Oct 7, 2024

88 – Heart Health Innovation with Josh Eckelberry, Principal at Solas BioVentures

Featuring: Vic Gatto and Josh Eckelberry

Episode Notes

In this episode of the Health Further podcast, Vic interviews Josh Eckelberry, a seasoned venture capitalist and Principal at Solas BioVentures, a life sciences venture capital firm. Josh brings a wealth of knowledge in healthcare innovation, particularly in heart health and cutting-edge cardiac technologies. With a focus on breakthrough medical devices, novel pharmaceuticals, and AI-driven diagnostic tools, Josh shares his insights on the future of healthcare and heart disease treatment. From discussing his journey into venture capital to highlighting the latest advancements in cardiac care, this episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone interested in healthtech, medical innovations, and investment in healthcare startups.

Solas BioVentures website: https://www.solasbio.com/
Josh Eckelberry on LinkedIn - https://tinyurl.com/yfs6vx2j

Stay Connected

KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST HEALTH:FURTHER EPISODES, NEWS, AND EVENTS!

Watch this Episode on YouTube

Watch, Listen, and Subscribe!

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] If you enjoy this content, please take a moment to rate and review it. Your feedback will greatly impact our ability to reach more people. Thank you.

[00:00:17] Vic: Okay, welcome everyone to Health Further. We're doing the fourth episode of the Heart Health series. I have Josh Ekelberry with me. Josh, thanks for joining. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about heart health. Yeah, so we have been explaining what heart disease is, went through my situation, I have heart disease, talked to my cardiologist, went over some longevity things.

[00:00:41] Vic: So if you missed those earlier episodes, please go back and start there. But we have a great talk today, really about innovation and the pipeline of innovation coming from the scientific investigation, scientific research land, working with Josh and other venture capitalists on how to get that [00:01:00] science through the clinical trials process, through development, and to really can really help patients.

[00:01:07] Vic: So Josh, thanks for joining. It's exciting times to talk about this stuff. 

[00:01:10] Josh Eckelberry: It is. Yeah. The cardiac space is one of the hottest spaces right now to invest in. It's plenty of technologies coming down the pipeline and people are iterating. Makes it for a really dynamic space. 

[00:01:22] Vic: Yeah. Yeah. It's a tale of two sides, right?

[00:01:26] Vic: It's the biggest cause of death in the country. So there's a lot of need for improvement and yet our healthcare industry and medical establishment has been working on this for decades. And so we now have. Pretty good diagnostic tools, good treatment methodologies, good pharmacological tools. And yet there's a whole bunch of new innovations that are going to make this even better.

[00:01:50] Vic: Better diagnostics, better treatment coming down the pike. But before we jump into that exciting stuff, let's talk through your background. How did you become a venture capitalist in this space? [00:02:00] Give a little bit of your background. 

[00:02:01] Josh Eckelberry: Sure. Yeah, I did undergrad biochemistry and then I went directly into medical school at East Tennessee State University.

[00:02:09] Josh Eckelberry: Before I decided to divert into business, uh, thought I was going to go do healthcare advocacy and policy work. Uh, but while I was in business school, I met Dave David Dare, the managing director of the fund. He had just started up Solus at that point and, uh, was looking for some lifting help. And I had always had this internal Thesis of trying to do the most good.

[00:02:34] Josh Eckelberry: So while I was in medical school, I, I had this memory of sitting across from a patient, this big, burly trucker. I'm like 21, 22, doing some first rotations. His blood sugars were off the charts. And I remember trying to tell him, you got to change your lifestyle and thinking, man, I'm not getting through to this patient.

[00:02:56] Josh Eckelberry: The Appalachian region has a deep wound and [00:03:00] I wanted to do something more for it. So I looked, I left to go look for ways to make some, what I call leverage change, changes where I could make an impact on the system, maybe not one patient at a time, but. hundreds, thousands of people at a time. And so when I was in business school, I met Dave, who introduced me to this concept of venture capitalism.

[00:03:20] Josh Eckelberry: I had no idea about the space until this moment and fell in love, just became an absolute student of the innovation, the business side of it, finances. And I was in a unique position to work at Solus as one of the first employees. And just from the ground up, did the waterfalls, the cap tables, a lot of the diligence for the ride ups, investor relations, I wear a lot of hats because we're a small startup fund and investing into startups and it fit that personal thesis of, Hey, I can make a huge change.

[00:03:55] Josh Eckelberry: To healthcare by advocating for investments into the right [00:04:00] technologies that are going to make improvements on patients lives. So this real patient focus, no one's going to know that, hey, Josh structured and led the series B that got this technology to the FDA clearance, but I'll know I was a part of this bigger story, helping patients.

[00:04:17] Josh Eckelberry: Down the line so it yeah. Fit the personal thesis and I fell in love. So I, I have been doing it now since I think 2017 or 18. And 

[00:04:28] Vic: yeah, so I really think that sometimes if you put to the side who gets credit, whose name is in the marquee lights, you leave that to the side, uh, the team can do a. Right. So everyone contributes and we don't worry about who gets credit.

[00:04:43] Vic: Let's just try to bring more and better solutions to the patients, to the healthcare industry. 

[00:04:48] Josh Eckelberry: Exactly. And no egos, just do what's right for the patients. And it's who cares who gets the fame and glory. Yeah. 

[00:04:57] Vic: Now talk about soulless bio ventures just for a [00:05:00] minute. And you're in a classification of VC funds that.

[00:05:04] Vic: I'm not allowed to publicly market. So I don't want to hear about you raising a fund because we're not allowed to do it by the sec. But just in general, how many fun, what fun number are you on? What's the type of deals that Solis does? You're in Chattanooga, which is interesting. Not a lot of biotech BC in that geography, which maybe is an advantage.

[00:05:23] Josh Eckelberry: We see that as an advantage being located in the Southeast. Uh, we think it's blue ocean. There's just as smart universities and hospital systems here as there are in California, New York, Boston. And so part of our investment thesis is definitely the Southeast and Midwest. The flyover States, if you will love looking at companies in that area, but we're on our third fund.

[00:05:45] Josh Eckelberry: We invest in schools. Exclusively in the life sciences that includes, um, pharmaceuticals, med devices, diagnostics, sometimes some tools, but we look at anything that kind of helps the patient care continuum with a [00:06:00] patient centered focus. 

[00:06:01] Vic: Yeah. So we're talking about cardiac today and you're certainly investing in cardiac care.

[00:06:06] Vic: We'll have a couple of examples of that. But really across the continuum, really any large market where there's a big need, Solus BioVentures would be interested. Is that right? Not just 

[00:06:15] Josh Eckelberry: cardiac. We invest into the brain oncology, women's health. I have a personal connection to pediatric plays. I love helping patients sooner.

[00:06:26] Josh Eckelberry: The sooner, the better in their lives to make the most impact possible still. 

[00:06:30] Vic: urology device. Which I'm excited, I think it's going to be great. Maybe not the topic for today's topic, but when we're celebrating that one, we'll come back and talk about IOUrology. I 

[00:06:43] Josh Eckelberry: know we will, yeah. IOUrology is a great company.

[00:06:47] Josh Eckelberry: They're going to make some good strides and help out some patients. We also have Francis Medicals also in our urology portfolio. Another great focal therapy company for prostate cancer. Yeah, we invest into [00:07:00] heavier, like class 3 devices. I like to say phase 2 ready. Assets for pharmaceuticals and and diagnostics where it makes a real big difference like IO urology.

[00:07:12] Vic: Yes, for the audience, let's frame up the different types of innovations that you are looking at or that one could look at. And so where you and I cross really is devices or diagnostics. That's where we urology device. But I think there are three different. big silos of potential investments in life sciences.

[00:07:36] Vic: One is a new molecule, a new pharmaceutical uncovery, new drug. There are new devices for treatment, typically in a cardiac, often stent related or somehow related to intravenously improving or repairing some part of the cardiovascular system. And then new diagnostic tools using. New software, artificial intelligence, different way, maybe an [00:08:00] algorithm to take existing diagnostic data and do more, do differently with it.

[00:08:07] Vic: Is there a weighting? How do you think about those three? Are you looking for just the best opportunities? Do you try to balance among those? How do you think about that? 

[00:08:15] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, we do look for the best opportunities and try to balance within the fund as well. So we look at the fund as a whole and say, we find that drugs are a little more risky or higher risk, higher reward.

[00:08:29] Josh Eckelberry: So we want to, He's very selective about what pharmaceutical companies we do invest into. Small molecules have really been helpful for us or useful for us and successful. I've generated a lot of returns for our investors. Devices are a little more straightforward. The path is pretty laid out. So you have to make sure your valuation is good to make money on the front end and make sure that the right investors are around the table.

[00:08:54] Josh Eckelberry: To make sure that the company is ultimately successful to get into patient's hands for doctor's hands, for patient [00:09:00] treatment and a software is new for solace. We, this is our third fund. We're investing into software now, and we haven't in the past. So we're dipping our toes in it with one or two investments and see how things go.

[00:09:13] Vic: Yeah. Is there a difference in the risk return profile of these three different types? So for instance, you mentioned about devices. So as it can be. A shorter pathway to regulatory approval. Maybe that means there's a little bit less risk, but also less return. Whereas a new molecule from the solitary treatments would be much higher risk, but when they work a higher return, is that close to what you tell you?

[00:09:43] Vic: Say it. 

[00:09:44] Josh Eckelberry: You're correct. So far in our fund, we're seeing devices land in the 3 5x with some really good ones hitting into the 7 10x's. And there's always outliers that can blow that away. And then our pharmaceutical portfolio has hit more towards the, when they're successful, [00:10:00] the 10x's. We've had as high as a 20 22x, I think.

[00:10:04] Vic: Yeah, a much longer regulatory pathway, more unknowns. I'm personally, I don't invest in biochemistry risk because I don't exactly know how to mitigate it. If you can figure that out, the returns are significant. 

[00:10:21] Josh Eckelberry: We've had some companies go to zero and had some companies just absolutely kill it. 

[00:10:26] Vic: Yeah. How do you think about figuring out the biochemistry risk or the risk in all these companies?

[00:10:31] Vic: Do you have a scientific advisory group you work with or is it? Each company, you build your own set of, uh, information sources. How do you go about that? 

[00:10:40] Josh Eckelberry: We do, we can't know everything. I don't have expertise in every single sector. So we really rely heavily on our investors. Most of our investors are physicians or scientists in some way.

[00:10:49] Josh Eckelberry: We lean on them for expertise. We reach out to KOLs, get opinions, get many opinions to do a whole write up on every company that we find. And [00:11:00] value each company, um, And build out the financial risk. In fact, I have this, this back of the napkin saying, when I'm first looking at company, Solace likes to go dote, float, go to moat, and that's the, we look at it from a scientific risk.

[00:11:14] Josh Eckelberry: We say, does the drug or device offer therapeutic efficacy? Does it work? Does it make scientifically sound? You're not just selling me some diluted water and telling me it cures cancer, but we actually have a. A basis and reason to our thesis. Yeah. 

[00:11:27] Vic: And that what's the phrase for that? Is it dope? Is that what you said?

[00:11:30] Vic: Oh, 

[00:11:31] Josh Eckelberry: D O T E. D O T E. Does the drug or device. Okay. Gnostic, whatever. Okay. Offer therapeutic advocacy. Yeah. Does it help the patient? That's our first criteria. The second one would be the float. So this is just the financials, doesn't stand on its own. Um, one day I would love to do impact investing, but that's not what Solace does.

[00:11:51] Josh Eckelberry: We existed. So it has 

[00:11:54] Vic: to be a positive expected value in your portfolio. That doesn't mean it's guaranteed to [00:12:00] make money, but as the portfolio overall, you have 

[00:12:02] Josh Eckelberry: to be there. Are we take, are we. Taking a risk and getting properly rewarded for that risk. Will this, will this drug or device even work in the, in the field?

[00:12:13] Josh Eckelberry: Physicians buy it. Will patients be willing to use it as long as the cost isn't exorbitantly high. So there's a lot of the finance risk that we evaluate secondly, and probably the most important would be the goat. And we call it the greatest of all time. We look at the management team. We say. Does you can have, you can have great technology, but if you have a mediocre management team, it's probably not going to get very far.

[00:12:39] Vic: Yeah. 

[00:12:40] Josh Eckelberry: Conversely, if you have an amazing management team and mediocre technology, I read about companies just killing it all the time that I think, Hey, that's not the best of best technology out there. I know there's better technology. But because they have such a rock star management team who can really make a difference [00:13:00] in these companies.

[00:13:00] Josh Eckelberry: So yeah, definitely. And then the last risk that we evaluate is the moat. So what's defending what's stopping someone with more time, more money coming in and just running you off the tracks. Cause this is cool. Constantly innovating constantly evolving what's protecting you and devices and pharmaceuticals.

[00:13:19] Josh Eckelberry: Most of the time that is your IP. So your patents are solid. And if you can jump through the four of those hoops, major red flags got a pretty good shot. Of course, there's always general timing stars have to align both on the fund and the People on the company side, but if you can satisfy those four criteria, 

[00:13:42] Vic: yeah, that's a good, a useful way to think about it.

[00:13:45] Vic: Don't float, go to mode. And if you have all four, it's not without risk, but maybe the risk is balanced with the upside return possibility. Yeah. That's how we first look at opportunities and go from there. Okay. Excellent. I know [00:14:00] we were going to talk about three of the companies in your portfolio to try to illustrate this a little bit.

[00:14:05] Vic: And I have a couple of videos, just give the audience a little bit understanding of each of them, but maybe introduce InterShunt, just what is the problem they're trying to solve? What is the state of play today? And why did you think this company could be impactful? 

[00:14:21] Josh Eckelberry: Oh yeah, I love talking about InterShunt.

[00:14:23] Josh Eckelberry: It's been. One of my favorite companies in our portfolio, it is an interatrial shunting device. So it creates a intentional PFO, a patent for amino vali. So the history of this company comes from, we noticed literature reviews. We'd see that congestive heart failure patients who had existing patent for amino vali.

[00:14:46] Josh Eckelberry: were doing better with their symptoms. And that was because blood was being shunted from higher pressure to lower pressure and, uh, not building up in the lungs. 

[00:14:55] Vic: So, so just for the non technical audience, the [00:15:00] left atrium of the heart, I think is what you're talking about, will get too large or larger and hold more blood.

[00:15:08] Vic: The right side of the heart. There's a, you calling it some kind of valley is a hole or like a, a way for blood to pass through the wall of the heart. Not through the normal valves, but through the, the sidewall. Through the septum of the atrium. Okay. Yeah. Through the side. And that, that sort of relieves the pressure and a little counterintuitive, but it actually helps the heart perform better.

[00:15:30] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, it acts as a pop off valve to allow blood to get to the rest of the body instead of in the lungs and you're not, you're not drowning. 

[00:15:37] Vic: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you saw in the literature that when this occurred, patients did better, but what was the downside? What needed to be improved or what were you looking at with InterShunt?

[00:15:50] Josh Eckelberry: With InterShunt, we liked its technology because there's several people trying to tackle interracial shunting as a therapy for congestive heart failure. But what Intershunt did that we thought was [00:16:00] unique was it did not, it doesn't leave a device in the heart. There's what we say, leave nothing behind. Uh, the heart is a valuable real estate, a place that you, you want to be able to, to get in and have multiple different types of surgeries.

[00:16:14] Josh Eckelberry: The less you can leave behind 

[00:16:16] Vic: the be the better in our opinion. Okay. So some other companies are putting a device that, that holds that septum open in some way, like a portal 

[00:16:27] Josh Eckelberry: almost. COR and Vwa both have devices that hold that whole open. 

[00:16:31] Vic: Yeah. , 

[00:16:32] Josh Eckelberry: if you, what we do is, what Inter shunt does is punch a hole in the heart.

[00:16:37] Josh Eckelberry: And you would think, okay, does that not heal closed, which was one of our bets that we were making that we thought if there's blood pumping through it, it might, hopefully it doesn't. 

[00:16:47] Vic: Well, the risk was it would heal closed and not be long lasting. The thing that has worked out at least so far is that it hasn't closed up again.

[00:16:57] Vic: It's, it's healed, but with the whole. [00:17:00] Largely in place, right? 

[00:17:01] Josh Eckelberry: Correct. Yeah, we were we punch a hole and we remove the tissue the cookie cut a cookie. Yeah. 

[00:17:08] Vic: Yeah. So let's go to the video. I think this is a good time to go to the video 

035 guide wire. We deliver our catheter on the right side from the IVC and what we do is we collapse our catheter.

So we try not to disturb the septum and we cross at a low profile. At this point we have Our distal capture mechanism is in the left side of the heart and we expand. This creates a vice grip and what we do is we advance the right side to the right side of the septum. We retract the left side to the left side of the septum and at that point we have the tissue that we want to excise.

securely captured. The silver leading edge of that device is a blade. So mechanically we cut and the act of cutting also captures that tissue. It's extracted and at that point we have a functional shunt that allows that decompression of the left [00:18:00] atrium. 

[00:18:00] Vic: Yeah, so if people aren't watching it on YouTube, first of all, you should be watching it on YouTube.

[00:18:05] Vic: But I think what was shown in the video was a catheter coming up through the kind of the groin area, which is pretty typical in cardiac, up into the heart, and then they use the device to go through the septum, but then make a very controlled The right diameter in the right spot to then allow that pressure on the left side to flow into the right side.

[00:18:32] Josh Eckelberry: You got it. Yep. And what we found, we thought, Oh, maybe that would heal shut. It has not so far. We even noticed that they're inside of the heart of the hole. It endothelializes. So the cells heal on the wall itself and the whole remains patent. Uh, 

[00:18:48] Vic: yeah. So like the, the heart tissue heals over the. The incision point, but it doesn't close the hole.

[00:18:55] Vic: It allows the hole to stay open. 

[00:18:57] Josh Eckelberry: Does it does. So now 

[00:18:59] Vic: where are you in [00:19:00] the process of proving this and testing it and getting it commercialized? I mean, just to the extent that it's publicly available, don't give any inside information. 

[00:19:08] Josh Eckelberry: Thank you. Thank you for that reminder. It's a hard balance. They have finished their first in man that.

[00:19:13] Josh Eckelberry: presentation I believe shows some of the first in man data if 

[00:19:16] Vic: anyone else 

[00:19:16] Josh Eckelberry: will look at it. Yeah, we'll 

[00:19:17] Vic: link to it on the show notes so people can watch the whole thing if they want to. 

[00:19:20] Josh Eckelberry: Things are looking great. We have just did another capital raise to, to do our next study which should bring us to approval.

[00:19:31] Vic: Okay, excellent. And how long have you been in that? Asset. When did you make the investment? 

[00:19:36] Josh Eckelberry: Oh man. 

[00:19:37] Vic: Just roughly, is it several years ago? Several months ago. 2021, 

[00:19:41] Josh Eckelberry: I think. 

[00:19:42] Vic: Okay. Yeah. 

[00:19:43] Josh Eckelberry: Couple years ago we led their series A back in, back in the day. 

[00:19:46] Vic: Yeah. 

[00:19:47] Josh Eckelberry: Back when I think, uh, one of the competitors had really some questionable data and everyone was running away from interracial shunting at that time.

[00:19:56] Josh Eckelberry: Uh, yeah. Sometimes that's the best time for a VC 

[00:19:58] Vic: to run in and 

[00:19:59] Josh Eckelberry: [00:20:00] find 

[00:20:00] Vic: that's the best asset there. 

[00:20:01] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, that's what we, we noticed that they took all patients said, hey, you know, whether or not heart failure is not always the same heart failure is not heart failure. You have some that's got preserved ejection fractions and reserved ejection fractions.

[00:20:14] Josh Eckelberry: And we noticed that this company took all comers. Um, and this works. best in a certain population. Uh, so we needed to do some pre testing, um, narrow down our, our criteria for the, uh, clinical trial, and it's gone, it's gone great so far. 

[00:20:33] Vic: Yeah, and then just getting back to SOLAS, Is your sort of ideal case to stay with the company all the way through delivering to patients or would you typically exit to a strategic sale?

[00:20:43] Vic: Does it depend on the asset? How do you think about your realization plans? 

[00:20:48] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah. Yeah. We have a common saying that companies get bought, they don't get sold. You don't have too much control. You can't make someone fall in love with you. If they're going to acquire your company. So we, [00:21:00] all the way forward, we are with the company as if we're going to IPO this technology on our own, we're going for it.

[00:21:06] Josh Eckelberry: And if along the way, someone whistles at us and says Yeah, if someone has 

[00:21:10] Vic: to have it, 

[00:21:11] Josh Eckelberry: then you're in Minneapolis. If the number's right, then we'll certainly consider it. But if the number's not right, we'll keep marching 

[00:21:18] Vic: on. We'll fund it ourselves. And congestive heart failure is a huge market. I don't know it by heart.

[00:21:25] Vic: Do you know the size of the market? I know it's a pretty significant space. No, it's not by heart. But big enough. There's a lot, a lot of patients need. A large 

[00:21:33] Josh Eckelberry: adjustable market, correct. 

[00:21:34] Vic: Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's shift to the next one. Talk about the, it's Basking Bioscience is what I was going to show next. So talk about this reversal and why it matters.

[00:21:47] Vic: And then I have a video with, I don't think it's the CEO. I think it's the scientific founder talking about how he came up with the concept. But so when you're dealing with stroke, there's an, there's an interest in. [00:22:00] Opening up blood flow and having the blood flow much more, but there's risk to that. So talk about that trade off before we show the video.

[00:22:08] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, referring to BASC, one of our companies in our portfolio most recently called BASC and Biosciences. And you have to stay high level when you have a blood clot. You, you want to deliver a thrombolytic, something to, to thin your blood out so that it doesn't clot more, or you don't throw this clot, and can, can get better.

[00:22:29] Josh Eckelberry: But what happens with the current technology, with the current drugs, is that if it, if you go into surgery, you could bleed out. So physicians are really hesitant to use any drug that poses those risks. So what, what Basking has proposed here is, is an agent that has a reversal agent to it. So if you go in, you thin the blood too much, and you realize, hey, we need to go under surgery, we need to go under the knife here, we can then administer the reversal agent and still do a thrombectomy.

[00:22:58] Vic: Whereas with the previous [00:23:00] medications, it does thin the blood, but it precludes That next phase of surgery Very risky for them to just bleed too much on tape. I have to 

[00:23:11] Josh Eckelberry: wait hours and yeah, it's just too high risk 

[00:23:14] Vic: Yeah, 

[00:23:14] Josh Eckelberry: we don't know what's best for the patients. Uh, so 

[00:23:16] Vic: physicians just don't yeah And so baskin and we're going to show the video of how he came up with it.

[00:23:23] Vic: They possibility And then have been developing that that treatment vertical 

So when I was in medical school, I learned about this disease called von willebrand's disease You And von Willebrand's disease is where you don't make enough von Willebrand's factor. You either don't make enough of it or the amount that you make is not made right.

And 80 percent of these patients have what's called type 1 von Willebrand's disease. And in this patient population, they don't walk around bleeding everywhere, but if they were to undergo a minor surgical procedure or have a dental [00:24:00] procedure, they would bleed more than you or I. Then when I was in graduate school, I learned about these molecules called aptamers.

And aptamers are single stranded DNA or RNA that folds into a three dimensional shape, binds to a protein, and inhibits its activity. The cool thing about aptamers is you can design a second RNA molecule that'll bind to the first RNA molecule and turn it off. an antidote. So what we did is we designed an aptamer that bound to an inhibited VWF and designed an antidote that could turn it off.

The aptamer literally mimics the activity of von Willebrand's disease, but we're able to control it with the antidote. So this is how we tested it. We took mice and we created a carotid occlusion, a blood clot, and we gave them [00:25:00] one of three therapies. We either gave them a negative control, or we gave them TPA, which is the clinical standard, or we gave them our aftamer.

And you can see from the graph behind me in the silver or gray group, that's the negative control. Nothing really happened. In the blue group, which is the TPA group, you saw something happen, 25 30 percent started to open up. And if you look at the red group, the aptamer treated group, you can see recanalization to 75 80%, and that's 75 80 percent held through TPA.

throughout the experiment. So then what we did is we took it a step further. We said, okay, I wonder what the carotid arteries look like. And you don't need to be a pathologist to appreciate that in the control group, you had complete occlusion. In the TPA group, you largely had occlusion, [00:26:00] but in the aptamer treated group, the vessels were wide open.

We took it to a third step then, and we tested the animals Who got our aptamer and then who got the aptamer and then the antidote. And when we tested them, the animals that got the aptamer and then the antidote looked like they had never received any drug at all.

So I want you to understand one thing. This type of science and research does not get done in a vacuum. It requires protein biochemists. RNA biochemists, animal modelers, veterinary scientists, all coming together. 

[00:26:44] Vic: That was, I think, the scientific co founder talking about the technology. And I, first of all, it seems like an incredible technology to be able to turn on this sort of thinner blood flow, but then when needed, if needed, if you have [00:27:00] to go into surgery or there's some reason to stop it, You simply add the second molecule to, to stop it.

[00:27:07] Vic: It seems like it has a lot of potential, but I wanted to get you to comment on is, is that the right way to think about it? But then also talk about how Solace BioVentures works with this goat piece of it and adds to the team or helps bring in talent to, to strengthen the science. team. 

[00:27:26] Josh Eckelberry: Okay. Happy to.

[00:27:27] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah. Baskin has come a long way since that video. It's like, it explains, but it still holds true and explains it really well. 

[00:27:34] Vic: Yeah. He's, he's explaining the core technology. I think you know, the C brought the CEO or you're aware of the CEO, even outside of Baskin. To strengthen the team, right? That fair?

[00:27:47] Josh Eckelberry: That, yeah, that's true. Once, as ideas and iterations go from mice to humans to phase one, phase two, commercialization, even the right person for to lead [00:28:00] that the charge in all these companies is not always the same person from face to face. So we are Rich Sha is now, is right now the CEO and he's done a phenomenal job getting it to its next point.

[00:28:12] Josh Eckelberry: Fundraising. It's, it's a founder we've worked with in the past, and when you find good CEOs, good management teams, uh, you wanna invest in them time and time again. And Rich is one of those people who we've done drug trials with before and are happy to do another one with him. 

[00:28:29] Vic: Yeah. And that, and that's part of the way that it.

[00:28:32] Vic: At least how I think VCs create value. Uh, it sounds like you do as well, which is. One access assessing the current team and then seeing, okay, what could we add to really make a difference for this next phase, which might be different than the phase before your investment coming in. And there's a lot of ego involved.

[00:28:52] Vic: Is this sort of a way to do it so that everyone feels Like they're recognized and valued for the role they have played. And yet you also can [00:29:00] bring in new talent to help. And so how do you approach that or how's your, how does Solus think about that opportunity? 

[00:29:06] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, how we approach it is on the front end, we set expectations and say, Hey, founder, you've made it this far.

[00:29:14] Josh Eckelberry: It's your baby, but the skill sets required from the development phase to the commercialization phase is one of the easiest to point to, to say, but it takes a different person to develop a company than it does to sell a company. And it's just a completely different skill set. And we have those conversations.

[00:29:33] Josh Eckelberry: Pretty much with the term sheet, we try to say, we lead a lot of our deals and in it, we say, we expect you to, this is how we're modeling out the finances and the Gantt charts and the timelines for how this company is going to go about and level set expectations. And within those expectations, we will say, once we get to this phase, if we've not been.

[00:29:56] Josh Eckelberry: Bought or sold. We would expect to bring in [00:30:00] different management or, but not always. Some founders and teams so just can run all the way with it and, and do great, but it's not, it's not the norm. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:30:09] Vic: I'm, I'm the same way. I like to be almost brutally honest on the front end and we both invest in early stage assets.

[00:30:18] Vic: I don't do the sort of deep life sciences you do, but. When these small companies, it might have three people, four people, five people, they're going to grow incredibly fast, they grow at 50 percent a year, 100 percent a year, 200 percent a year, and humans can learn very quickly, but you may not be able to change and evolve and grow your skill set as CEO, or really any role in a high growth startup.

[00:30:44] Vic: As quickly as the needs of the company change. And that's not a knock on that person. It's just that the company sometimes is changing so quickly that you just can't learn quickly enough. And I find that most people understand that and they really [00:31:00] want their concept to have the best, the broadest impact where you started with, especially if you take it out of, it's not their failing, they may be growing very quickly as a human, but they're not.

[00:31:10] Vic: But maybe not quickly enough to be CEO of this company growing at 300 percent a year. 

[00:31:16] Josh Eckelberry: Your company grows so quickly. You need to hand it off to someone with different skill sets. You've done your job. Yeah. That's 

[00:31:23] Vic: a good thing. 

[00:31:23] Josh Eckelberry: We 

[00:31:24] Vic: should celebrate 

[00:31:24] Josh Eckelberry: that. And we also let them know that we're very respectful and we want to properly reward and keep involved the people who carry the water beforehand.

[00:31:34] Josh Eckelberry: So it's not like we come in private equity style and, and. Reorganize, clean the whole house. Yeah, tribal knowledge there that you're still invaluable to be close to the company. So it's nothing like that. It's just an evolution and what's best for the company. 

[00:31:50] Vic: Yeah. Okay. Those are two really good examples in very different sides of cardiac care.

[00:31:57] Vic: And then let's talk about the last one, vector [00:32:00] medical, maybe give the audience a little background. And then I have a video. about it too. 

[00:32:06] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, Vector is our most recent, one of our most recent investments. We're starting to get more into digital therapies, diagnostics, dip our toes into softwares, and Vector is exactly what we were looking for.

[00:32:19] Josh Eckelberry: It's an AI based arrhythmia analysis tool that takes 12 EDKG data. And can give you a heart map and say, Hey, this is where we believe your arrhythmia is. 

[00:32:30] Vic: Yeah. So say you have a AFib, for instance, is that the typical thing? You have atrial fibrillation and your heart is not beating. The electrophysiology of it is not working correctly.

[00:32:44] Vic: Typically, they would ablate or create scar tissue, a doctor would, to shape that wave in a way that would be more, more conducive to a rhythmic heart rate. But the [00:33:00] way that, where they would ablate is an art. It's not, uh, clear. Where do I burn or cut? in the heart to have the effect. 

[00:33:10] Josh Eckelberry: Exactly. Yeah. Especially prior years to treat any kind of arrhythmias like an AFib, a physician would take a catheter into the heart and burn areas that he believes these cells are the ones that are beating off beat or are signaling their own, messing up the normal rhythm of the heart and you would burn it.

[00:33:32] Josh Eckelberry: See if it would normally, if not burn something else. And it's an art, not a science. 

Yeah. A 

[00:33:37] Josh Eckelberry: little of trial and error. I know it's just a lot of trial and error, but we have come a long way since then. We have developed algorithms. We have heart maps. Now we have ways to. Test the electrical conductivity of the heart and say, okay, the point more towards precision.

[00:33:54] Josh Eckelberry: These are the cells that are messing up and thanks to all that data being collected and [00:34:00] ECGs, we can correlate the two and out and vector is born. 

[00:34:05] Vic: Yes. Okay. So let's watch the video of him and then we'll talk about it further. What if we 

could use a novel form of artificial intelligence to reduce the global burden of heart attacks, heart failure, and strokes?

We've been working on a way to make it easier to treat cardiac arrhythmias, and cardiac arrhythmias are when the heart goes too fast or too slow. We wanted to take the most commonly available test in medicine, the 12 lead EKG, which is simply a recording of the electrical energy on the chest wall, but it's difficult to use that information to target arrhythmias.

We created a novel artificial intelligence algorithm. which uses the machine learning from hundreds of thousands of arrhythmia simulations to target these cardiac arrhythmias precisely and eliminate them. This technology is right now being used at 10 different hospitals throughout the United States.

It's FDA cleared, it actually has a billing code, [00:35:00] and I think it's going to really transform arrhythmia care. 

[00:35:02] Josh Eckelberry: Great 

[00:35:03] Vic: technology. So what's really interesting is that this technology is standing on top of the great work that people have done for decades with 12 lead ECG. And other algorithms around solving this and building on that with AI so that it's got a lot of impact in a short amount of time, 

[00:35:23] Josh Eckelberry: right?

[00:35:24] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, it was with most innovation. We stand on the shoulders of giants. It's really with humans, but something to. to really highlight with vectors how they do this just non invasively. So you can build these heart maps, but a lot of times it requires an invasive catheter, and the same approach as we reviewed with InterShunt, except they put an electrical catheter up there.

[00:35:48] Josh Eckelberry: And now you don't even need to have the surgery to get the heart map. Yeah. It's pretty great. 

[00:35:54] Vic: Yeah. And it are, unlike what I think of as some of your portfolio companies, [00:36:00] They already have FDA approval. They're already commercializing. There's revenue coming in. Is that exciting? Is that a different kind of asset to manage?

[00:36:10] Vic: How have you experienced that? 

[00:36:12] Josh Eckelberry: That's completely different than with Solace's Typical play is to be honest with you. Yeah, we saw revenue and we thought what is this number right here? Exactly. We're finished. This is the end of the process Yeah, but with software like this It's the risk is more on our the adoption of the technology and with it being as simple as straightforward Keeps it super simple for us.

[00:36:35] Josh Eckelberry: Um We really believe in the team, David, the technology, just how unobtrusive it is. I love this innovation that we thought was the right thing to dip our toes into this post FDA commercialization world. 

[00:36:52] Vic: Yeah. 

[00:36:53] Josh Eckelberry: Which, iBiology was our second one. 

[00:36:56] Vic: Oh yeah, right, the one we did. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess the thing I [00:37:00] wanted to wrap up with is we had three examples.

[00:37:02] Vic: One is Creating that hole in the heart, in the septum in a different way. So not, but it's a procedure. You have a, a molecule, a new drug that of course has the ability to turn it off, which is its big advantage. And then almost a tech only tech on top of ECG data. So it have three examples of the three different types.

[00:37:26] Vic: that you make. Talk to me about how you see the environment overall. I have a sense that there's an acceleration in the, um, scientific discovery. We're able to, you said we're standing on the shoulders of giants before us. Every time we have a new innovation, it opens up. Lots of other potential fields to look into in a way that is, uh, exponentially growing.

[00:37:54] Vic: That's my bias. Does that fit with what you're sealing on the deal flow side of things? [00:38:00] Yeah. 

[00:38:00] Josh Eckelberry: So deal flow has never been better, especially in the cardiac side for, in at least during the time that I've been in with Solace and investing, it's, it's looking great. You get a cardiac brain, things that oncology, things that are killing us The quickest and highest cause of mortality.

[00:38:19] Josh Eckelberry: They command a premium in the market because patients and, uh, people in general are willing to pay for lifesaving treatments. It's, we're, we're seeing a ton of new innovation, not only in the three areas. We talked about structurally, structural heart, seeing a lot of movements. We have three cardiac examples here, but I have put in term sheets for, for For several others, mitral cuspid valve replacements and repairs.

[00:38:45] Vic: And 

[00:38:47] Josh Eckelberry: here's a lot of good technology out on the market right now and not enough investment. 

[00:38:52] Vic: Yeah, 

[00:38:53] Josh Eckelberry: which 

[00:38:56] Vic: is good for you as one investor, but [00:39:00] we could have more investors putting more capital work and not run out of ideas. 

[00:39:04] Josh Eckelberry: Oh, a hundred percent. We are the med device, med life science investing in general, very collaborative because we know that there's more opportunity here than there are investors.

[00:39:16] Josh Eckelberry: And so we like to have. Work together, hold each other's hands, and all jump into this risk together and try to choose the right things for patients. Yeah. Is really the tough spot. Tons of, deal flow is not a problem in the life sciences right now. 

[00:39:29] Vic: Yeah, and I will maybe just end with, I'm pretty optimistic about cardiac care and really healthcare overall is getting much stronger over time.

[00:39:39] Vic: Of course with, Any kind of chronic disease, which heart health is not always chronic disease, but there's a piece of it that's pretty, there's some behavior change and helping patients eat better, exercise more, take their statins, those kinds of things, but the technology that our healthcare system has as disposal is just increasing very quickly, which makes me.[00:40:00] 

[00:40:00] Vic: optimistic that we'll have more and better tools over time for these doctors and nurses and practitioners to help patients. 

[00:40:08] Josh Eckelberry: I, yeah, I agree. It's rapidly evolving. We're making great progress. Um, being a little younger and newer, maybe in this investments, I remember thinking that, you know, We're going to hit the ground running.

[00:40:21] Josh Eckelberry: I've actually found it takes a little bit longer than I was hoping for a lot of these drugs and devices to come to market. And it should, we want to make sure things are safe and work are efficacious, but we are steadily making great progress in the world of card. 

[00:40:39] Vic: Yeah, I'm often frustrated with regulatory bodies because I want change to happen, but it's human life that's at stake.

[00:40:48] Vic: And so, caution is, I think, probably the best thing from the regulatory body's point of view. It's of course a balance, but I think there's a lot of [00:41:00] great science coming and coming to market and I'm hopeful 

[00:41:04] Josh Eckelberry: about it. Yeah, there's a wave of it for sure. Um, that, that does create an arbitrage opportunity for us.

[00:41:09] Josh Eckelberry: It doesn't move as fast as, as other technologies do without such regulatory hurdles. But then that also creates a area of opportunity where we can take things like A with vector and say, okay, hold on, let's make sure this is safe and tried and true. And then follow these market trends. And a little bit of a lagging behind to make sure it's safe for patients.

[00:41:30] Vic: Right. 

[00:41:31] Josh Eckelberry: That gives us the opportunities in the market to invest into. So yeah, I'm thankful for it all. 

[00:41:35] Vic: Yeah. Excellent. Josh, thanks for doing this. Give the audience a handoff. Like where can they learn more about you or Solus BioVentures or. 

[00:41:44] Josh Eckelberry: Yeah, we have a website, soullessbio. com. S O L L A S B I O dot com.

[00:41:51] Josh Eckelberry: You can find us all on LinkedIn. We try to be very approachable, very personable. So just send me a message there and I'll do my best to answer it. Yeah, 

[00:41:59] Vic: so if someone's [00:42:00] listening and they have a new innovation, new invention, new idea, you're open to hear it? Hundred percent. Please reach out to me. Great.

[00:42:08] Vic: Thank you, Josh. I appreciate it. No problem. Thank you 

[00:42:11] Josh Eckelberry: for having me today. 

[00:42:11] Vic: Yeah, 

[00:42:12] Josh Eckelberry: yeah.

Pin It on Pinterest