Early Detection, Accessible Diagnostics, and the Future of Health Innovation featuring Adam Jacobs

Today's guest lets us know that baseball, community, and exome all share the same fundamentals: timing, trust, teamwork, and catching things early. Welcome to The Connect Current, the flow of innovation in San Diego. We bring you the founders, investors, and leaders building the future across life science, tech, climate, defense, AI, and more. This is where San Diego's next chapter takes shape. Welcome to The Connect Current, the flow of innovation in San Diego. I'm your host, James Zanewicz, and this episode is being recorded at the UC San Diego Park and Market building. We want to thank them for that support. Today, I'm joined by Adam Jacobs, the president of Exome. Adam leads a San Diego-based company focused on early disease detection through a point-of-care platform with an emphasis on making diagnostics more accessible and easier to use. He also brings a broader background in mission-driven company building that we're going to dig into, as well as an interesting history in his career. We're also going to dive into that. And it makes this a great Connect Current conversation, not just about technology, but about the real-world discipline of turning innovation into impact. Welcome, Adam.

Thank you so much, James. And before we get started, I want to thank you and the whole Connect team for setting this up. We're also very proud at xHome to be named a Cool Company of 2026.

24 hours in, right?

We're fresh. New hot off the press. But the support you've given and Connect has given has been immeasurable to us. So I want to thank you and the team for that.

Well, likewise. And I'll say on a personal note, like, I feel like I've gotten to know you more than most people because we spent JPM together. And once you bond at JPM, you're brothers for life. Amen.

Amen.

All right. Well, so we did mention Exome, but for people hearing about Exome for the first time, what is the company building? What problem are you trying to solve? And why does it matter right now? It's a 3-part question.

So our goal is to bring a life-saving, life-changing technology to everyone, everywhere, via our point-of-care system, as you mentioned. Our Xceed platform at Exome allows for the early enough detection of disease, cancer, autoimmune, neurodisease, and beyond. It also is capable of monitoring, risk stratification, research, and more. How it works, we sit on 3 pillars. The first is our consumable cartridge that houses our proprietary patented technology, which is our core chip. The second is our device, which runs on a cell phone, which allows for us to keep costs down because we already have that supercomputer in our pockets every day. Why reinvent the wheel? And we use the optical system of the cell phone. Additionally, most importantly, is The cell phone's always connected, and so all of the data generated by the cartridge and by our device gets sent back home, and we can get smarter with every test. And the third piece is our AI algorithm that sifts through all the information generated and makes that appropriate call, whether that's healthy, sick, whether that's high risk, low risk, or a vector score depending on the indication. Additionally, in the future, wouldn't it be great if a system told you based on everything about you, your health history, your job, where you go, what you eat, family history, of what your top 10 risks are. And then it says, hey, based on that, you should test for these potential indications at this regular interval. And here's your next lower-down risk level of vindication.

And you have the ability to layer with other companies. How does that work for you, and how does that fit into your business model?

So first of all, the technology works by us being able to isolate and analyze exosomes out of the blood, and we look at the protein biomarkers. So as long as you know what the protein biomarkers are of a certain indication, we can search for those, and then make the appropriate call, whether it's healthy or sick, high risk, low risk, or a vector score, depending on the indication. With that, it allows us to partner with a number of different organizations, whether it be academic, commercial, or others, And early detection is obviously one of those spaces that is important, but it's also often crowded and technically hard.

And so you started to delve into this right now, but can you give us a little more information about the Insider approach that makes you different?

Absolutely. And one thing I'll say about early detection is we already have some great therapeutics out there that can cure disease. They just get deployed too late.

Right.

Why exosomes? First, they're more data-rich. They carry DNA, RNA, and proteins in and on them. Second, they're more abundant in the blood, which allows us to have a smaller sample volume needed for both a test, but also research at the front end. Imagine you have a very precious sample of some rare disease, and you don't want to burn it all on one R&D run. With ours, with a minimal sample size, you can have multiple runs and multiple shots on goal, as we like to say. And 3, exosomes are emitted from living cells, as opposed to, for example, DNA that's emitted from cells that have died. And so we're able to capture the signals being sent between cells earlier than you can with, say, DNA. For example, DNA is very good at detecting stage 3 or 4 cancer. With exosomes, we can see stage 1, or even what we like to call stage 0 in the progression of cancer, and obviously other diseases as well. So we can personalize the ability to detect disease, cancer, or issues in your body earlier. I mentioned exosomes. That is the core of what we do. And to date, there's been a lot of great research about exosomes, but that's where it's been stuck, in research. We can finally unlock that power of exosomes to get it out into the clinical world and make a difference. We like to say exosomes are what DNA was in 1995. You didn't have a tool or a platform to be able to take it out of the research lab and into the world. We can be that for exosomes too. And so here we are. Additionally, exosomes cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing us from a simple blood test to get unprecedented access to neuro conditions like Alzheimer's, traumatic brain injury, glioblastomas, and more.

And for listeners who aren't steeped in kind of the information behind this, that's something incredibly rare. The blood-brain barrier is something often talked about as the limiting factor for many technologies.

So this allows us to get access to those conditions unlike anybody else.

And so it's not only a commercial organization, but it's very mission-driven. And you have built and led mission-driven organizations before. So when you're building in health innovation, like right now, how do you balance that commercial reality with the desire to create societal impact?

First of all, having a mission-driven company at its core allows the entire team to wake up every morning with a purpose. So even when the days get hard, you know, at the end of the line here, we can help people. And in this case, we can save a lot of lives. How do you balance that with commercial reality? Look, if you can detect cancer, for example, earlier, the commercial reality's gonna come. And if we can show that we can save a healthcare system a lot of money because our product will be able to save lives and save long-term effects of folks, The commercial reality's gonna come. And so the more you can believe in a mission and all buy in together, the rest falls into place. Now, don't get me wrong, we have a business plan.

Oh yeah.

This is not some willy-nilly, we have a great idea. We have a business plan, we have a strategy, we have a commercial aspect to our business. It is a business, but at the end of the day, we are a mission-driven company.

Well, and I think you mentioned healthcare, and that's what's so important, 'cause most people don't realize that healthcare systems have like a 2 to 3% profit So any small incremental savings is transformational for those systems, both from terms of what they're able to offer and the lives they can save, which is really, really impactful.

No question. Right now, if you want to do a liquid biopsy, for example, it's very expensive. It detects too late, and the turnaround time is ridiculously slow. With our version, it's a quick turnaround time, under 30 minutes. We keep the cost down. It's less than $100 per test. Cartridge, and the ability to detect earlier allows for the ability to get into the current workflows that are out there and be able to save a lot of time, save a lot of money, and eventually, like I've said, save a lot of lives.

And you're able to do that— correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you're able to do this not only in like major medical centers, but also in smaller areas, rural areas, out in the field. Potentially your technology could work and impact lives.

Yeah, so our platform is a point-of-care capable design, so we can get it all the way to at-home use, all the way back to in the lab. It runs on a cell phone. We already have the supercomputer in our pockets, so why reinvent the wheel?

Right.

We use the optical system of the cell phone, and most importantly, cell phones are always connected. So all of the data generated on our decentralized point-of-care style systems comes back home so we can get smarter with every test run. And this allows for getting these into rural areas where, you know, some people have to drive hours to get to a hospital. That's not fair. We can get this out to their primary care physician's office, their local pharmacy, or eventually even at home.

I mean, it really is democratizing healthcare in a way.

We're democratizing healthcare. We're getting this to the people. We're getting this to the point where someone needs to know an answer quickly on a very complex situation. COVID's important. And they did a great job making that turnaround test in 15 minutes. If you want to find out if you're going into septic shock, if you want to find out that your therapeutic that you took for the cancer you've been diagnosed with is working or not, and you want to be able to test yourself at home every week to make sure that you're responding appropriately, these are the types of things that we want to be able to bring to the people.

So now we've gone pretty deep into Exome, but I do want to touch on one more thing beforehand. You kind of came in, and while the technology's been around for a while, you kind of restructured the company into what Exome is now. What was that experience like for you as a president and leader?

So having a very powerful technology like we do is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because it can do so much. It's a curse because it can take you in many different directions. And when we started Exome after a restructuring of a former company, as you mentioned, we laser-focused on building this platform and getting it to a point where it could be deployed to partners where they can develop tests on this. For a number of reasons. One, shortens our runway to commercialization, as we mentioned. But 2, we could get this out into the world making a difference faster than if we tried to do everything ourselves. And this way we also don't run into what some people call shiny ball syndrome.

Wow, that looks cool.

Wow, look at that. We can stay laser-focused on our platform, get these into the hands of partners who can develop tests that are going to make a difference in the world.

It definitely makes you more investible because that's what investors are looking for right now in this market, but still allows for that tremendous upside down the line if they invested in your company. So I think you've been very smart at how you've done that.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And with that, our team has been, as I mentioned, focused on this, but we are lean, we are efficient, we are working hard, and we see the vision of where this could go. And so I'm sitting here talking today, but I'm powered by a team of 25 or so folks that are working hard in the lab every day making the magic happen.

And you have a personally interesting background as well, so I want to dig into that too. You were a baseball player. You were a traditional business owner, I believe yoga studios. What can you tell us about that and how does that inform your role today?

I can tell you a lot. How much time we got? Yes, baseball's probably my first passion. I think I started throwing a ball and swinging a bat from a very young age. There's videos of that. Uh, I was fortunate enough to be recruited to play in college. I played at Cornell University. I was the catcher on the team and the team captain there at the same time. And credit to my parents, they always said, you have to have a backup plan. You never know, you're one play away from not being able to play the sport that you love. And I've been through several injuries in my life, 11 orthopedic surgeries. They were right.

You had just had one when I met you and I had no idea. It was crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

So with a business background from Cornell and playing on the team there set me up for a Pretty interesting trajectory after that. Speaking of injuries, my last game in college, I was supposed to get drafted by Cincinnati, but my last game in college got my knee blown out. Ivy League championship game, blocking home plate, you know, dramatic scene. Guy slides in, boom, there goes my knee. So came home, had surgery, rehab. I actually started a clothing line business while I was doing rehab.

I did not know this. Oh, I learned something every day.

I love this.

You have layers on layers. Yeah.

Then got back to playing again because I knew I wasn't done and I needed to try everything I possibly could to make it to where I believed I could get. And if I didn't get there, so be it, but at least I tried. So played around the United States in every small town you've never heard of, met some super interesting people from places that I've never heard of, ended up playing professionally also in Australia and Hawaii for a couple years.

Wow.

So got to learn that culture. Got to be around motivated folks.

Not a bad way to spend your younger days. Australia, Hawaii.

Agreed. You know what I learned a lot? What I learned was everyone who comes from a diverse background, nobody cares who you are, what your name is, where you're from, what color your skin is, what your beliefs are. Did you help us win today or not?

Mm-hmm.

And also, it takes every single person on the roster Not just on the playing field, the janitors, the equipment managers, the travel people to make a team successful.

Yeah.

I like to say, if you wanna win the World Series or you wanna win the Super Bowl, everybody all the way down needs to believe in that. Everyone from the star player on the team all the way down to the person who's there part-time mopping up the floors. Everyone needs to believe in the purpose of that company or that organization or that team to make it happen. I do truly believe that sports can teach more life lessons than anyone can learn in a book. When you play a sport, you might learn the actual skills of that sport, but you're actually secretly learning life skills that will carry you on the rest of your life.

And you've really restructured Exome kind of with that mentality in mind from our conversations before.

Agreed. Look, those principles carry over and it doesn't matter what the business is, whether it's biotech or you mentioned A former business that I owned, a fitness and yoga studio, and I've done consulting. It doesn't matter. Those principles carry on. Everyone plays a role. Every role's important. And as long as everyone knows their role and how it plays into the bigger picture, that's how you're a successful team.

All about team and communication. I agree. We did the same thing at Connect. And you can't run a business without funding though. So we always like to ask our company leader guests, are you in a raise right now or do you have one coming up? And if so, what do you wanna tell us about it?

Yeah, we're raising our Series A, which is going to take us through the first 2 parts of our commercialization plan. Part 1 being our pilot partnership program. We've already lined up several pilot partners. We're adding more to that list. They range in the gamut from commercial partners that may already have an existing test, but it's a long, laborious workflow, and so they want to port it over to our more streamlined workflow, or they're just not getting the results that they think that they can and they want to try out our new system, to academic partners who want to do research, KOLs in the space that want to be able to publish papers. Our first pilot partner that we've been working with is developing a test for sepsis, and it's starting in their research lab, but they have an eye to roll this out into their 50-plus hospital system, and to be able to have a 30-minute turnaround time test for sepsis would be a game changer.

Mm-hmm.

Not just for their system, but for the world. People don't talk about sepsis. It's a killer. And if we can be able to save a bunch of lives because our platform is in the ERs of all these hospitals, our job here is done.

Yeah, that's amazing.

We would love to host anybody who's interested in learning more about our tremendous technology, our trajectory, our commercialization progress, our pilot partnerships at our lab here locally in San Diego.

Are you also willing to give baseball tips?

Furphy.

That's perfect. And you're a native San Diegan, as I recall it, born and raised here.

Born and raised in San Diego, one of the few. It's usually my fun fact at a party for an icebreaker.

I mean, you're one of the few people I met who are actually from here, which is incredible. And you can tell me all the great places to eat and everything else. But on, on the Connect Current, we always like to close with the same question, and that is, what drives your innovative flow? What about San Diego stirs your juices?

So growing up here in San Diego, it's been a special time. You know, other cities, I think, having been around the US and elsewhere, sort of see us as a sleepy beach town. But we know the truth here, that these are some of the most hardworking people. But what I love is it's still this small town feel where if someone's successful, we all feel like we played a part in that. And the companies that I see that are the most successful, the ones that invest back in our community and in our people and give back. And that's what continues to drive that success. I learned that from my grandfather, Dr. Irwin Jacobs, from his days at Qualcomm. He is now our biggest funder and the CEO of Exome as well.

Mm-hmm.

I've learned that from my parents and just giving back to the community and that We're all in this together feel is really what makes this place special.

And part of that, as I recall, you're very involved in La Jolla Playhouse.

You know, I'm involved with several nonprofits around town, La Jolla Playhouse being one of them. My wife, Amy, and I are very involved at the San Diego Food Bank, also with the Jewish Community Center here locally as well, and a number of other great organizations, the San Diego Symphony, Jewish Family Service. I mean, the list can go on and on. Really what matters is we are all so fortunate, every one of us. What can we do to give back to our community? Whether it's through your ties, what we call your treasure, your network, your just giving of your time. We all can do a little bit to make this community the best place that it possibly can.

And I love, I feel like it boils down to community and creativity that drives your flow then, which is phenomenal. It's not just the company, but it's the things that make San Diego San Diego.

Agreed.

Which is why I love it here already 6 months in. It's pretty incredible. And it's people like you that welcome people when they come to the city, you know, embrace them, introduce them around, and it just, it makes it a truly special place. And I agree, we don't talk about it enough. And that's one of the reasons we started the Connect Current is to broadcast those stories. All right. Well, Adam, I want to thank you. I really appreciate our growing friendship, this conversation, how you're an operator who is not just thinking about what can be built, but what should be built. And for whom, and that doesn't just mean companies, but culture and the city as a whole. Thanks again for joining us.

Hey, my pleasure. And thank you again, James, and the whole Connect team for setting this up and all you do for companies and our city and our region.

All right, everyone, I want to thank you for listening to The Connect Current. As always, we will have more information on Atom, Exome, the UC San Diego Park and Market building, the La Jolla Playhouse, the San Diego Food Bank, the Jewish Community Center, the San Diego Symphony, and the Salk Institute in our show notes. Thanks for listening to The Connect Current. If you want to learn more about Connect and explore resources across San Diego's innovation ecosystem, follow us on LinkedIn or visit connect.org. We'll see you next time on The Connect Current, where San Diego's innovation story keeps moving forward.

This podcast was edited and produced by Resonate Recordings.