Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors of Milton, Crabapple, and Hickory Flat
Good Neighbor Podcast: Milton & More
S2 Ep24: Better Life Science with Alan Brock
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Ever wondered how a clinical laboratory could transition into a direct-to-consumer giant amidst a global pandemic? Join us as we chat with Alan Brock, the dynamic CEO of Better Life Science, who reveals his inspiring journey from healthcare professional to leading an innovative lab testing company. Alan shares how his team adapted during COVID-19, creating a variety of accessible health diagnostics, including a cutting-edge food allergy test influenced by his daughter's health and a highly accurate Lyme disease test developed after a personal scare with his wife.
Alan also candidly discusses the hurdles Better Life Science faced in gaining market visibility, especially on competitive platforms like Amazon and Walmart.com. He opens up about his passion for Georgia football, his love for the outdoors, and his past experiences coaching. We also touch on exciting future projects, including a groundbreaking breast cancer screening genetic test in collaboration with Clemson University. Tune in to discover how Better Life Science is empowering individuals to take control of their health and what lies ahead for this pioneering company.
Direct-to-Consumer Lab Testing Innovations
Speaker 1This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Poehler.
Speaker 2Hey everybody, I'm excited to be talking with Alan Brock. He is the CEO of Better Life Science. Welcome, Alan.
Speaker 3Hey, how are you and how's everybody today?
Speaker 2Good, good, good. We're excited to chat, so why don't you start off by telling us about your business?
Speaker 3Yep, I'm the CEO of Better Life Science. We are a clinical laboratory. We're based out of Alpharetta and we do and specialize in direct to the consumer lab testing for people.
Speaker 2Awesome. And can you kind of talk about your background and have you kind of always been in laboratory science or is it something new for you?
Speaker 3Well, it's relatively new. All things considered. I've been in the health care industry for over 30 years. I retired in 2015 and started actually coaching football and at the high school level and doing the youth programs with a friend of mine named Tim Lester, who is a Milton resident. And in 2019, I bought a clinical laboratory out of bankruptcy. That was down in Sandy Springs six months prior to COVID and we you know we had the pitfalls of learning how to navigate through that. And once COVID kind of closed down and I went through the frustrations with dealing with insurance companies and got really frustrated with, you know, some pitfalls of our healthcare system, our team decided we were going to go a different direction, so we opted for direct-to-the-consumer testing and trying to get on platforms to make that possible.
Speaker 2Awesome, and what are some of the things that you offer? What kinds of testing do you guys have?
Speaker 3So I start out by, you know, trying to bring things that are kind of close to my heart. Our first test that we offered, which is actually in February this year, was a food allergy, food sensitivity test. I have a daughter she's going she's going to want to choke me out for mentioning this, but she's always had stomach issues and gut health has just become so prevalent and everyone talks about the gluten diets and peanut allergies and I thought, well, what a better way. Why don't we get involved with this and make something that is good for the consumer so they don't have to spend thousands of dollars and make it economical? And that's what we did. So we rolled that test out in February of this year. We have a, we have tick bite hero, so we have a Lyme disease test.
Speaker 3So I'm an avid outdoorsman and I like to hunt and fish and do anything all outside. I like to go hiking, just anything that I can do outdoors, all outside. I like to go hiking, just anything that I can do outdoors, and my wife and I actually last December we were down in South Carolina in December of all things, and she gets up the next day and she has a tick on her and I'm like what the heck is that? And the first thing out of her mouth was oh my gosh, what if I get Lyme disease? And it was like a little bell just went off and I said, well, holy crap, like we can figure this out. So I, you know, I came to work the next week and sat with Dr Eagerton and Dr McGonty, who worked with me, and said, hey, you know, can you guys get some background and give me some information on Lyme disease testing? I'd be curious. You know what kind of methodologies are out there. So once they did a few months of research and came back to me and said you know, I think this is something that we can actually do and put a product on the market that is state-of-the-art, that's better. So we use basically what we were doing with pcr when we were coveted testing um to do that to test for lyme disease, and it's 97 specific and the current methodologies that the fda swears by is only 40 effective. So there are so many misdiagnoses with Lyme disease. I thought, well, we can do a better job at this. So we've just recently launched that. We've been gosh, running some television ad campaigns on TV to try to get the word out and that seems to be taking off pretty well.
Speaker 3And then the other one, which is the one that people really don't like to talk about, is the STI crisis in America, and there's, you know, over 9000 new cases of STIs in America like every day diagnosed, and I thought, well, you know, this is something that we can also do. So we have a common STD test where we call it STD hero, because a lot of people don't don't don't get the disclaimer between the STI and STD, because it's really the same thing. So we have some, some good quality tests that are out there and it's something that you can just order, versus having to go to your doctor and have an awkward conversation with them. It's something you can order in the comfort of your home, get a test, get a result, and then you can have the awkward conversation after you get the result.
Speaker 2If it's one that's negative definitely no, that lyme disease one sounds amazing. I have heard over the years that it's very hard to diagnose.
Speaker 3It is, yeah, it is and you know the thing about lyme disease that a lot of people don't really understand and get it's like having a home and being infected with termites. The damage that it does to your body is not reversible and it's not a disease, it's actually a bacterial infection. And the sooner you can get a diagnosis, you can get on a doxycycline and it'll get rid of it. But if it goes and stays in your body for several months and it's undetected, it can wreak havoc on your body. And there's story after story after story of different tragic events and families because of Lyme disease and I thought well, you know, I can do something to have a positive impact on this. So that's what we've done.
Speaker 2That's great. Any myths or misperceptions that are out there that you want to clear up, maybe about the efficacy of home testing or the industry?
Speaker 3Yeah, well, you know a lot of people don't realize that they can actually go to a clinical laboratory and get tests without getting you know, without going to see their doctor first for certain tests, and COVID did help make that available and you know a lot of the clinical laboratories out there doing that. Now the transition for us was when you're doing in a healthcare setting, the way that you get your result has to be changed drastically because when I'm giving a doctor result, I can just give him data or she data, when when you're doing it for a consumer, I have to throw some charts and some graphs and throw some numbers in there with explanations. So the reporting function of it is quite a bit different, because you want to make it simple, easy to read, so that a novice can digest that information and take it and put it to good use, especially as it relates to like a food sensitivity or a food allergy. And you know the biggest myth behind that is especially as it relates to food allergies is actually only about 20% of the population has an actual allergy.
Speaker 3And you know you get people and you know even close friends of mine they'll be like well, I have seasonal allergies. Well, it doesn't mean that you're going to go into anaphylaxis and you're going to die because of ragweed. It just means that that doesn't react well with your body and it's something that you're sensitive to and that's your body's natural reaction to say, hey, let's get rid of this. I'm sneezing. You know that's your body saying this is not good for me. It's not something that you know is going to send you to the emergency room. I don't think they'd probably laugh at you if you showed up with that. But you know, just going through that myth and having to explain that when you're doing the test to, you know, to a parent's like well, my child has seasonal allergies, yeah, but you know there's a difference between that and if you eat shrimp you're going to need an EpiPen. So that's one of the big things. So it's a lot of the educational component, if you will.
Speaker 2Got it and how about, you know, maybe some challenges and obstacles that you've had along the way and kind of getting the business off the ground?
Speaker 3Yeah, the, you know, the biggest thing is to let people know that you actually exist. So you know, we really came into the market in February of this year and you know our team sat down and we had all these great meetings talking about well, how do we get the word out? What's the marketing? Do we do email? Do we utilize some of our corporate relationships that we built during the COVID years? You know what's the best way to do this, and we opted to go on Amazon and Walmart dot com, and we're on those platforms now. So you could readily search our products and they're there.
Speaker 3But the problem was, the pitfall is, when I'm competing against people that have been in that market for 10 plus years, I show up on page seven. Well, I think everybody can relate to that uses Amazon as a platform. I have never gone to page seven to buy a product on Amazon. If it shows up on the first one, I pick something there and go on. So just letting people know that you know, hey, we're out here, we're a competitor, we have a phenomenal product, our customer service is exceptional, we exist. But it's the marketing piece to let people know that you actually exist, and that is a hurdle that we're fighting every day.
Speaker 2Definitely. What do you like to do for fun when you're not working? Definitely.
Speaker 3What do you like to do for fun when you're not working? Gosh, I have some haters, I guess, but I love Georgia football, I love the outdoors. So you know it's it's football season, so we we get to go up to the Georgia games, do some tailgating. My wife and I were going to be empty nesters, but we have a daughter that's going to be starting law school next year, so she's at home with us. But our youngest is is up there and we have three kids, and they all three went to three different SEC schools. So Thanksgiving dinner's great at our house. Yeah, we should film that to put it on TV.
Speaker 2Are you still coaching football at all?
Speaker 3I am not my, my, when my my best friend, away in twenty twenty one from covid and I, you know I kind of lost the desire at that point. But I did enjoy those years I I coached at one of the private Christian schools here in Alpharetta and absolutely enjoyed it and built some great relationships with some, some young men that are out doing great things now. But, yeah, I kind of lost my passion for it but still love football.
Speaker 2Yeah, understand that. Anything else that you want our listeners to know about Better Life Science?
Speaker 3No, like you know, if there are any products that you need that we offer, we can be found on walmartcom. We're on Amazon as a platform. Things can be bought directly at myblscom. We're going to continue as we grow. We're going to be offering more tests. We have a few things that are kind of in the burner right now that we're wanting to work on to bring to the public, and I guess I could give a precursor to one. So we're working with some partners. So one of our lab partners and consultants works for Clemson University and he's in genetics there and he does a lot of cancer research. So we are working kind of in the background right now to come out with a breast cancer screening genetic test that looks at the seven BRCA genes that are precursors to breast cancer and it hits close to home with my family. So it's one of the things that we're looking at doing and we should, in the next 12 months, have that rolled out.
Speaker 3But we're just looking to be innovative and finding tests that people want. That people need that you're not necessarily going to get when you go to the doctor's office and you know I have a lot of physician friends and some great physician partners around Milton and Alpharetta in this area. And you know we get in our long conversations about fighting with insurance companies and diagnosing and treating based on what gets paid and what doesn't get paid. And there you know, there's some things. Even though we have the greatest healthcare system in the in the world, we still have some things that fall through the cracks. And you know we want to work on some preventative care versus reactive care and we want to make sure that we're developing lab tests that can really do that for people. So we want to empower people to take their health care into their own hands, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2Yeah, it sounds like you're helping people live a better life. That's great. Can you just share the website so folks can find you?
Speaker 3Yeah, it's myblscom. You can Google search better life science tick bite hero, std hero, allergy hero, and you know? Finally, after six months or so, we're finally starting to show up in the search engines and people are actually learning where that we exist. So we're watching our growth. It's been spiking up. I think last month we were a 77 percent growth. In the month before that it was just below 50 percent. So growing by leaps and bounds and want to continue. We would like to continue that trend.
Speaker 2So that's awesome. You guys are doing big things and we're lucky to have you right here locally, so all right. Thanks for joining us today, Alan.
Speaker 3Hey, thank you so much, stacy, and I love your platform.
Speaker 2Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1Yep, thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast Milton and more. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPMiltoncom. That's GNPMiltoncom, or call 470-664-4930.