What Motivated Cathy Skinner of NxGen Port to Research and Focus on Cancer

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and author of the book Conscious Design. And today we have Kathy Skinner, CEO and co-founder of NextGen Port. You're working on making out-of-care patient experience more humane.

Yeah.

much better. And it's really good to have you on the show and be able to share exactly what you're doing.

Thanks, Ian. Good to be here.

So stepping back, everybody loves a good origin story. Can you share a little bit about how you got to the genesis of coming up with this company and the mission that you have?

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So the origin story starts with my own father. The way I describe it, 20 years ago, cancer came to my house. My dad was diagnosed with a type of cancer called multiple myeloma, and his diagnosis is what set me on a course to work in the cancer space. And NextGen Port is actually my 3rd cancer company. Because of my dad's cancer diagnosis and how that affected me and my family, I ventured into a space called cancer exercise specialist. So, what that means is I was trained to work with cancer patients doing a research-based exercise protocol. And my training also taught me about the cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, medication side effects. And understanding those consequences of the cancer treatment and the disease led me one day to work with a woman named Stephanie. While I was doing cancer exercise with Stephanie, she instead of improving was actually declining. In other words, she was looking pale, she had low energy, she just didn't look right. Instead of getting stronger through cancer exercise, she was declining. I could see under her chest that she had a port catheter implanted in her body because she was getting a drug that was fighting the cancer. We learned later after she went to the doctor, that the drug that she was on to beat her cancer was actually damaging her heart. And that's why she was looking terrible. And I was so frustrated and she was so frustrated that how could we not know sooner that her heart was declining, that her blood counts were off, and that it was actually taking her down a worse path?

Right.

And so, from my dad's journey to being a cancer exercise specialist, to working with Stephanie, That's where the idea of taking a port catheter that's in the body, putting sensors on it to make it smart, to detect earlier signs of adverse events really came together.

All right. Well, yeah, that would be very disappointing if the treatment is supposed to take care of you and take care of something terrible is actually causing problems. I feel like it's a no-brainer. Like, you've stumbled on a no-brainer though. If you're already putting something there, why not? Why not put some smart sensors on there to be able to tell you what's actually going on rather than like her, like, somebody waiting and seeing, oh, if you don't look good weeks later, we'll check it out and see if something's going on.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. So that's Kudos to you finding this and jumping on it. I'm surprised that nobody had ever thought of it before, but sometimes that's how ideas come about. It's really simple to just think about it. Now, your website, you guys talk about remote monitoring. So in addition to obviously being smart, it sounds like you're able to actually allow this remote monitoring, meaning you don't have to be— In person. You don't have to take you and your device into a hospital in order to get checked out. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits of that and what you're seeing as far as being able to do remote on that and how that's impacting? We talked about you have to drive in perhaps hours to get checked in, and now you're able to help alleviate some of that extra stress, which you don't want extra stress when you're on chemo. That's never a good thing to pile on.

Right, exactly.

Exactly.

You're hitting on our key component in terms of how we serve patients. So remote patient monitoring has really taken off because of COVID Right. And cancer treatment's been delayed, or cancer patients are reluctant to go into the hospital. And frankly, patients with all kinds of diseases and conditions are reluctant to go into the hospital and so— or to clinic. And so physicians and healthcare and insurance companies are looking desperately for ways to monitor patients remotely in their homes.

Right.

So the idea of taking NextGen Port, it's a combination company. So in one hand, we're a medical device hardware that's implanted in the body. On the other hand, we're a software company because the data generated from the port has to flow out to the cloud to be analyzed and then reported to patients and physicians so they can take action. So this notion of remote patient monitoring is beneficial for the patient because, like you said, right now a patient has to drive all the way into clinic and get their blood counts tested. If their blood counts are off, they get sent home without treatment. So it's—

Oh, really?

Frustrating for the patient. If their blood counts are off, they're not eligible for chemo, so they get sent home. And it's frustrating for the physician and the nurses and the hospital system because There's nobody sitting in the infusion chair. There's nobody meeting with the nurse, nobody meeting with the doctor. So it actually has diminished clinical efficiency.

Right.

So if you think about what NextGen Port could do by monitoring patients remotely, a patient like Stephanie could see that her blood counts are not trending in the right direction to get— be eligible for chemo. So a physician can take action. They can schedule a blood transfusion. They could add growth factor. They could reschedule Stephanie's appointment. And so there's a planfulness that is attached to knowing what's going on on a biological level. And then the chemo chair can be filled. The nurse can have the meeting. The doctor can talk to the patient. And so the clinical efficiency, not to mention the fact that research shows a 4-week delay in treatment creates a 10% higher risk of death for the patient, with subsequent delays pushing that risk even higher.

Right. So you're allowing, instead of them coming in for an assumed treatment that may or may not be able to happen, they're able to go, no, you can't do chemo. You need to come in to do X. You need to come in and do something else in order to help your blood levels so that you can then get your treatment. And not have this massive delay. Correct. Yeah. As a patient, that would be nice to not— that seems rather random, right? If you're just hoping that you can have a treatment, especially if you're driving for hours, that's kind of a—

Right. And think about the fact that as a cancer patient progresses, their ability to recover their blood levels decreases. And the other piece of the puzzle that we see early trends for is signs of infection. So the blood counts are off or the neutrophils are off. And then we can see— we're not diagnosing, but we're showing trends and signs for infection. That having a port catheter with optical sensors that count blood cells, also on our port are body temperature and heart rate. And so you combine those data points. A physician has a data package by which they can make an informed decision that shows how they can most effectively provide patient-centric care.

Got it. So you're able to provide more of a suite of data that allows more better decision-making from a doctor's standpoint than just, oh, your red blood cells are down and that's it. Right, that's a— that's, you know, useful, but not, not a packaged set of data to, to really cater. Are you looking at— because chemo treatment can take a while, right? It's not, not just a couple-week-long thing. So are you looking at longer-term kind of data? Are you— is that the goal, is to be able to start creating these, I'd say, profiles to be able to help? With, with this? Is that kind of where the software side of things is able to go?

Well, they already— the design is already in place that chemo ports can be in the body for up to 2 years.

Oh, wow.

It's already a longitudinal study. The other thing that I just think is going to be so valuable is imagine having a port implanted in your body that can get a baseline of where you're at before chemo starts to, you know, do a number on your body. So having this baseline to start before the impact, um, and frankly the damage of chemo occurs on the biological systems within the body.

So you'd be able to, as part of a pretreatment, get the implant Create a baseline and then even better know, are you handling chemo well? Is this still a good option right now? How is that working? And then 2 years is long. That seems much longer than a chemo treatment might be. Is the goal then to have this pretreatment and post to just make sure that everything's Going well still after? Is that kind of the 2-year mark? Is that the driving factor?

So there's a couple things going on. One, let's say it's a cancer patient who's been diagnosed with cancer for the first time. He or she could be on a chemo regimen that could take anywhere from 6 to 12 months. And so then the chemo port would be needed for that time allotment. And then some physicians have a philosophy that they want to keep the port in for an additional year in case the cancer comes back within the next 12 months. Some physicians and some patients feel after that first course of treatment that the chemo port can come out, and if cancer should reoccur, then another port would be implanted. So it varies by physician and it also varies by patient and Sadly, a breast cancer diagnosis in me would look different than the same exact breast cancer diagnosis in another woman because everyone's biology is different. And I think of one breast cancer patient that I did cancer exercise with, and she was a young woman. She was in her 40s, and she went on a chemo regimen, and everyone thought, you know, she's young, she's healthy, she has a great shot. She turned out to be allergic to chemotherapy. And it landed her in the hospital. And I was like, wow, what if we had had a SmartPort in her? I mean, we would have known really soon that she had an adverse event. There's just other ways that monitoring patients remotely could be a benefit because each cancer diagnosis is so unique.

Right. Yeah. We're— our bodies are also So we're all the same, but we're all also very different to what you're saying. Right. Same. The same cancer will show up differently and require a different treatment that's customized.

Right.

So that this port would allow that additional layer of making sure that you're customizing it and you're reacting properly to it.

One of our use cases is actually, and it's in a patent that we have submitted, is the utilization of the SmartPort for cancer research. So imagine a patient who volunteers to be on a drug trial having a SmartPort implanted.

Mm-hmm.

Then, then we could monitor their physiological changes over time in relation to this new intervention. And for remote— excuse me, virtual clinical trials have become very prominent now, as well as thinking about if you had someone with an implanted port, they could be several hours away from the hospital and still engage in the clinical trial. So all of a sudden, the patient pool for research grows because you can have people at a greater distance from clinic.

Mm-hmm.

And still get the biological measures on this new drug that's being tried.

Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on conscious design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brand's DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. I bet that would also help with diversifying the pool that you can get because it means that you don't have to have whatever daily transportation to even show up and drive into wherever the study is being conducted. You could decide that you only want to try it on people who don't live in a city. And have everybody, you know, get an implant once and get it removed once, and then it's— that's it. Which is way, way easier. Well, that would be— that would be definitely very beneficial in, uh, diversifying the studies that are done and being allowed, you know, getting more people that don't normally have access. You can probably make it easier. I would imagine it would make it a little bit cheaper too, and being able to manage not having to run physically, have people in a, in a facility just to do a study. If you're able to go about your daily business as usual and not even— and not have a special check-in blood draw to, to check things out.

Yep.

Well, that was awesome. That was an awesome use for this. Where, where else are you This seems very— it really applies across a broad range of things, even though it's at the same time very, very specialized. Is there anything else that this technology that you guys are looking at implementing it for, or people have interest in using it?

Absolutely. So we're starting with cancer because that's my area of expertise. Roseanne, our Chief Operations Officer, has 25 years of medical device experience specifically in oncology, and our Director of R&D, Mohammed, has experience also in cardiac and cancer. So as a team, we're starting there because that's our area of strength. The reality is the sensors that we're putting in the catheter of the port can be applied to other disease states where a catheter is in the vein of an arm or in a femoral artery or some other place in the body so that the sensors can be tracking those blood counts. The other interesting scenario that we've considered based on our time, we were at South by Southwest, which is where we met you.

Yep.

And we ran into a gentleman that's working for one of those companies that puts rockets into space. And he came by our table and he's like, what are you doing? I was like, we're making a device that you could put in the body of an astronaut to track their biology over time from a distance. And his head kind of went, well, I was like, yes, exactly.

Amazing.

I just think there's ways that by the time our product comes to market, which could take 4 years because it is a medical device, a 510 de novo. And if you're in the FDA world, you'll understand what that means.

Right.

Because it'll take a few years to get to market. By that time, the ethics and the social comfort of having a device implanted in our bodies that's gathering data on us will be acceptable. So, I think the timing of what we're bringing to market is going to work well because right now Everyone's cool with sending someone home that's attached to them or stuck on them, or they can wear it, which has levels of limitations and nuisance.

Right.

So this is something that would be in the body, and it's actually been planted in the body for decades. We're reimagining it, leveraging it in a new way for data collection and tracking. So by the time it comes to market, There's going to be, I think, a certain level of comfort and acceptance to leveraging something that's implanted that's collecting data on physiology.

Right. So you're looking at broadening into maybe not people that are having a life-threatening condition, right? And cancer is not good, but actually looking towards more of preventative or monitoring of You know, specialized, you know, like astronauts or—

Yeah.

Who knows, maybe, maybe some F1 drivers might want to have this. And for any of those high endurance things where you're, where you do need to be monitored very closely and being able to have something like this implanted. Now, would that, because part of what you're doing is it's a port, right? Is that an area you see like dialysis or other applications where something like this would be able to help with people who have to have something constantly put in them or something like that? Is that a space that's relative? Is that— that's okay.

Yeah. So one area of dialysis, and I'm not an expert in this area, so it's just one way that we've been told our device would be beneficial is the optical sensors in the catheter. Imagine they were in a fistula for someone who is every 3— every other day is going for dialysis. Well, part of the fistula flaw is that it starts to clog and the blood circulates less and less efficiently. And so they actually have to have an adverse event to realize that needs to be flushed or cleaned or fixed. And so our device would be able to monitor the blood flow and start to track trends to less efficient flow. It can be proactive. Again, it's getting ahead of anything before it gets really, really bad.

Right.

To let someone who's going through dialysis and let the provider know that care needs to be taken sooner rather than later. Even when it comes to cancer or diabetes or some of the chronic conditions to be managed, We're not saying that we're going to be 100% keeping people out of hospitals, but as we work with our physician at Mayo Clinic, the notion that we can decrease stays in the hospital is incredibly valuable, which means if we— someone might be trending in the wrong direction, yes, they still need to be admitted, but if they get admitted sooner rather than later, it's shorter stays in the hospital for them. And that would be a huge return on investment and a huge benefit to the medical system. And of course, the benefit to patients to alert them sooner that, yeah, you're not feeling well for a reason. Because some people don't always have that awareness.

Right. They're just like, oh, I feel sluggish today. And it's like, no, you actually need to go in. And this is something you need Yes. Need to take care of.

It's cross-validation to perception because some people are really in tune with their biology and some are not. And so it's, it's just, uh, yes, you're feeling bad for a reason. Yes, you need to take action.

Right. Yeah, I'm definitely, definitely more of a person that needs to be told I should go than one that's like, oh, I should, I should go into something because it's serious.

It's a wee bit of a male trait there, I'm just saying.

Oh yes, definitely, definitely is. Um, maybe just all the guys need one. Well, we'll reduce some problems. Okay, so that's, so that's great. You guys are— so really, your long-term roadmap, you have quite a few applications for this, being able to help, help people and monitor And make people's lives easier. Before we, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to share? Your technology is amazing. You guys are doing really great. I know you're, you're doing cap raising right now as part of your South by Southwest journey was to raise capital.

Yep.

And your pitch was great. I did watch it. watch it. So impressive, impressive what you're doing. Is there anything else you'd like to share? Anybody that's listening? Yeah.

Yeah, I would be remiss for all the listeners out there to not ask if you know of an investor that's written checks for medical device, or an investor who has a heart for the cancer journey. That if you have an interest in learning more about our investment opportunity, by all means, feel free to get in touch with me and be happy to share more of our story and more of our business model, um, around that fundraising effort.

Fantastic. And we'll make sure for everyone listening, watching, uh, in the description there will be links to everything, so it'll be easy to get a hold of Kathy and NextGen Pork. So, all right, with that, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking some time to share this and I really hope to see this really take off in a few years when the FDA finally says yes to you guys. I know it takes forever. I've done— I've worked on some products and it's a journey. Just the FDA part is a journey.

It is, but we're passionate and we're focused. And when you're fulfilling your mission and doing what you're supposed to be doing on this earth, There's some serendipity that comes and, and raises you up and carries our team along. So really grateful for all of that.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.