Dr. Meagan Pitcher - Solving Sleep Apnea with Wearables & AI

Meagan Pitcher is co-founder and CEO at Bairitone Health, which is bringing advanced imaging diagnostics into the home environment. 

Meagan worked on several neurology and ophthalmology projects at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals and managed a diverse intellectual property portfolio as a technology transfer officer at Baylor College of Medicine. Meagan holds a Ph.D. in translational biology and molecular medicine from Baylor College of Medicine and a B.S. in genetics from Texas A&M University.

Join Bairitone's mailing list or setup up an introductory call to learn more. 
https://bairitone.com/

 Research collaborators are welcome. 

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Transcript

00:07.96
wearabletakeover
Now, folks, you know we are bringing that heat in season four. And yes, we might be talking about the heat that's outside, especially what's about to come from Texas when you hear about my next guest. But I mean, overall, wearable tech ventures has just been bow, bow, bow, hitting it out of the ballpark. And I am super excited to introduce today's guest. But first off, Let me give a wonderful thanks to my fellow Black Innovation Alliance member out of Philadelphia who is over teachers and it thank you so much for sharing our next guest with me. She had gone to a Black Enterprise event and she saw some ads that were coming out and she was like, Lakeisha,

00:52.17
wearabletakeover
You have to check out this founder and she's a wearable founder. I was on it, I was on it, I was on it. And so folks, you're gonna be on it too. So let me just tell you, this particular guest that I have today is somebody that you really wanna make sure that you're tuning into, listening to, following her, okay? Because she is making it rain in the midst of all this heat and she's so down to earth and so knowledgeable. And if you can't get enough of her after you keep listening to this episode over and over and over again, you could also hear some of her comments from one of our prior IP webinars.

01:29.19
wearabletakeover
that we did in 2024. So who am I talking about? I am talking about the one, the only Dr. Megan Pitcher of Baritone. And folks, let me tell you, she brings experience in pharma, academia, and intellectual property management to her role as CEO and co-founder of baritone health. Megan has previously worked as a research associate at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals and an intellectual property management at Baylor College of Medicine, where she closed, check this out, 75 academic to industry deals. Megan, Megan holds a PhD. Yes, that's right, folks. She holds a PhD in translational biology and molecular medicine, try seeing that fast 50 times, from Baylor College of Medicine and a BS in genetic

02:18.68
wearabletakeover
in genetics from Texas A and&M University. All right, so Dr. Megan, we talked about bringing the heat. How hot is it there today?

02:27.10
Meagan Pitcher
in the high ninety s and thank you so much for the kind intro with most exciting read in my yeah

02:36.41
wearabletakeover
I love it. I love it. We are so excited about you. And folks, before we were on the call, I was telling Megan that if I had you know my top list of folks I would be investing in today, she's definitely on there, hands down. So for those folks you know that are evaluating what we're doing out here, you're saying what's a wearable and who should we invest in?

02:48.65
Meagan Pitcher
It is in the high 90s.

02:54.76
wearabletakeover
this person right here. Okay, so ah I'm gonna go back and forth from Dr.

02:57.09
Meagan Pitcher
And thank you so much for the kind intro. That's the most exciting read.

03:01.40
wearabletakeover
Megan and Megan as we go through our conversation, but would you mind telling us first what it is that you're doing it at Baritone Health and how does it benefit those that may be listening today?

03:13.17
Meagan Pitcher
yeah So here at Baritone House, they're trying to improve the way that sleep apnea care is delivered, the way that it is practiced, by improving the diagnostics. So one of the major issues with sleep apnea is that a lot of people know they have it, a lot of people might suspect they have it, but they don't go and get a diagnosis because they're worried about outcomes. They're worried about getting a CPAP machine and maybe it works for them, maybe it doesn't. There are all these other alternatives that are coming on to market like ah dental devices, there are surgical procedures that are coming into use, even medications for sleep apnea that will be seen coming to market in the next two or three years. But the issue is, it's difficult to determine if you try something, is it going to work? Is it going to be efficacious? So one of the best ways to determine that is to understand what your underlying cause of sleep apnea is. So taking a step back,

04:02.61
Meagan Pitcher
talking about obstructive sleep apnea. um The reason that you snore while you're sleeping and that people sometimes have apnea events or suffocation events while you're sleeping is because you don't have muscle tone while you sleep. So when you're sleeping your body gets floppy and soft.

04:14.58
wearabletakeover
Yeah.

04:17.11
Meagan Pitcher
Same thing happens in your airway. So your tongue can collapse, your soft palate can collapse, your upper glottis can collapse, Any of these structures in your airway can collapse, causing a suffocation event, or as we call it in the medical field, an apnea event. If you know exactly what the anatomic problem is there, you can target your treatment and have better outcomes for patients. Now, the problem is, it's hard to do that anatomic assessment in a really easy, fast, scalable way. Right now, the only way you can do that is to bring a patient to the operating room, sedate them, and run a scope down, and look at what's collapsing in that airway intercedation.

04:52.20
Meagan Pitcher
So what we're doing at Baritone is solving that, bringing that operating room diagnostic out of the OR into the home environment, the available way to embed that into a wearable device. This is our recent project. Prototype, it's about the size of a band-aid. You wear it on your cheek. You can wear it during one night of sleep in your own bed. We collect the data. We can give an image to the doctor showing where collapses are happening during that night of sleep. Send them directly to them, and then they can plan their treatment approach directly for you, more personalized, with better outcomes for patients. So that's what we're trying to do. We have lots of other uses. Kind of thinking about this as a platform technology. There's lots of places where this can be used, but the first approach that we're taking is for the sleep apnea problem.

05:34.00
wearabletakeover
I love this. So folks, you heard it here. You see why I say I want to invest in her. Oh my gosh. I feel like if I were to go get a test and I wore your device, I mean, I can even play it off and pretend like I was left eye, you know, like for Halloween and just, you know, kind of make it cool or whatever.

05:50.75
Meagan Pitcher
ah use nelly a lot you know

05:50.98
wearabletakeover
But ah Oh, Nelly, yes! I love it. and And let me tell you, so i've I've had a number of close friends, and I'm not gonna tell their names here on the show, but a number of close friends that have been diagnosed with sleep apnea, and they have the CPAP machines, and you know they were very scared. And um you know there are a lot of folks that are married, and so they have to adjust their lifestyle with this machine.

06:12.06
Meagan Pitcher
I use an Ellie a lot, you know?

06:15.53
wearabletakeover
So, okay, so help us understand for that person that may have those symptoms, they may snore, um Some people are in denial that they snore. So how how can they ask for your device as far as the process of diagnosis?

06:33.35
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, sure. So we're, we're an early stage startup, we're not on market yet. But ideally in the future, it'll be hey, my spouse or whoever I'm sharing a bill with heard me stop breathing last night, I need to get that checked out. And it'll be as simple as asking for a diagnostic and we get shipped this directly to your house, using the one out of sleep. And we'll tell you exactly where the problem is. We can recommend some treatments for you as well. So that's kind of what we have. in mind for the future. But kind of just to help people that might be suffering right now, um, sleep apnea is a very serious problem.

06:59.07
wearabletakeover
That's outstanding.

07:04.08
Meagan Pitcher
So I do implore you, if you think you have a problem, if you whoever your bed partner is saying, Hey, I heard you stop reading last night. It was really scary. Please don't get diagnosed. It's easy. It's not easy. Um, could be easier, but it's something that you can do simply with a home-based sleep test. Just get a basic diagnosis. What we're doing is a little more advanced than that, but this should start the pathway to get an understanding of what's going on. And that's another thing that we're trying to kind of change of our approach, um kind of to remove that fear about, i'm go i I think I have sleep apnea and I don't want to go spend a night in the hospital to get diagnosed. And I don't want to have to wear a whole bunch of wires and stuff, even for some of these home sleep tests, you have a lot of.

07:44.06
Meagan Pitcher
Like a chestband and a wristband and all kinds of things. And I don't want to do a CPAP machine.

07:46.65
wearabletakeover
Mm hmm.

07:48.37
Meagan Pitcher
Those are scary. I don't want that thing on my bed. There's more ways to treat CPAP NIA than CPAP. There are dental devices or surgical procedures, as I mentioned. There are things like positional therapy. So maybe you changing your, your, if you're a backseeker may be changing to your side. These are all things that you can work with a medical practitioner to try to solve your problem. Because if you don't get it treated, it is connected with heart disease, it's connected with stroke, it's connected with Alzheimer's, it's connected with cancer. Um, just a higher general death rate for people with sleep apnea and the people without, especially people that are not treated. So please go take care of it. If you can, with what exists now, we're working on this to get this out into the future. Hopefully I'll market by 2026. We're going to give you a really thorough diagnosis and one night of sleep.

08:39.33
wearabletakeover
I love this. And you answered my question, like, what are some of the complications for folks that may not get a diagnosis? And you've mentioned a number of diseases that are incredibly prevalent in the African American community when you said heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's.

08:51.00
Meagan Pitcher
Okay.

08:53.12
wearabletakeover
And you know, we do that program with the and NIH um on the Alzheimer's incubator accelerator, if you will, for founders. um So there are so many disease states that could come out of this. So folks, it's to your benefit to go get tested. But you know what? Dr. Megan is going to make it easier, you know, with this prototype. And so we're we're rooting for her in 2026. So tell us about your team and and how this whole idea came about to start Baritone.

09:23.30
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, of course. um So our team came out of a by design program that was run at the Texas Medical Center here in Houston, Texas. um The by design program is based on a curriculum development Stanford, which kind of their, their thought is that there's almost a way that you can make a recipe for innovation in the sciences. So we had to train scientists to think about entrepreneurship. My first really understanding a problem in the market, and understanding the workflows, understanding where the gaps are, understanding where are problems that can be addressed by using medical technology. The second step is start ideating on how can you solve this solution? How can you solve this problem using the skill set on routine? And then third to execute that plan. So going back to the program we were involved in, um Texas Medical Center brought in

10:10.20
Meagan Pitcher
a couple of scientists, a couple of medical doctors, people that are on their second of their careers that have been working in science and medicine and tech for a while. They said, we'll give you a year, we'll pay your salary and give you some prototyping funds. See what you come up with after a year.

10:22.71
wearabletakeover
Nice.

10:24.19
Meagan Pitcher
And if you like it after a year, you can spend the company out and start working on it. So that's what we did. I joined the cohort in 2021. I found my co-founders, Dr. Britt Cross and Dr. Holm Kilich. We were interested in sleep apnea because we all have family members and loved ones that are affected by sleep apnea. That outcomes are i so bad in sleep apnea. And on the diagnostic side at least, there hasn't been much change over the last four years. The major change that happened is 40, four or zero years.

10:50.71
wearabletakeover
forty 40?

10:54.59
Meagan Pitcher
So the the main change that happened is some some people, instead of going to the clinic to get the seat tested with all the wires and stuff, they can do a seat test at home.

10:55.03
wearabletakeover
Sheesh.

11:03.71
Meagan Pitcher
It gives them kind of a good approximation of what's going on. um But, you know, that's kind of what it is. It's kind of like we can do it with less wires. But as far as the level of diagnostic information, that doesn't change much. um So with the skill set on our team, we thought this was something that's ripe for innovation. We thought that's something we could solve with what we have going on on our team. And that's what we started working on. My technical co-founder, Dr. Kilic, his expertise is in physics and sonar sensing. So he's kind of applying um a field of, or a type of science that he used in a previous career, um working in defense technologies.

11:41.09
Meagan Pitcher
um So working really with submarines and using sonar in a submarine environment, applying that to what we're doing with our medical device.

11:41.53
wearabletakeover
Wow.

11:48.46
Meagan Pitcher
Britt Cross is an ER doctor. He's been practicing like 10 years. And his his great thing is he could talk to all these doctors and understand workflow and where things are gonna fit and how people are gonna use things. My background, I worked in biotech. You read the exciting bio, biotech intellectual property. I'm kind of executing on a plan. That's my expertise. And we've been working on this since 2021. I have a working prototype, have a really early stage clinical study, tested this on six humans. So we're really happy with this so far.

12:18.04
wearabletakeover
I love it. and And I love that you touched on a clinical study. And one of the things that you and I both know, and maybe our listeners will learn, um is that typically or historically, representation for medical studies um have been dismal, you know, especially when you think about the Tuskegee experiment. And when we're thinking about the demographics that could be impacted the most, what what can you say to folks if they're ever approached to participate in a clinical study and What are some questions they should ask to make themselves feel comfortable? because And the reason I want to cover this is because at Wearable Tech Ventures, as we are fulfilling our mission of developing and promoting wearable technology and supporting 100 startups by 2030 that are led by non-traditional founders, studies have to be done. And if it's impacting the communities that we're talking about, we need people to participate. So can you provide some insight on why it's important and things that people should ask to make them feel more comfortable?

13:15.55
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, absolutely. um So any clinical study you're going to be a part of, you're going to have to have something called a consent form. So some individual, the investigator, the doctor, whoever's running that research project, because it is research, they're going to write up consent form, listing out what it is they're going to do, listing out all the risks they could have thought of, listing out what the benefits may or may not be, um and kind of outlining what the study will look like. if or Is there going to be follow up in six months? Is there going to be follow up in a year? um so Definitely, if this is something that you're interested in, ask for that consent form. There'll be a research coordinator there to answer your questions, and that's their job. They get paid for that, because we're paying them for that. We're paying them not really great.

13:56.78
Meagan Pitcher
to explain what we're doing in this research to patients, just let them know, Hey, we're going to, we're going to put this on your face. These are potential risks. This is what may or may not happen. And one of the things about research um that I get a lot of questions about is, well, how does it benefit me? Well, it's probably not going to benefit you directly because it's research, but it might benefit someone else down the line.

14:12.93
wearabletakeover
Mm

14:19.45
Meagan Pitcher
um So this body of research could be put together into a really great thing. Like, vaccines like, you know, treatments for diabetes, you know, the way that we are able to monitor diabetes in the home environment with little wearables and stuff, um compared to years past, um people had to be enrolled in those studies to make that happen. um So that's kind of one of the things that should that could drive you.

14:39.19
wearabletakeover
-hmm

14:42.85
Meagan Pitcher
um I myself have been in a research study before I was actually back during COVID. And I was sitting home like, man, I wish I could do something besides just being at home seventy and a vaccine trial opened up at Baylor College of Medicine. Like, oh, you know, I think I'll sign up for that. um And it same thing, I had the consent form. In this case, it was more like a consent booklet. um So of course, that's the thing.

15:06.10
wearabletakeover
Mm hmm.

15:07.57
Meagan Pitcher
If it's too much to read, I can see how that can be outputting to people. um But they really do aim to make it understandable, even though it's a whole lot of paperwork. And there's risk. I mean, going back to This was the first time in our and mRNA vaccines are being used. um So kind of understanding the risk, understanding that it may not benefit me, but maybe it means that all these people can now get a vaccine and and kind of enjoy their life in a way that has been restricted due to this pandemic. um you know So I don't know, sharing that story of, you know i'm I'm a scientist, we do research with humans. I've also been a subject of research.

15:46.60
Meagan Pitcher
um I don't know if that helps people become more comfortable with the idea. Some people are just not going to like it because there is a really horrible history of the American medical system using black bodies for research without their consent.

15:55.54
wearabletakeover
Yes.

16:01.00
Meagan Pitcher
I have a copy of Immortal Life of Henrietta Lex on my bookshelf right here, prime example.

16:04.03
wearabletakeover
Yes.

16:06.23
Meagan Pitcher
um So I understand the fear and kind of the disillusionment. But all I can say is try to be informed. um talk to Talk to your local scientists or your doctor or someone one that you know to kind of help you understand what's going on and talk to the research coordinators to understand what's going on with the research. Understand your w risk profile. Maybe it's just not for you. But again, if we don't do the research on people of color, we don't know if there's going to be different outcomes for us.

16:27.74
wearabletakeover
Mm-hmm

16:35.96
Meagan Pitcher
So i hopefully it helps.

16:36.17
wearabletakeover
Absolutely

16:37.83
Meagan Pitcher
um you know

16:38.12
wearabletakeover
that That definitely did help.

16:39.10
Meagan Pitcher
Where it is.

16:39.40
wearabletakeover
That definitely did help. it and And again, this this you know we'll have to cut that up piece up for other folks that may have some apprehension in the future. But again, especially if we we're talking about supporting these companies that are in our pipeline, this is a necessary piece of it. okay We start start talking about the deep tech, getting into it. But let me ask you a vain question you know for all the folks out there in the skincare. And they may be saying, what is this you're putting on my face? Are you able to describe you know without releasing too much proprietary information about your product? um What it is and can and the second part of that is, how does your product classify as a wearable? And the reason I'm asking you that second part is because oftentimes we meet people and they think wearable technology

17:26.80
wearabletakeover
has to be a band that you wear on your wrist. And so we're showing them the evolution of wearable technology. So one, let's cover, you know but and does it impact your skin? whats What's going on there? And then also, can you clarify how it's in the wearable cat category? And we know what it is. We just want to make sure everybody else knows.

17:47.91
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, of course. So inside the sensor patch, you can see it's flexible. It's doing a little wave here. It's floppy. On the back, there's just a little adhesive backing. um So think about really a band-aid. So it's like sticking a band-aid on your cheek. um You stick it on before you go to sleep. You'd interact with an app on your phone just to set it up until it's a start to read. Then in the morning, you would hit a button that says, my night of sleep is complete. And then that data would go up to the cloud and we would process it. But as far as what's going on in your face, it's just it's a medically cleared FDA cleared adhesive. There's lots of them on the market, and we're not reinventing the wheel on our adhesive. It's just something that we stick on the backing of this. The technology that's in this patch allows us to see what's going on in the airway where the collapses are happening. We have a couple sensors in here on an array. So a couple sensors are inside this patch. We're able to process a signal that's generated by the airway. We have this complete collapse of the airway and reopening. It creates a very unique sound signature, depending on where it's coming from in the airway.

18:47.36
Meagan Pitcher
you track that signature as it travels from the site of origin, as it travels from muscle, bone, skin, into the back of the sensor patch, and that's very able to get our read. As far as wearables coming on a form factor that's not a wrist-rotch, it depends on the signal you're looking for. So especially for medical technologies, we're interested in upper airway collapse. Our original prototype was an array of eight sensors. We had sensors all over the cheek and all over the neck.

19:13.39
wearabletakeover
Oh wow.

19:14.33
Meagan Pitcher
we kind of um we just From there, we determine we don't need eight, we need three, and it could be in this orientation. I'm gonna stick about maybe men who have facial hair or anyone who has facial hair. I wanna make sure this is a place where facial hair is not gonna be a problem. I wanna have it on a place that's pretty easy for you to apply. So that's why we went with this form factor. Um, there are other wearables on the market. If you're talking about, you can monitor heart health at home. So maybe have a ah wearable that you apply to the chest. Um, there are other wearables kind of on the the other side of sleep apnea. We're doing a basic apnea test where you apply a patch to your abdomen. Um, so there's, there's all this innovation, um, really on miniaturizing the sensors, miniaturizing the chips, making them nice and flexible.

19:57.69
Meagan Pitcher
So now you can put sensors anywhere. I've seen sensor form factors that cover your face, um, for stroke treatment and diagnosis. I've again, seen things that go on your heart or your your chest. You can wear them for a week or more if you want a really long-term monitoring of what's going on with heart activity. Um, so it's, it's really the changes that are happening right now, um, opens up so much as far as, um, innovation or creativity around what you want to be able to look at, what you want to be able to be doing. and where you can put it on the body and how long you can wear it for.

20:29.32
wearabletakeover
I love it. You know what? um You said something earlier about um basically and not having any muscle tone, and that's and that's a symptom that leads to the diagnosis of sleep apnea. And then, of course, the vein part of me went into, and I'm sure some other folks' minds might have gone to, oh, should I get to the gym to build that that that muscle tone? Is there any way, from from your from your opinion, anyone can do that to prevent ah being diagnosed with sleep apnea or not.

21:03.22
Meagan Pitcher
That's an excellent question. I'll say ah so the first thing I'll say is that muscle tone changes throughout life. So one thing is as we get older, we have less muscle tone. So a lot of times in elderly patients with sleep apnea, they may not have any other symptoms, but just because they have this kind of lack of muscle tone, they might have really severe sleep apnea. There's not much you can do about that. That's just part of b life and growing old. Now, your question is about, can I exercise and prevent sleep apnea? There are actually some people operating in that market. um So baritone, we stay on the diagnostic side and we want to be able to funnel people to different treatment types. One treatment type is um

21:42.80
Meagan Pitcher
exercising your tongue muscle. So exercising your tongue muscle when you're awake, so it has more muscle tone when you're sleeping, so it's less likely to fall into the airway.

21:45.33
wearabletakeover
Ah.

21:51.90
Meagan Pitcher
um Another approach that's coming on the market is actually, what's the word? It's called cryoblation. I think they call it something else, but basically attacking the fat pads that form at the back of the tongue, so reducing the bulk of the tissue at the back of the tongue just to make it more lean and open up that airway so there's less chance of collapse during that.

21:59.48
wearabletakeover
Yes.

22:12.98
Meagan Pitcher
So yes, people are thinking about that because I mean, the the upper airway, the tongue is a major muscle. Can we exercise and make it stronger? Can we do? physical therapy on people and help make it stronger. A really interesting use that we've thought about for our device is, um, you know, when you're pumping, you know, you're doing the exercise at the gym, you could see your muscles getting bigger, but you can't really see the impact on your tongue.

22:32.89
wearabletakeover
Yeah.

22:35.62
Meagan Pitcher
So we could pair this with one with most of those tongue exercises. You could say, Hey, I'm doing my tongue. Exercise is looking really good. Let me get 20 reps in. And then, you know, I'll go have a protein shake or whatever. Um, so that's something that we could use this for, is kind of helping people see into that black box in the back of the tongue, what they're doing with biofeedback or ri physical therapy for time.

22:45.93
wearabletakeover
I love it.

22:54.71
wearabletakeover
I love it.

22:54.94
Meagan Pitcher
That also applies to the swallow, that applies to speech therapy.

22:55.28
wearabletakeover
See folks.

22:58.26
Meagan Pitcher
There's a lot of, a lot of modalities where you want to do exercise with a tongue and you can't really not always have feedback back there.

23:00.29
wearabletakeover
Oh, yes.

23:07.06
wearabletakeover
That's amazing. See folks, see she's a wealth of knowledge. You know, I forgot to ask, is it waterproof, a baritone?

23:14.56
Meagan Pitcher
Yes, but um maybe don't go swimming with it, but it's waterproof enough to survive a night of sleep.

23:20.98
wearabletakeover
okay okay okay that's good because i know some people may have been asking you know may have been thinking it and i forgot to ask an earlier one but folks let me tell you i told you she's a wealth of knowledge and if you are listening to this before our hackathon in july 2024 make sure you register so that you can visit

23:22.16
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah.

23:39.72
wearabletakeover
Dr. Meghan, during some office hours, get to hear more about her story, her perspective, ask her about baritone, see how you could get on a wait list. I don't even know if they have one, but if you need to get tested and and are in that category for sleep apnea, you want to make sure you're advocating for yourself and also supporting Dr. Meghan in the process. So Dr. Meghan, let's get to the human side of you before we close out for today. You have an amazing story. Did you always know you wanted to be a scientist?

24:14.20
Meagan Pitcher
I think from an early age, I wanted to be a scientist. I thought o when i when I was young, doing science and elevators, oh yeah, science is cool. So I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I grew up tailgating at Southern University games. And then when I was old enough, I was doing summer programs at Southern University.

24:27.60
wearabletakeover
Oh.

24:30.98
Meagan Pitcher
So I'd be in an engineering program or a physics program. And I thought, you know what? Maybe engineering is not really for me, but maybe life sciences. I actually had the opportunity. Southern University had an exchange program with Iowa State University. So the summer before my senior year of high school, they sent a group of us up to Iowa State University and we did research all summer. I thought, oh, this is cool.

24:52.62
wearabletakeover
Wow.

24:53.04
Meagan Pitcher
This is what research is? I didn't know because I didn't really conceive of what research looked like. um as a student just reading like a biology textbook. Now I have a completely different understanding having done graduate training, gotten the PhD, written my own papers, written my own thesis and stuff. So that first little taste, which was kind of facilitated by these all these summers I spent at Southern University, really got me into I want to do science. This is what I want to do for my career.

25:20.60
wearabletakeover
I love it. So for our young folks, you know middle school and high schoolers that are in our summer programs, we're hoping that you see the examples like you see here with Dr. Megan Pitcher and you are inspired in some sort of way. And again, you have an advocate, you have a mentor, you have access to her as well in July during the Tech Remix Hackathon. you know Dr. Megan, you've been doing pretty well um as far as media, we're We're constantly seeing impressions of you out there, and we're seeing you winning from a perspective of pitching your business. Do you want to share you know how much you've raised to date and give some advice to those that may be on the fundraising trail? And the reason I'm asking that is not to brag, but we definitely want to bring successful examples forward, but then also because we know the climate is changing. Everybody needs some encouragement sometime. So do you want to share, relate to that?

26:14.82
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, of course. um First of all, i'll I'll be honest, I wish we could have raised more. like Every time I have a fundraising goal, I kind of fall on my face, but it's it's enough to keep the company alive. And that's really what it is. You raise enough to do a milestone, and then you live to fight another day. um It's hard. The market is really hard. Um, it's really hard to find the right investors if you don't have the right network. So that's something, it took me a really long time to cultivate.

26:40.69
wearabletakeover
Mhm.

26:43.43
Meagan Pitcher
Um, even, even here in Houston where you have a really strong, um, you know, medical, lots of medical stuff, lots of clinical stuff, huge hospital context in the Texas medical center.

26:51.13
wearabletakeover
Mhm.

26:53.17
Meagan Pitcher
Um, it's hard to find experienced investors who understand the risk because that's what makes a company like mine different from something like a SaaS company where you can type the code and the products on the market in a week. And then you have sales a week after that, um, kind of the fast turnover, fast return. This thing I have to say, well, first we're going to build it. Then we need to do a regulatory process and then we'll go to market.

27:12.52
wearabletakeover
Yes.

27:16.43
Meagan Pitcher
So after you put all that money in, then we'll see the return. And also you have to hope that nothing changes too much in the field while I'm doing that process.

27:23.55
wearabletakeover
Right.

27:23.76
Meagan Pitcher
It's hard to find those investors. They do exist. Um, it, You need to talk to the right people because there are a lots of people that will give you bad advice or point you in the wrong direction.

27:34.78
wearabletakeover
yeah

27:36.65
Meagan Pitcher
um There are lots of angels because that's another thing that you're typically encouraged to do on your first round. Friends and family. What if your friends and family are not wealthy? Then you're not going to be able to do that. Angels. A lot of angels just don't miss, they just don't meet the risk profile for medical advice. They'll say something like, let us know is FDA approved and we'll give you a check.

27:52.96
wearabletakeover
Hmm.

27:56.19
Meagan Pitcher
Well, if it's FDA approved, I'm not going to be looking for an angel check. I'm looking for a scaling size check type of thing.

28:02.01
wearabletakeover
Right.

28:02.47
Meagan Pitcher
um so Just talking to talking to people who are doing this, connecting with Lakisha's network, really great mentors there that could help point you in the right direction of investors that are doing it in MedTech. Pitchbook is great. You can just take a look and see if they have actually invested in MedTech before and what kind of companies have actually invested in before. um talking to people in your field, um looking at their pitch decks, and seeing who's supporting them. That's the best way to do it. And it just takes time, unfortunately. There's not an easy, maybe it'll be an easy way with what you're building with Keisha for people to find the right capital for the businesses.

28:35.73
wearabletakeover
We're trying.

28:38.12
Meagan Pitcher
But that's been the struggle for us, finding, doing all these calls. I'm actually keep a ah spreadsheet of who I've talked to. um I've had about 170 meetings to date.

28:45.61
wearabletakeover
Good.

28:49.79
Meagan Pitcher
of investors um to get the amount of capital that we have raised so far. Also, grants. If you're doing the science, SBIR grants, they're great.

28:59.06
wearabletakeover
Yes.

29:00.05
Meagan Pitcher
Talk to your grant writer, talk to me, happy to point to the right direction. Those that money is equity free, support about government, and you can run your R&D program off of that and develop a really great product. So that's my advice and happy to share more because I know I'm forgetting something. but it's a process.

29:20.59
wearabletakeover
You're not going anywhere folks. She's in our ecosystem. She's here to stay. We're so proud of her. And before we go, because we know you have life to manage, you know, outside of talking to us, but we're so proud of you and we look forward to talking with you even more. Um, do you have a word of advice for our listeners and then also can you share where people can follow you?

29:40.97
Meagan Pitcher
Yeah, so I am on LinkedIn. um It's Megan Pitcher. I don't have Instagram or Twitter. I'm sorry. I'm um what you call a geriatric millennial.

29:49.68
wearabletakeover
Mm

29:50.71
Meagan Pitcher
ah I know I need to set that up for the company for sure, but you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also find Barrington Health on LinkedIn. were We're somewhat active there posting. um Word of advice, keep fighting. um it's when you When you hear someone like me on a podcast, I talk about all the great stuff about the company. There are these these times where it's just the worst. Like you're just having the worst day, something really bad happened.

30:13.56
wearabletakeover
-hmm

30:16.42
Meagan Pitcher
If if the what you're working on is worth it to you, keep fighting. Live to fight another day. Raise a little bit of capital to keep it going or whatever you need to do to keep it going. Fight until you know that it's not gonna work or you know that it's just not for you and it's not your passion anymore. Don't give up. That's my advice.

30:36.20
wearabletakeover
I love it, folks, and so you heard it from Dr. Megan Pitcher yourself. Keep fighting, and we're gonna keep fighting with ya. That's it for today's episode of Wearable Takeover, but you know we're coming back, and you can always check in with Dr. Megan Pitcher. Thank you for being amazing, and we hope to see you at Tech Remix.