Early Signals: How Abbott Is Rethinking Cancer Screening

You know the drill - there are certain cancer screenings that you can identify almost immediately: mammograms, colon screenings, Pap tests, and lung cancer screenings for those at high risk of developing the disease. Yet, what about the other various forms of cancer that do not come with routine screening protocols? David Harding, the Senior Vice President of Pipeline Product Management at Abbott, shares how multicancer early detection testing is changing the game with a simple blood draw.

Cancerguard®, a prescription-based test, analyzes for up to 50 cancer types and subtypes. The test analyzes for the presence of methylated DNA fragments from tumors and the proteins released by those tumors. These biomarkers return test results and tell the patient whether cancer signals were detected. This further underlines the importance of undergoing routine cancer screenings regardless of the test results.

Beyond the science behind the Cancerguard® test, there’s the more emotional component to cancer testing: the fear of the testing, the anxiety of potential cancerous diagnoses, and the role of care navigators in assisting cancer patients in taking the next steps in their treatment journey. Additionally, he discusses the challenges of taking a molecular diagnostic test to market, how the test is currently available, and has not yet received FDA approval, and the long-term efforts to fund research and development of the test.

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Early detection can change everything in cancer care. 🧬 

David Harding, Senior Vice President of Pipeline Product Management at Abbott, shares how new testing approaches are expanding what’s possible in screening.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Screening Must Change

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. And today I have the pleasure of having David Harding here. He has quite a long title, so I think I'm going to read that today. He is Senior Vice President of Pipeline Product Management at Abbott Wow. Welcome, David. Thank you very much, George. It's a pleasure to be here today. Well, we were looking forward to meeting you because there are a lot of new developments going on in your industry. And I thought it would be great for us to hear about this innovation that you're involved with. Can you talk a little bit about cancer screening and how it's going to change fundamentally in the future?

SPEAKER_02 0:54

George, as you know, today we screen for four cancers, right, as a standard of care. We screen for cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and for high-risk individuals for lung cancer. But that's only four cancers. There are many other types of cancers that can happen to us, right? And so we want to be able to screen for many more cancers, right? Today, we only screen for about 30% of the cancers that are ultimately found in the United States. We want to be able to open that up and screen for those 70% of other cancers that are occurring, you know, just as symptomatic or or in some other way, so that we can really advance the detection of cancer.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

So you've recognized that there's a challenge. There are so many different cancers out there. Yes, there's there's individual ways of doing it, but apparently there's another method that's going to reveal this a way to better diagnostic all these other cancers. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Introducing CancerGuard’s Blood Test Approach

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, so just recently we launched a test called Cancer Guard. And that test is a simple blood test that can potentially identify 50 different types and subtypes of cancer. And it's a, you know, you get it as a prescription from your doctor, healthcare provider, you get your blood drawn, they send it to our lab, and we analyze it to identify, you know, potential signals of cancer that may exist in your body.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

That's a major improvement over the past. I mean, if if you look at the history of cancer and whatnot, I mean it used to be there's a lump, what's this all about? And now you're going into the blood and find this problem before it really turns into a major problem.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

You know, from my own personal experience, you know, I I know how important this is. About 14 years ago, my wife found a lump under her armpit, and we went in and had it diagnosed and biopsied, and it turned out to be stage four melanoma. Oh my goodness. And, you know, we didn't have a lot of options at that point, right? She had uh immunotherapy that helped her for a period of time. It made her feel better and it slowed the progression of the cancer, but ultimately about 18 months later, after you know, lots of therapy, lots of surgeries, and a lot of pain, she passed away. So, you know, detecting those cancers earlier, right, before they get to stage four, is so vitally important. I'm sorry to hear that, David.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

But I can see why this work is so important to you now.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

You know, that has been a prime motivator for me to be involved in cancer screening for the last 20 years. Hopefully it's going to help a lot of people in the future, right? Yes, indeed. That is the aim.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

All

The Biomarkers Hidden In Blood

SPEAKER_01 3:25

right. Well, can we talk a little bit broadly speaking about the work that's going on at Abbott to try and figure out how to do this?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

So we've been developing this test for about 10 years, right? We've been taking the best knowledge from leading academic medical centers, and we've been incorporating this into a very simple blood test that you know can identify a couple of different types of signals in your body that are indicative of cancer presence. So we look at two particular biomarkers. One of them is cancer-associated proteins, the other is what's called a methylated DNA marker. And I can explain a little bit more about what that means. Please do.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Okay. I think our audience would need a little more explanation.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

So let's imagine that you have a cancerous tumor developing in your body, right? That cancer is going to have cells that break down and die. The DNA that's within those cells gets shed into the bloodstream, right? So if we can find those minute fragments of DNA in your blood and identify them as being associated with that cancer, then we can say, hey, there is one signal, right, that is associated with cancer that might potentially indicate that you've got a cancer. The other thing that a tumor does is it throws off proteins, right? Specific kinds of proteins. And again, when we examine your blood, we can identify those proteins and say, hey, there's a cancer-associated protein in your bloodstream. Between those two signals, we can identify whether a tumor might be present.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Wow. So I imagine behind the scenes a lot of people trying to figure all this out, right? Yes. And let's say in laboratory conditions, research and development, how many people are we talking about working on this behind the scenes to finally come to a conclusion that you could take this approach to the blood and find this advantage?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, I mean, over the course of time we've probably had about 250 people working on it at any given time. And again, that's been over a five, six year period that we've been working on this. So a lot of folks in a lot of disciplines coming together to make this happen.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

You know, I don't I think a lot of people just don't really understand the amount of effort it takes. You know, once you once you identify a problem, well, is that an opportunity or is that just something that's going to stay in academia for a while? But to make a commitment financially, hire the right people, get into that lab, start identifying a better way to do something. I I we understand that very well here, and I think this is a this is a very interesting development.

From Blood Draw To Algorithm Result

SPEAKER_01 5:56

So let's talk about when we draw the blood, what happens next?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah, so that blood is drawn, right? You either get that blood drawn, you know, in your provider's office, or we can send somebody to your home to get that blood drawn. That'll be sent off to our lab in Madison, Wisconsin. It will be processed and analyzed, first of all, you know, in a laboratory environment, and then we take these signals that we identify in the laboratory and we put them into an algorithm, right, that is able to look at all these different signals and determine whether you've got a positive case or a negative case, right? In the case of a positive, we would say, hey, you need to get further evaluation and diagnosis to confirm that there is a cancer there or rule it out. If it's negative, you go back into your regular screening protocol. So, you know, go back to getting your mammogram, your colorectal cancer screening like cola guard or colonoscopy, or or doing your PAP testing as the case may be. So, you know, we want to make sure that people continue to stay up to date with their standard of care screening in addition to getting this multi-cancer early detection through Cancer Guard.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

It sounds like it it the process is becoming so much easier for the general consumer to participate in this. It makes sense that people are going to check more often. Is that what we're starting to see? Are you are you getting indicators from the market that consumers are starting to see this as a strong advantage?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Absolutely. You know, when we listen to individuals that go into their doctor's office, right, many of them are asking, hey doc, you know, I know you can screen for these four cancers that we typically screen for, but what about all the other cancers that are out there, right? What about pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer and some of these other very aggressive cancers that, you know, that people hear about and get worried about because they see their friends, you know, having these cancers and really being impacted by them. So there is a very large demand for getting this alternative type of screening that can really broaden the spectrum of cancers that are detected. People are going in, they're asking their doctors about it, and we're making it as easy as possible to get that

Demand For Broader Screening Options

SPEAKER_02 7:58

tested.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

I like that whole concept of what's going on here. I but I I need to ask you a few more questions about, you know, your path in life, I mean, your and what you do as a pipeline product management person. Yeah. So can you walk me through what that means so the audience understands what your responsibilities are?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

Yeah, I mean, in essence, I lead the entire multicancer early detection business at ABIC. But more specifically, that means working with the RD teams to understand how the technology is evolving. It means working with our laboratory teams to build all the machinery and mechanisms and processes so that we can routinely and accurately test people. It means working with our IT systems folks because we're getting a lot of information from the blood. We have to process that, put it into algorithms, and then make sure that those test results get back to patients in an efficient manner. It means working with manufacturing folks who build the chemicals and reagents that are able to identify these small pieces of DNA and these proteins in the bloodstream. And then it means working with product and marketing teams that will allow us to not only design and configure the product, but also communicate it effectively out to potential patients and individuals who will use the test. So it's really a broad-based team that we're orchestrating here to bring all this wonderful product to life.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

That makes a lot of sense. So you're communicating between all these different pods of technical developer type people, everything from marketing to RD.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And at any one of those steps, if anything comes apart, it's a problem. It extends your launch to market, it creates so you you kind of go in there and smooth out the bumps and figure out a way to get people to get the job done.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Yeah, really what we're doing is trying to identify problems and then figure out ways to solve them together. So, you know, it is about being creative in that problem solving. It's about being curious about what could possibly be done better and and how do we keep innovating. So it really is about building that teamwork and a joint problem solving approach.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Sounds like good leadership all the way around. So well done.

What Happens After A Positive

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So let's talk about Cancer Guard in particular now. Can you talk about how it works so our audience can come to understand this new this new process, technology, innovation? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

So again, going back to you know, you've got a potential tumor in your body, right, and shed these little pieces of DNA that are highly associated with that cancer, right? And we're going to go in there and we're going to detect those those pieces of DNA and as well as the proteins that are associated with that tumor. Again, it goes through that laboratory process, we identify how strong that signal is, right? Do we have a strong enough signal to say yes, indeed, we believe you have a cancer signal in your bloodstream, right? If we do, and and the data supports that, we will, you know, basically say, hey, that looks like a cancer signal detected. It's a positive signal. So in that case, right, the the patient would go to their doctor, their primary care physician, or or other healthcare provider, and we do kind of a thorough workup of that patient, right? We want to take a look at their blood, we want to understand their personal history and if there are any personal risk factors, and then we're going to send that patient into full body imaging, right? So that we can scan your body, you know, kind of neck to thigh and see if there's anything in there, right, that looks like a cancer. And you know, once we've done that, we can definitively identify where that cancer is located and then off to treatment.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

So, David, who might benefit from Cancer Guard?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Generally, we say individuals who have other risk factors, they might be considered at their physician's discretion. So things like, hey, you have a familial risk of cancer or maybe some environmental exposures that might predispose you to cancer, right? At your physician's discretion, you might also consider Cancer Guard.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Is there ever a possibility in the future that maybe I could draw my own blood at home and send it to the company and have them analyze it?

SPEAKER_02 11:57

It requires a fairly large amount of blood. So there are systems where you can you know sort of attach a little button to your arm and get a small amount of blood, but you know, this requires a venous blood draw. Okay. And so it needs to be done by a phlebotomist.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Okay, so we're still going in there. We're still, yes. All right, so how do we explain the signal in blood to a patient?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah, again, I think it it's easiest to basically say, look, there is a tumor there, right? If there's a tumor there, it is going to be shedding biomarkers into the bloodstream, right, that that sort of give us a clue that there is cancer there, right? It's either those small fragments of DNA that are coming out from dying cancer cells, or it's the proteins that are being shed by that tumor that are very specific to that particular tumor type, right? So that's what constitutes the signal that we're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

And if we were to go back in time and say, you know, somebody's doing analysis, and but somebody came up with the idea to identify you know what's floating in the blood there as a dead cell.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

And do you have the history on how, like, where did that idea come from? Was there a particular person that came up with that concept, or how did that come about?

SPEAKER_02 13:19

I mean, there are two scientific founders that are very closely associated with our product. One of them is Dr. David Alquist from the Mayo Clinic, the other one is Dr. Burt Vogelstein from Johns Hopkins University. And those two individuals in different ways and and in different times conceptualized this idea of we should be screening for many more cancers than we are today. They were also real pioneers in identifying some of these biomarkers that we know are highly associated with cancer. And so I can't give you the deep history of each of their academic progress, but those two and and their associated laboratories were really, really important in identifying these particular biomarkers and how they are connected to cancer.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, I'm just curious. You know, our audience is a you know, it's a curious type of audience that we have. And you know, I wish I like it's almost like, don't you wish you could be there with Thomas Edison when he's in the lab and figuring out all that? It would be very interesting to be in the lab uh conditions with those two gentlemen and coming up with the idea of well, maybe there's something floating in the blood, and if we could identify that, that might be something that we could standardize and identify. That that to me would be a great moment to be a part of, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yes, yes. I c I can only imagine, and I was I've been privileged to meet both of those gentlemen, and they are really remarkable innovators and pioneers in their spaces.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, it's great to see their ideas are now scaling and going to help everybody. So that's hats off to those guys. Yes,

Fear Factor And Care Navigation

SPEAKER_01 14:48

indeed. All right, so let's um talk a little bit more about you know how how do you address the fear factor that patients may have that would be hesitant to do a screening like this?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yeah, I think it's very natural for patients to feel a little bit of apprehension when you're going in for any kind of medical test, right? You're never sure quite what you know the outcome is going to be from that. And I would say to that, you know, yes, totally, you know, understand that anxiety. I would also say, you know, George, we live in a world where, you know, as we're driving around in our cars, right, we have all sorts of systems that are telling us, you know, hey, you're too close to this car, there's something in your blind spot, or look out for this, or look out for that, right? It's good that we have that knowledge, right? It helps us to avoid accidents.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

And I think similarly for our health, we want to have as many signals as we can, right? As many warnings as we can that will help us to identify potential risks to our own health. And so, you know, when I think about this type of cancer screening, I say, wouldn't you rather know? I mean, I think back to my own personal experience, right? Wouldn't I have rather known that my wife had stage two disease rather than finding it at stage four?

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Because when I have it at stage two, I have a lot more options. I have a lot more ways to treat, I have a lot more flexibility, and I have a lot more time. So this is all about giving more knowledge to more individuals so that they can be proactive about managing their health.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Yeah, I like that analogy, you know, because you're right. I mean, the cars today they do they feed us all these signals. It's so natural now. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I'm I've never been a person that like goes to the doctor's office and gets nervous about things. I just have this trust factor, I think, is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

But I do know some people that are scared to go in. And I don't know, maybe they've maybe they think there's something going on naturally.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah, and and and I think you know they they are worried, but you know, we also provide you know services that will help a person who has a positive test kind of navigate through the next set of processes, right? So as part of our service, we say, hey, if you're positive, we have a care navigator that's going to help you make sure you get the right care from your clinician that gets you to the next steps of imaging, and that will also be there to talk you through any anxiety that you're having, right? Because this is as much a mental anxiety thing as it is anything else. And so those care navigators are there to you know help us work through that process if in fact we do have a positive patient.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

I've had blood drawn too. I mean, when we donate blood, you know, that's it's not painful. Yeah. I'm not afraid of that situation. We've done that for ages. Yeah. And it is it similar to that same kind of is that how they're getting blood out of the body and for analysis?

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yep, it's it's very similar to your routine blood work that you would do for any other medical test. So yeah, we're we're drawing your blood in in a very similar way.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

So there you go. Fear factor should go down, right? All right, well, let's let's take another question or two here.

Career Advice And A Stage One Win

SPEAKER_01 17:57

So we've covered early detection by doing the by pulling the blood. What do you think is the most important advice that you could give anyone looking to get into your field?

SPEAKER_02 18:09

I would just say be curious and study a lot of different things. You know, I started as an engineer in the aerospace world, I evolved into business, and then ultimately that led me to medical technology. But I would say just study a wide variety of things, right? Whether it's medicine, engineering, biology, history, right? I mean, all of those things are really, really important. And then learn how to work with and lead people. That is probably the most important thing, right? Is is just learning how to be a good problem solver and a good leader. So, and how many people are you responsible for at Abbott? Oh gosh, I mean, directly reporting to me are only eight people, but you know, I have a very broad team of you know over 250 people that whose efforts I'm trying to coordinate on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

So the leadership principle of how you get things accomplished that falls on your platter. Yes, exactly. So I agree with you. I think it's stay curious, explore different fields. Because it's very interesting. You started in engineering.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

So you have a mathematical mind, and then you've applied it in other ways that now you're in leadership now. Yes. So that journey is very I think that's a good life, right? Staying curious and trying to figure it out as you go, but stay educated and see where your life can take you.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

Gives you a lot of variety, right? If you can do lots of different things throughout your life, lots of different challenges, it's very, very fulfilling.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, it sounds as though you found yourself in a place where, you know, you got you're chasing a noble goal, a noble cause, right? If you can make a good impact on people's lives, it's probably pretty easy for you to get out of bed in the morning and go to work. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

I'm highly motivated by this. And, you know, I'm motivated in particular by a story of one of our colleagues who took the cancer guard test uh when it was first available. She was kind of otherwise healthy. She got a positive cancer guard test and was worried, of course. She was a little bit nervous. She went in to see her doctor, they did a CT scan and found a fairly large tumor on her ovary. Luckily, as they went in and biopsied it, they found that it was just a stage one tumor, right? Terrific, right? Terrific outcome. And through a simple surgery, she is now completely free of cancer, right? So it took about eight weeks from the time she got a positive cancer guard test to the time that she was fully cancer free. And this is the kind of story, right, and the kind of impact that we can have when people get tested for cancer using the cancer guard test. And it's the kind of thing that makes me supremely motivated every single day.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah. I imagine so, and probably for everyone on your staff too, they know they're making a contribution, right? Yes. Something to get up, get up and go do every day. Yes, make progress. So thank you for that.

From Academic Idea To Commercial Test

SPEAKER_01 21:00

From the field of invention and moving it through the process of you know thought of an idea to building a prototype to manufacturing and then out into marketing. Can you talk a little bit about like how the inventing process works at Abbott and how an idea comes to see the day, you know, light of day?

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Yeah, I mean, in this case, we started with an idea that that was developed in an academic laboratory, an academic medical system. And you know, we licensed some of that technology and acquired a smaller company that had been built off of some of those technologies. We also have very deep partnerships with our academic partners, and so we're collaborating that with them in those early phase discoveries, right? And then we look at those problems and we say, okay, where is there a need, right? Where is there an unmet medical need that we can potentially solve with this technology? So it starts with what's possible, right, and what's doable from a biological standpoint. And then it goes to where is the need, right, among patients, among clinicians, and how do we solve that need? And then ultimately those things kind of come together. We build the technology, we harden it, we make it scalable, and put it in our laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, where we can test millions of people theoretically. And then we research it, right? So, you know, this all doesn't come without a deep set of data that surrounds it. So there's a ton of research, there's a ton of experimentation that takes place, and then we ultimately have to try it out on samples from human beings and see if it works. We do that, we get confident that we have a proof of concept and that we've demonstrated it with sufficient robustness, and then we start rolling it out to you know actual live human subjects and see where that data takes us from there. We can then move to commercializing that. So that's the overall process.

Regulation Funding And Scaling The Rollout

SPEAKER_01 22:57

So, David, I was curious about you know how CancerGuard is going to get commercialized from this point.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, it's a really great question, George. First of all, what I want to say is this test is what we would call a lab developed test, right? It's it's certified by our laboratory according to certain regulations. It is not yet FDA approved. Okay. Um, so it's important to note that. But in terms of the commercialization, we are out in the market now, and we do that in a couple of ways. First of all, we have a very large sales team that's calling on health care providers, right? Think about your primary care provider. We have a team out there that's educating those providers on what the cancer guard test is and what broadly what multicancer early detection is and why it's important. We also have teams calling on health systems so that health systems are prepared to interface with potential Cancer Guard patients. And you know, we also have a lot of web capability where we're educating patients on the web. Patients can even come in and order directly on CancerGuard.com through our telehealth providers. So those are the ways that we are educating consumers and healthcare providers as well as health systems to be able to manage these patients and really respond to the big demand that's out there.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

You know, knowing that, I think I'm I'm curious too about how do we explain the benefits of what this can do. And also, you know, what are what m some of the risks might be? How do you cover that with a brand new product?

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Yeah, it it's really important that we start with, you know, what's the problem we're trying to solve, right? We're trying to screen for the 70% of cancers for which there is no standard of care screening today, right? That's big problem number one. Then we talk about, okay, Doc, wouldn't it be great if you could offer a solution to your patient that would allow them to detect these cancers and detect them earlier, where you can really start to uh treat them effectively. And so that's that's really the way that we start the education process. And similarly for consumers, we would ask a very simple question, right? Wouldn't you like to be able to screen for all these different types of cancers for which there is no screening available today, right? To really be proactive about your health or to respond to a situation where you might have heightened family risk, right? Maybe you have some relatives or or direct relatives that that have had cancer, or maybe you've been exposed to environmental influences that might make you more susceptible to cancer, right? Any of those risk factors might make you uh more appropriate for the cancer guard test.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

I see. So the like in the you know, just in the medical device field. Yeah, you know, we in our it invention land, you know, we s we're involved with that industry. And I and it whenever something's coming out, it's getting commercialized, yeah, usually there's like a government's involved with all sorts of regulat, you know, regulatory oversight and that kind of thing. So and sometimes you have to say certain words and phrases to make sure there's awareness. Is there anything that we would want to cover about you know this product?

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yeah, for sure. We want to be clear that as of right now, this is a lab-developed test, right? It is not approved by the FDA at this stage. And, you know, we we generally say, hey, this is for people between the ages of 50 to 84 or individuals who may have a heightened risk, either a family risk, a genetic risk, or some other environmental risk for for cancer. We will, as we move forward, do more studies that will eventually we hope get us to an FDA approval for this product.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Nice. So the commitment's there to get it done. Absolutely. So you're gonna move next you'd move to scale. Yes. You go to a factory, you have to mass produce, finance, f financial engineering, etc. Yes. So from a financial funding perspective, it c it's great to have an idea or an invention, but if you can't put that process all the way through and get financed properly, chances are pretty dim that you're gonna see the light of day at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, and medical technology development is a long process, right, as we've seen, right? I mean it it was sort of like ten years from you know idea to you know full commercialization in the case of Cancer Guard, and that's typically the case for a lot of technology. So you have to have that important financial backing to be able to make those investments over a long period of time. And we're very fortunate to have that.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Curious about how that comes down at Abbott. So you've got a board of directors, you've got a group of folks. How does capital get allocated so that you can go make this magic happen? Is that a board decision? Is that a divisional decision you make? How's that how's that happen?

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Well, we're relatively new to the Abbott family, and so I I can imagine you know what that looks like, but I will tell you how it has been historically, right? We basically say, hey, we've got a technology proof of concept, and we have an idea that we think can make a big impact for patients and for human health. With those two arguments, right, we go to our senior leadership, we go to our board and say, hey, we would like to invest in this project. We think it's going to take about this long and it's and it's going to take about this much, and we get that investment, and that investment is kind of given to us over periods of time as we deliver against our milestones and demonstrate more and more that this is a viable product. So it it's a stage-wise set of commitments, but it requires courage and it requires a big commitment up front to say, hey, we're going to take this big problem on.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Right. You better believe in it. Yes. And in the days of that emerging area, were you involved with telling the story of what could happen here and to bring them to bear on investing? Were you a part of that?

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Yes. We we originally acquired a company called Thrive. A number of years ago, I was a part of that diligence team that brought that that technology on. But since then, as I've been leading this business, you know, every six months, every year, right, we're asking for more investment. We're asking to make it bigger and better and more robust. And so, yes, we have to continue to tell the story, continue to talk about the patient impact that we can have, and that's how it gets done. Yeah. I want to thank you for being here with me today. It's my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Well, everybody, that's another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. Thanks, David. Thank you very much. See you next time, everybody. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Thank you for listening to this episode of Tomorrow's World Today Podcast. Join us next time as we continue to explore the world and create a tomorrow.