we're also you know we we have the possibility to measure other you know biomarkers through you know the the smartwatches that you highlighted or CGM with glucose um potentially also you know sleep sleep insights and so on. How do you see that that additional like layer of information complementing or um yeah adding value to the rest of everything we can already measure? — I think it's going to be huge. Uh right

now uh all we have is simply putting it really simply just two classes of things going on. Uh we have we have smartwatches — and uh heart rate but those sorts of things very very basic measurements. And then uh I have here a sample. We talked about it before of uh uh what what a CGM looks like. Now this is not where Optimo's device. It's a commercial uh CGM. And you can see a massive needle uh there. Now putting that to an aside, CGMs have changed people's lives. Uh if you have type 1 diabetes has changed your life. So compared to what existed before, it's fantastic. It's an amazing game changer,

but the only way at the moment people have been getting access to to real medical signals has primarily been putting a big needle uh into the the body. — What we've come up with is a form factor that feels like a surfacebased uh sensor

with the micro electrodes but has the upsides of the functionality that otherwise a CGM style uh device uh would have. So what that means is this micro uh electrode platform that we have with war optimode is deployable to a rich array of biomarkers uh like glucose but also beyond uh so we're talking about troponin for the uh detection of the early onset of a heart attack or inflammatory biomarkers in both those cases uh we have a proof concept data uh in that area so uh I think there's a really interesting inflection point taking place in the world of wearables. Uh because not only are they going to be far more powerful in a in a clinical

setting for a whole bunch of different things beyond glucose also nextgen will be minimally invasive for glucose as well with but in addition to that uh the

utility it will be much broader as well pushing more into a term that I don't really like because it's it sort of doesn't capture the thrust of it but consumer application. So when we're wearing it to to get real-time readouts that actually can change our behavior before we get sick. — Yeah. And I was thinking so the there's really like that or in your vision there's really like a possibility to have one platform to measure different types of biomarkers like at once or sequentially because at the moment it's always let's say a focused focused like bioarker that's measured by one type of device and so you have to wear different

things on your body. Um, I find that interesting because I've I don't know if I've had that sort of um yeah, perspective before. — Well, that's right. Uh, so where it's all heading is um I'll give you an analogy. Do you remember I'm reaching for another another device now, something totally different. Uh, one of these things, right? — So, before before them, we all carried around a whole bunch of different devices. We had an MP3 player. we had something else for this some and so we had all these different things and then it got all put together and shrunk down to one one platform and there sort of a couple of tribes now there's

the you know there's the Apple thing and then there's there's everyone else but uh but it's simplified down and what I see over time isn't a situation I don't think people want to wear a multitude of wearables uh what they do want is um uh something that's integrated uh that can be multimodal right — from from the same sensor. I think that's the the convergence point that we'll be working towards. Certainly, our platform has the capability conceptually to do that. We've not tested for that right now, but over the horizon, uh that's where it's going. And then the next part of that is not just sensing, but releasing the therapeutic in real

time. So, it's uh I think that will be very very very powerful. Mhm. And so what are the next steps for you as a as a company? So you mentioned there's there are some clinical trials ongoing. Um I think on the website I saw that there was an intent to have the device marketed maybe from a consumer perspective in 2026. Um can you give us a bit of um yeah of an idea of what's on the horizon for the coming years? — Uh so yes, we've completed the the clinical trial to demonstrate that the technology works. Uh we also have a manufacturing system that's up and running uh here in Brisbane uh that

allows us to make 30 million of our sensors at a unit cost of just a handful of cents per per sensor. So that's really important as well. So there's the design for manufacturer and and it's been clinically proven. So what's in front of us right now is the product development to shrink it all down uh to the the product form uh function. And where we're beginning uh is uh we're beginning with elite athletes because we get ultra high changes. — Yeah. Through through think of elite athlete as a formula 1 engine of health, right? So uh we're getting big swings, big signals. So for a given individual uh the training for the algorithm is is

much much greater. They send themselves through much greater ranges of — uh so dynamic signals. So that's where the journey begins. But then we move into volume markets such as the uh mining sector as well as uh military and then into health uh into the clinical markets. But something very important to say is that uh those very first pathways I was telling you about do not require regulatory approval. — Yeah. — So that means we we have a a rapid pathway to uh getting our sensor out there for people to use it. — Yeah, for sure. and also generating I think it's like generating revenue to fund potentially also the whole

certification process. I've seen this like in other companies I think it makes a lot of uh a lot of sense. Um so you mentioned you know that the first target group would be you know elite athletes and you mentioned F1 so Formula 1 and I've noticed like you know many that you're working with a local local former F1 expert who is Mark Weber um I think he joined uh the company you know as an investor and as a strategic partner. I wanted to ask you, you know, as a F1 enthusiast and at the time where Mark was racing, I I was more into Formula One, so to say, I was in my teenage

years. um how is it to to work with him and you know um what what insights does he bring you know to the company as you know that former elite athlete in a discipline where it's known uh you know I think they always say you know the the rate the drivers lose like you know multiple kilos of water over the time of a race so I understand it's very relevant for for that discipline — oh it is uh so Mark um Mark Weber he's obviously you know him uh well as as a Formula 1 uh enthusiast. So he um he has a lot of personal professional experiences with hydration that he talks

openly about. Uh as one example uh he had an accident at Monaco where his car hit the wall at high speed and in the post analysis uh they found that he was dehydrated and that affected his brain function. Yeah. — Uh so one of the ways hydration impacts us is that when we're dehydrated only by 3% as an example, it has the same effect on the way the brain works as being uh effectively drunk with alcohol. So over the blood alcohol limit. Uh so that's so that's quite significant uh in in those settings. So Mark identifi Mark Weber identified that. So we we came to know each other. So he came on as an investor

and then uh also as a strategic partner and as a strategic partner he's advising us on uh general needs of hydration but also for elite athletes in particular motorsports but he works in uh endurance sports in many many domains and working with him is very interesting because uh you're gaining uh an insight into how elite athletes look at things and how they carry how the true the truly elite athletes highest level uh go about things. Uh so I find that very very interesting. Uh he's uh his perspective on on how how he approaches things. Uh it's it's very interesting. And of course he's active now in a different way uh in

the sense of course physically he's active still he's very fit individual but uh in his capacity as Oscar Pestre's manager uh there at McLaren. So uh there's that potential channel uh there probably just one other thing I'll say is um uh what we do at where Optimo is uh it's kind of like an extreme sport. Yeah. — Yeah. — So, we're doing something that's never been done before. We're taking things to limits and um and so if you want to be in an extreme sport, you need to be an extreme athlete. So, in our technical way, in our worlds, that's that's what we are. So, we see quite a lot of

similarities. obviously not as accomplished as as Mark Weber, but um but when I look at some scientists I've worked with over the years as well, the old the the very very high-flying ones, more similarities and differences is what I'd say. So, as just one example on our advisory board at Optimo uh is Professor Bob Bob — from the MIT. Yeah. — Yeah. Yeah. And um uh for those not in the world of MIT etc might be familiar with him but I think people have heard of the Madna vaccine

and many others he's considered one of the probably the most successful engineer there's ever been. So uh working with him directly again it's very similar. Um the ego is not really there. But we play we play what's in front of us rather than we're not worried about what what we think in terms of how our feelings if that makes sense. So we're just playing playing the problem or whatever the situation is. And I I I really find that uh inspiring. — Yeah. Must be super inspiring and and motivating to be to be surrounded by such people. Um you know I wanted to ask you as well like you know have

working you know closely on um in that space of you know hydration measurement like how do you what do you do to stay hydrated like how do you have like practical tips for listeners like do you wear the device yourself because that's always the problem like I was referring to these apps at the beginning where they just tell you drink you know x time and it's hard to actually know when you're hydrated over hydrated or dehydrated and so I thought if you can leave us with some practical tips that would be helpful. — Well, of course, I I'd love to say wait for our sensor to be on the market, but

it' be a little while. Uh I think I think uh get it into your thinking uh is is how how I'd approach it. I admire the way uh as one example, the Austrians drink coffee. Uh so — uh when they're there in Vienna, they have their their coffee served, but they also have water served. — Yeah. — With them as well. And so make that just part of part part of your habit that uh you're you know when you get up in the morning um it's it's a good idea to have a glass of water just to get started uh because you've been slowly dehydrating through through the night. Uh don't I mean when people say uh when

you're thirsty it's too late they are right thirst the thirst sensation only really kicks in when you're massively dehydrated. — Yeah. Uh it's make it part of your your

hab I think it's it's about social behavior. Make make it part of your social behavior. Perfect. So there's always a couple of recent questions I ask at the end of you know every episode. Um the first one would be you know around the the resources you would recommend us uh you know for us to learn more about the field in which you work. So it can be you know books, publications, websites, anything that you know you you you would recommend to our listeners. — Good. Uh so I'd recommend a paper that uh was published uh not by us but another group uh by Dimmitria and um I'll provide the the information but

sure it was in nature reviews nefrology uh in 2024 and it really gets across the scale of the the hydration problem when I referred to before about half of a society so it's half of Americans are chronically and mildly dehydrated and if it was effectively if it was his own disease is uh hydration would be up there with diabetes — if it was classified as a disease. So I think that's that's a very if you only read one paper uh on the scale of the problem of hydration uh I'd read that one and in addition to that with our works being worked up for publication unlike my academic career in the past

where I was putting out publications left right and center it's a different game now so we're we're patented well uh that's for sure but uh because it's a commercial thing as well uh our publications following a different pathway so it'll be coming out soon but we're not published on that just yet. — All right. Yeah. So, I'll put the the links in the show notes. Can you share with us an anecdote from your work at Where Opimo that you know made you realize the impact that you you were having on on people's lives maybe through the trials or some other um stories. — So, there there's a few I think uh if I

go back to the formation of where Optimo how it started. So, uh it sort of there's a couple of things that took place. One is I was doing a sbatical over at uh Boston Harvard MIT with with Bob Bob Langanger back in 2015. And so around that time uh

the earlier versions of these — and I could immediately see uh their limitations and with my knowledge of uh the skin uh that the need for next generation wearable. So, I could see that. And then not long after that, when I was back in Australia, uh one of my my close relatives uh an elderly uh individual had a heart attack. And I remember going to hospital and being the first family member there. And I was astonished by the the complete lack of useful information uh that was there. They needed to take a blood draw and they needed to wait six hours for the results to come back. — By then, the body's already moved on.

And there's so I just could not believe the the level of gaps there and that really uh hurried me along to think okay we we need to come up with some some better ways to to address this is it's just unacceptable. Uh so that that was an important stimulus in in what we're doing with uh uh the formation of the business. And I think aside from that, within the business itself, uh what what really excites me is uh I've been fortunate to to work with amazing people that have mentored me over the years and learning their art and and I've been forming my own way of going about things. And so I've brought in younger

uh — staff members, engineers, scientists, etc., and giving them that that that knowledge. Uh so what we call innovation apprenticeships and that that excites me a lot because um not only of course will opt to succeed, it will but we're training the next generation on how to do this uh as well. So they'll go out and uh be be brave enough to to form their own companies to tackle some of these big problems. And I think I think that's really important. — Thanks for sharing that. Um, if you would recommend a fellow healthcare innovator as a potential guest for the podcast, um, who would that be and why would you recommend her or or

him? — Well, I did talk about Bob before. I think Bob Langanger would be amazing for you to talk to. Uh, I think if you love Formula 1, as you do, — uh, also on my advisory board is Luke Bennett. And, uh, he works with Peter Ratia, right? — Yes, he does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and but Luke um uh was effectively the medical doctor for 16 of the 20 Formula 1 drivers. Uh so they don't have the title of chief medical doctor in Formula 1, but he was effectively it. So uh I think you really enjoy uh conversations with Luke uh as well. There are two that come to mind. uh others that I've had the

privilege to work with uh I'd say the creators of the Oxford Astroenica vaccine for the pandemic. Uh so — Adrien Smith and uh Sarah uh I had the privilege of working with them when I was over at Oxford — and here in Brisbane Australia had the privilege and still continue to work with all these people but here in Brisbane um Professor Ian Fraser the inventor of the HPV vaccine. No sir. Okay. He's he has a really interesting journey and story as well. — Really nice. Yeah. So I'll I'll try to to reach out to those and see if they would. — Thank you so much then. No, thank you so

much Mark. I think it was really really interesting. I was really happy that we could you know explore this world of you know hydration wearable and what it how it works what it would mean and what it might also change know for us once once this hits the market and it's available and I wish you you know a lot of success in that regard. — Um so yeah thank you so much — and I have a question if that's okay. — Uh did anything surprise you from this conversation? I I think what surprised me the most was the this idea of having you know one platform for sensing different bio

biomarkers because what I've seen in in my work um all the most of the devices are always quite specific for one one type um be it you know regardless of the sensing method if it's like optical or chemical or something else um and so to

me that's that's one of the the biggest takeaways case. I would say as as a as a concept and I hope it works out because I think it's also from a user experience perspective, it's probably easier to just wear one thing and be able to sense different things than have one one sensor here, one sensor here, have a wrist band, have like a I don't know blood pressure measurement sensor here. — Yeah, that's right. And so there's that wearability issue and tied in with that is most people just don't like needles as well. So yeah, get getting past that in combination with those things. I think — yeah, it's a pretty exciting time.

— Uh I just uh I just wish we were out on the market already as — Yeah, that's how it goes. Yeah, but I think from a also from a trend perspective when we there's more and more focus on like longevity and so on and I think people are more and more conscious about you know tracking health metrics and so on. So I think there's definitely a demand you know for and hydration I think there's probably also going to be this sort of recognition that oh we actually have no easy ways as individuals to measure it. If we could measure it like this, I think this would change a lot of things and because for

now you're just relying on your own impressions of how your body feels and it's hard to, you know, leverage some clear insights about your your current hydration status. — Good. Yeah, I think you summarized that well. Thank you. I I really enjoyed the conversation. — Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks for watching the episode. I hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe by clicking on the podcast channel at the top right and watch another episode here at the bottom.