Health Doctor Explains The MOST Addictive Drug || Shane Bishop

Learn more about Custom Health: customhealth.com
August Motorcars: augustmotorcars.com

What if a device on your kitchen counter could track every pill you take, alert your doctor in real time, and flag opioid addiction before it takes hold? That's exactly what Shane built.

In this episode of August After Dark, we sit down with the founder of Custom Health — a UBC pharmacist who rewrote Canadian legislation and is now taking his company public on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Shane shares the story behind Spencer, Custom Health's smart medication dispenser that replaces a cabinet full of pill bottles with a single daily pouch — connected to a 24/7 clinical team that actually monitors whether your medication is working.

We talk about the opioid crisis in a way you haven't heard before — the full-image tracking of a tablet from pharmacy shelf to patient hand, and the AI that flags opioid use disorder before a doctor's appointment ever happens.

If you want to understand where healthcare is actually going — this episode is for you.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
01:44 - Dream Cars, What's in the Garage
05:43 - From UBC Pharmacy Grad to Healthcare Disruptor
07:44 - Building Western Canada's First Central Fill Pharmacy
10:29 - Why Guessing your Medication has to STOP
13:14 - The Parkinson's Story That Changed Everything
16:04 - How the Dispenser Works
19:04 - Tracking Every Opioid From Pharmacy to Patient
22:58 - The Hidden Danger of Opioids After Surgery
25:35 - How AI Catches Addiction Early
30:22 - The Future of Pharmacy in the Next 5 Years
33:08 - How to the Dispenser in your home
35:52 - The Growth Plan & Going Public on the TSX
38:28 - What Keeps a Founder Going When It Gets Hard
40:48 - Why Disconnecting Outdoors Keeps You Sane
47:46 - What Patient Care Looks Like 3 Years From Now

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You said guessing with medication needs to stop. It's a massive problem. No one knows why they're taking this medication.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

They don't really know which one's which. They're actually guessing. Forty percent of Americans were given opioids for some sort of reason last year, and no wonder we cut it.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

You have to have a team that can be clinically responsible for the opioids at that patient. Almost on a daily, not on here's a 90 days to play and come back to see me, which is how the world works today. And then it's too late. Give us a little bit of a background on custom health. Custom Health today packages specialized cartridge of medication, eliminates all the different vials and all the stress associated with that. We literally change labitation.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Three out of four people are on multiple medications and they don't take them right. Forty six percent of Americans filled an opioid prescription last year. And the man sitting across to me tonight has spent 30 years deciding to do something about it. My guest tonight is Shane Bishop, founder and CEO of Custom Health, a tech-enabled medication management company with hubs across the US and Canada. Nobody else in the world has hit this at scale. Shane started as a UBC pharmacist in 1994. He built the first central fill pharmacy in Western Canada. He wrote legislation that changed how British Columbians fill their prescriptions. And he's about to take custom health somewhere no medication management company has ever been. Tonight we're talking about how AI is going to change the way every patient takes their medicine. We're going under the hood of the technology. Spencer, AdhereNet, the whole stack. We're talking about a growth strategy for a company that could change how the world treats medication. All right, Shane, welcome to August After Dark. It wouldn't be uh it wouldn't be August After Dark if we didn't start with a little bit about cars. So what's in the garage today? What's the daily driver? Um, what's the dream car? Uh give me a little bit of a kind of idea as to where your thought process is with cars and and what you enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I can uh you know stand back and I can walk around here and admire all these amazing vehicles in here, the Ferraris, the Porsches, you know, the Bugattis. But growing up, you know, I I have a picture in my house of a Ford Mustang. It's a black Mustang with a 390 as my dad's car growing up. And and you know, I I fell in love with that type of car early on. When I was 16 years old, my uh my mother had a you know a Chevy Malibu. We've always called that a sleeper car. It has a you know, had a 351 four-barrel. And that was my my first car. And uh, you know, and and and that evolved into today sitting in my garage, I think thanks to you actually, is uh is a Dodge TRX. So I've always been drawn to the muscle for whatever reason, the sound, the thunder, the rumble. Um, so for me, you know, if I had a a dream car, I I would love that, you know, the the what is it, the new boss Mustang that's that that's coming on the market, like that, the older style, the older look, the older curves, and and that that engine. Just absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

When you have that car in your driveway, yes, and that, you know, that young kid bikes by your house and kind of sees that car, what do you want them to kind of see as the who's the driver of that car? Like what is that kind of what does that portray to the kid driving by that's like, oh my God, that's that's that's a really cool Mustang, you know, that guy must be. What does that kind of look like for you? And what do you think that that kid kind of sees you as?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

You know, I I mean I've been I've been watching, you know, my my boys grow up and uh, you know, again, you know, they you know they love all the the newer vehicles, but when when you see that that older car, that classic, but you know, all done up and you know polished and shined, it's mes mesmerizing. The kids stop, they look, and they stare. Um, I think uh, you know, going back to yesterday with my my TRX sitting in the driveway, I think people were staring because I had a little gravel in the back of it was probably not the best thing to do out in the garden, but uh but um you know when you start those those big trucks up, the sound. I mean, my kids just absolutely love it. And then the the neighborhood kids and I start that up, they're they're they just you know sit back and stare and they they watch me drive by. It's just it it's pretty cool. You know, and I think it's it's the sound. It it really is. It's it's it's something else.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, there's you just don't get that muscle sound from anything else. And I I agree. I'm a I'm a huge TRX fan as well, as we've talked about multiple times. Um yeah, there's just something about like that supercharger wine, that sound of that V8, and and uh yeah, they're they're fantastic. I I've I've always loved Mustangs as well. I had a really cool uh Eleanor uh car at one point, and and it was a car that broke down on me consistently, but I still it it still made me happy every time it was still on a flat deck because it was such a beautiful car. Um and when it did leave me stranded, it it still made me smile as as weird as that may sound. But most people would just give up. But uh they they have a personality to them. They do. And and that's that's what a lot of people um you know start understanding the more cars they have and the more cars they drive. Yeah. Is that every car has a different personality. Um, you know, to the the older Lamborghini stuff, the older Ferrari, you know, it's not perfect. And that's what makes it exciting to drive.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah. And I don't know if it's my my age at this point in time, but I would say if I you know step back 20 years ago, I had my you know, my eyes set on, you know, one of these beautiful cars in in behind us here. And uh, but now as I you know entered my 50s, for some reason all I can think about is getting hold of one of these classics and making it right and and uh you know beautifying it. And I just I hopefully I get there one day.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I think you will. And I think that's a great segue into um you know you being a pharmacist and and building what you've built today. It's uh it's it's really amazing what you have um in the company that you've built and the and the tech behind it, and we'll get into it. But uh a UBC pharmacist in 1994, um you're 24 years old and got your degree. Um what did you think that was gonna look like? What did you think your future was gonna be after graduating?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

I mean, you know, getting into pharmacy to start with, I you know, I I I was in sciences. So sciences, math, physics, chemistry, all that sort of thing, love chemistry, um, which kind of leads you into the health sciences. So I ended up um, you know, choosing choosing pharmacy more so because of the business side of pharmacy. Um I had you know friends who had parents who are entrepreneurs who own, you know, pharmacies or multiple pharmacies, um, had some friends that family members are in toxicology, working for the RCMP. There's a lot you could do with kind of pharmacy pharma at the time versus, you know, my when I was looking at, you know, should I be a doctor, should I be a dentist? You know, the physicians are on call, that sort of thing. It was really about business. So when I came out of my fourth year of uh of pharmacy school, um, they actually bring in uh, you know, organizations, companies, people looking to hire new students, right? So um I was lucky enough to meet an individual who owned a chain of pharmacies up in northern BC. And he was also at the time president of uh of a group of pharmacies called People's Drug Mart. He ran the wholesale division of this group of pharmacies as well. So very business, astute type of individual, um, but also had the clinical side with him. So so I took a job in uh, you know, in his chain of pharmacies to kind of get started out of UBC, and it was really about business, like the business side. Like I knew I could learn the ropes of, you know, running a chain of pharmacies, how these, you know, how medication flow through wholesalers, distributors, the logistics, the pricing, all that sort of thing. Um, and that's what I was really driven, you know, out of from university like day one is was really that.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

And you built the first central fill pharmacy in Western Canada with Paragon. Walk me through the gap you saw that no one else did.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, I mean, at the time, um, you know, we were we were building a chain of pharmacies and uh, you know, I had set up within this structure uh Paragon at the time, a first kind of closed door non-retail pharmacy in Western Canada. So not your you know, front store retail pharmacies with the milk and the you know and the the copness and all that sort of thing. It was closed door like a factory setting, um, first adopt this packaging automation into that structure in Western Canada. But we were trying to find a way to actually, you know, streamline and increase the efficiencies of the filling side of the business so that our pharmacists in the retail pharmacies could actually spend more time with patients. Um when you spend more time with patients, inevitably in these communities you pull in more customers and you kind of build your business that way through touch and you know, really caring about the individuals. We never have time to do it. So we thought we'd centralize this. So in order to do that, you know, I had to uh set up a new type of technology to kind of pull in prescription information from the other pharmacies that we owned in the area and pull it into a central hub where we could package with, you know, within a pharmacy structure where there's only staff dedicated to that type of packaging format. So super efficient. Um but uh yeah, in order to do that, we had to actually rewrite the legislation and create legislation in the province of British Columbia for centralized filling because this was a new concept, a new kind of technology, the way we had built this initial kind of, you know, this uh infrastructure. So yeah, it was it was pretty interesting at the time and worked super well to get us get us started to really where we are today.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Aaron Powell Walk me through changing legislation and and the steps that went in there. That must have been quite an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Trevor Burrus, Jr. You know, at the time there was no concept, um, you know, allowable legislation that would enable a pharmacy to fill prescriptions from prescriptions actually being kind of adjudicated and set up in another pharmacy. There's no way to transfer that information to another pharmacy where you could package it, you know, format with these prescription numbers and you know all the medications and track that inventory and somehow bill for it. Like none of that existed, none of that infrastructure. So I spent a lot of time um down at the college uh, you know, of uh of pharmacists and really worked with them on how do we take this new concept model, centralized filling, which is which is going to become a standard if you know it is in some places already, because where there's efficiencies, there's cost savings. Um so it made sense. And you know, it probably took you know three months of back and forth with legislators and lawyers and different things to kind of set up this infrastructure and legislation. At the end of the day, it worked out, and we were the first ones to deploy this uh this model. And uh, you know, thanks for the flexibility to the college at the time for really helping us get there.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

That's very cool. Yeah. Um you said guessing with medication needs to stop. Um When did you first say that? And like what did people around you kind of say? Um because it is a gigantic problem throughout the world.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Aaron Powell Oh, it's uh it's a massive problem. So you know, I can sit here and discuss all the all the issues and concerns with medication, individuals who are averaging 10, 12, 14 different prescriptions in their home. You know, what happens when an individual is first diagnosed with a chronic condition or a number of chronic conditions, and you know, their physician prescribes a number of therapies, one of which is likely a bunch of different medications. You know, at first you're kind of a during hellites. You take the medication, you know, the prescriptions, you go to your pharmacist, they fill a bunch of prescriptions and vowels for you, they hand them over, they do what they can at the time and you know, not take it with food, this will cause drowsiness, you know, do what they need to do in that short period of time that they have. Um, but you go home and you don't remember any of this though. No, because you've just been waiting at London Drugs or wherever you were. Exactly. And you're still shocked that your diagnosis, you have this and this and this, and you're you're just like, what's going on with my life? So you get home and you have all these vowels of medication, and you know, and there's a bunch of stats, obviously, on on, you know, help, you know, yeah, and you know, how individuals you know just don't take their medications as prescribed and everything that happens there. Someone said something, you know, uh, it was a it's a phrase and it's out there called uh stop the guesswork. So, you know, that kind of kind of hit me in that at the end of the day, what's actually happening is individuals are actually guessing. No one knows why they're taking this medication. They don't know even know which one's which. It's they're actually guessing. You know, and the whole system is, you know, starts to when you break it down, there's a lot of guesswork happening within the healthcare system, trial and error, and everyone's kind of guessing that this this may this may actually work. But for an individual at home and you have all that medication, all you know is that I'm supposed to take, you know, these things and you know, and and everyone's pushing you to do it, but you don't really know why half the time, and you're kind of guessing, right? So that's that's where that came from.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

And I have one more question, and then we're gonna get into like what you did to change that. Sure. Um, was there a patient story that like resonates with you and stays with you of somebody who was confused in in what they were supposed to take and how they're supposed to take it and and kind of what happened? Um I I know from my experience, um, my grandparents had, you know, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays, right? The little things. And and there was a lot of times where um I'd go over to visit and and I'm like, Grandpa, you're not on, it's not Monday today, it's Thursday. Like, how did you you missed all these? And like they're very important. So is there something that you've uh a story that you've um seen and listened to that kind of really stuck with you and like really kind of keeps pushing you forward to make the change that you're changing?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, I mean, there there's a number of them for sure. I mean, I think every day we get these anecdotal stories coming in from patients that are testimonial stories based on where they were at and kind of where they are today. So without getting into the kind of the solution yet, I I would say one thing that really drove us to move forward with this new set of talk technology that I would that I'll discuss is we actually did a study with some Parkinson's patients. And Parkinson's patients and Parkinson's become more and more prevalent, it seems. It's just like everyone knows someone with Parkinson's now. It's just, you know, it's unbelievable. And and when you have Parkinson's, you you ultimately end up taking a large regimen of medications, you know, 10, 12, 14, up to 20 different medications, four, five, six times a day. And when you're that type of individual, um, your whole day is it revolves around remembering to take your medication. When's my next dose? If I don't take it, I'm gonna, you know, freeze up, I'm gonna have tremors. There's a lot going on in the life of a Parkinson's patient. So so we did this study um where we have, and I'll get into the technology, we had technology in the patient home, and it kind of reminds patients to take their medication. They take their, they and they ultimately took their medication on time as prescribed. But is the ease of use of the technology um where the patients started walking, going on walks with their loved ones during the day, right? And you I we didn't think that would be something. We're just trying to get these patients to adhere to their medication. But knowing how difficult it was and the impact of not taking it on time, their whole day was like stress. So these patients started going on walks with their loved ones because they didn't have to worry about the medication anymore. It was just like there when they needed it and they were reminded. Um, and um, they were sleeping at night, their stress and anxiety went away. And we actually would um would ask questions about their chronic condition on the device that I'll kind of talk about and and we you know, how your tremors today, and we get all this data back. We we we took the uh, you know, our our our clinical pharmacist that worked for us analyzed this data over a 90-day time period, and we took the the data back to the patient's neurologist and showed the patients this set of data or the the patient's data, you know, the neurologist a set of data, and uh and they were mortified. They couldn't believe the data that we had. Like the patients were not doing well with their tremors and you know that sort of thing when it's related to Parkinson's. So we actually worked with the neurologists with the set of data that we had and completely changed the lives of these patients because we had the data. And, you know, and the you know, so we go back and all of these patients became testimonial patients. We literally changed the lives of these patients. Like they said the best care they ever had as a Parkinson patient was with our company, not the neurologist. And it just came down to it, wasn't that everyone in the surgical care wasn't trying their best to help these patients, they just didn't have the data. And the simplicity of just medication delivery on time and the ease of it changed the lives of these patients. So it's stories like that that are absolutely moving and driving and uh absolutely keep this company going towards where it's going.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Give us a little bit of a background on custom health and what it does and and talk about Spencer, the dispenser, and uh what kind of data sets you're getting and and how you're using AI to to gather that information and and populate it so you can um make instant changes with people's uh doctors right away.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I absolutely so so so what we are today, and this is no, this is uh uh based on history of the company as we've evolved and I've you know owned and operated pharmacies with partners, partners solo, built technologies along the way, and we've kind of taken it all in under one roof in a company called Custom Health. And Custom Health today is an organization that is owning and operating pharmacies in key geographies across North America. So these are those closed door, non-retail kind of factory settings that package a specialized cartridge of medication for patients. So, you know, it's not a bunch of vials leaving the pharmacies, it's a simple cartridge that gets dropped into a device. It's kind of a think of it as a toaster with a screen on the front. So the little cartridge drops into this toaster, and all you do is drop it in, and then that device will basically beep and whistle and flash and you know get louder and louder and brighter and brighter when it's time for the patient to take their medication. So it sits on your countertop, you plug it in, it closes to it, it connects to our network in real time where we have 24-7 support helping all these individuals. So that device, you touch the screen, it out comes a little pouch of medication. That pouch of medication is all the medications for that dosing time. So it you know, it eliminates all the different vials and all the stress associated with that. It's one simple pouch that you open up and you know you take that medication. We also take an image of that pouch leaving the pharmacy and we have an image of it coming out. So when we go into some of our you know a larger growth opportunities that it's around, you know, the tracing of you know, um, opioids through the system, right? We can actually track an opioid tablet from the from the tablet or from the pharmacy right into to when the patient took it with it for every scapula. It's really cool. Um, so then what happens is on that device, when you pull that medication out, I might say, Hey Matt, how'd you sleep last night? Right, happy face, sad face. Um, in the you know, in the case of pain management, which is really taking off for us in the US right now, what's your pain score? One through five. I don't feel that great. We get all that data back, and that data flows into a platform that actually connects all the data from the pharmacy, all the data from the device, and we get a 91 response percent response rates from questions being asked on that device. So that's a very high rate of uh, you know, data extraction from a patient in their home. And then we're actually connected to EHRs and EMRs. So we get lab data, we get a lot of information for our clinical pharmacists to analyze and do something with that data, recommendations back to doctors, and we and we get paid for that. So we, you know, we own pharmacies, we have the really cool technology in the patient home, collects a lot of data, and then we've kind of furthered that by having a platform that really connects all the, you know, all the individuals in the circle of care, physicians, you know, therapists, that sort of thing with this, you know, with this very unique set of data, and we're changing the lines of patients.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

I think we've all watched every opioid pandemic documentary and on on on Netflix and Apple and and everything else. And I I think you kind of hit one piece that really hit for me from just understanding the opioid addiction and and the opioid problem we have, especially in the US, um is tracking that opioid from start to finish. That it that it that it's coming from the pharmacy to the person's house, to the machine, to out the machine, to to then into the client. And like, is that not a way safer way?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Like by far? Yeah, I uh you know what I th there's a few things that happen. So um you know, tracing that tablet through the system, um, looking for diversion, you know, those types of things that inevitably lead to addiction and all those issues that we all kind of kind of know about. Um that that's definitely one part of it. Um and it's super important. Like logistically, you have to keep track and make sure that these medications aren't getting diverted in the safest way possible. And absolutely we bring that to the table, probably you know, better than everyone else, with full image capture and the end-to-end solution, like we discussed. The other thing that we do as an organization, we actually run um a very large OPID prescribing service for large health plans in the U.S. So we actually look at data, and our clinical pharmacists actually manage to titrate patients off of their medications, and it's complex. It's not just say stop taking this, right? Because you can trigger, you know, you can trigger um all kinds of different side effects and withdrawals and that sort of thing if you don't do it correctly. So we actually have managed to, with large populations, lower the amount of opioid patients take by 27%. So when you kind of take our clinical expertise in this area and kind of the tracking of that tablet through the system, looking at diversion, um, we have a pretty amazing, you know, mousetrap for the pain space. And and when we started going down this path, just the stories internally from our team. Oh, my uncle passed away from addiction, my grandma, I I found out along the way I had a second cousin that passed away from an overdose last year. Had no idea until, you know, probably a week later, but I was in the middle of this and it it impacts absolutely everybody in some way, shape, or form, whether it's a friend of a friend or whatever. I think everyone knows someone who's actually succumbed to this issue. And the issue with pain management is that, you know, if you get in some form of accident and hurt yourself, you have to treat the patient's pain. Because if you don't treat the patient's pain, um that leads to depression and withdrawing from society and all the things that you can imagine. So you have to treat the pain. And, you know, with the technology that's available today, a lot of this is opioids, right? And that leads to you know, addiction or cat. Um, I have personal stories with my wife after, you know, giving birth with our child. Um, you know, she had uh all kinds of crazy things happen to her in the hospital that I that I won't get into, but ultimately she was on opioids. And uh we're about three or four weeks into, you know, after a number of surgeries after uh giving birth to our little daughter, um, where we decided To our kind of push, I think, you know, we weren't really paying attention. I'm, you know, I'm a pharmacist and she's on all this medication and and we're still struggling. You know, we didn't have a device at the time in the home, but we're struggling to keep track of everything. But then it hit me. I'm like, well, you've been on this stuff for you know six weeks now, diluted, you know, an opioid. And uh so we started, you know, taking her off it. And, you know, sure as heck, she, you know, she had some physical, you know, some physical withdrawal effects. Um, so she was well on her way to at least a physical dependency that quickly. So it's it's amazing what happened. So you have to find a way to help patients and track their data, track their tablets, get the pain scores back, have a have a team that can be clinically responsible for the oversight of that patient, almost on a daily, not on here's a 90-day supply, come back and see me, which is how the world works today. But then it's too late. No one knows what's going on in the home. So so yeah, we have a we have a pretty cool system and solution for for opioid, and I that's really starting to take off for us in the US right now.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I think that hits with everybody listening because uh about a year and a half ago, I almost lost my wife in a really bad horseback riding accident, and she spent a few weeks in the hospital and you know, 13 or 14 broken bones and all these things, and exactly like you just said, diluted. Yeah, and that came home with us, and she went through the same thing. Like she she was like, she could tell that you know how good she felt with it, and and and it was it, you could she she even felt that like the claws were getting in. Yeah. And I remember she's like, I'm not I've watched too much, I've heard too much of this, I know people, I'm flushing it down the toilet, and and her going through the the withdrawal system of or the with withdrawal um feelings of getting off that was insane to even watch. And that was only two weeks, three weeks kind of. And and yeah, it's just you can see it, how quickly it can get the clause in and and all you did was just kind of something unfortunate happened to you in your life, and you end up down that path, and it's really scary. I mean, I think the um the numbers I saw was was something like 40% of Americans were given opioids for some sort of reason last year, and and no wonder we have this problem.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yeah, it's a it it's definitely a huge issue, and and you know, the system it is has has not been able to handle it. No, no one has uh, you know, the N10 solution. I think we have we probably have, I guess, one of the only solutions, if not the only solution that would track a tablet with the image right to a patient, ask, get that patient reported outcome data, the pain, you know, how you start looking for signs of anxiety, sleep, those are all signs of opioid use disorder, which is going to lead to addiction. So there are triggers and flags that you can look at and do something about if you get the data. No one's getting the data, right? The doctor writes the prescription, pharmacist gives it out, and everyone just hopes that you know Matt's wife's gonna be okay. And it just it it doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah, because there's no one phoning and checking out.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

No one's checking out, no one has the data.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

But you're not gonna go, your next doctor appointment is is months away. Yeah, right. So you're you're just refilling and refilling and refilling, and and then you just kind of end up down a path that you didn't want to be on and you never asked for. Exactly. That's the unfortunate part, is no one asks to be addicted to um an opioid, right? It's it's all accidental, most of it. Um so with the um the tech kind of behind it with at Here Net. Right. Um, what does a pharmacist see today in your with your data sets that they wouldn't have seen five years ago?

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Yeah, so I mean, so there's quite a bit going on. So we we we kind of divide up our team into clinical pharmacists that work remotely looking at data, and then kind of the the the factory setting, make sure that every prescription is filled absolutely correctly and accurately. So we kind of have it divided into two segments, and the data helps each workflow. So the you know, the workflow making sure that everything that's so you know that is supposed to be packaged in one of these little pouches has actually been packaged, the image capture, you know, full traceability, accountability. Um, there's a lot of kind of data elements that go into that. Um but the clinical teams, and what's so exciting for pharmacists now is, you know, pharmacists were trained to, you know, is this medication working? Is it effective? Are there side effects and adjusting doses up and down and looking at drug interactions? But they actually never get to really do that because you're not getting the daily data from the patient, right? You know that certain things may be interacting and you they, you know, the patient leaves, um, and uh, but you don't actually know what's going on. So we get this, you know, this high cadence, the high fidelity set of data every day from the patient that allows our pharmacist to really kind of practice at the top of their license what they're actually trained for. So they can actually, you know, you know, decipher and analyze and look to see if the medication is effective, if it's working. And there's a lot more that goes into medication adherence is just these reminders on the device. If individuals don't think it's working, they'll stop taking it. If they have side effects, they'll stop taking it. Right? Nobody knows that, you know, in the five years ago, but they're starting to know it now because of these types of solutions that are presenting to the data too. You know, now we're getting into AI kind of intercepting that data and you know, providing the the uh the comments and direction to our clinical team. Right? You might want to take a look at this, take a look at that, because they're getting all this data back. They know from you know size, shape, weight, ethnicity, um, you know, medication doses, diagnosis, all that information that we're collecting, AI will start to analyze and say, hey, you know, there's there's a you know high likeness that this patient could be going down the track of opiated disorder, flags our pharmacists. Now we start to dig in, right? So AI is starting to play a role, but we really do rely on that clinical team. Um and I think for you know, for you know, pharmacists that are really looking to evolve and work at the top of the license, I you know, hopefully we're gonna have a home for a lot of these folks as we start to expand.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

That's really cool to be able to, you know. I think for someone to, you know, click on the screen like my pain management, nothing's happening, it's not working, they're not waiting till that next doctor's appointment. And and especially in Canada, it's not that easy to make a doctor's appointment, right? No, so so to have that so you can just kind of hit the screen and and and that data is going somewhere and you know someone on the other side's listening, I think that alone gives that person I don't know, just that that feeling of someone's there, for sure, even though it's just a screen, that there's someone there listening, there's someone there that cares. Um and you just don't get that in healthcare right now. And I think that's you know, another huge kind of step that custom health's making personally from just listening to that, of someone being there.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, and uh, you know what, and and you're right, we we we do get that that feedback a lot, and I think that is um what is driving, you know, kind of the uptake in what we're doing, like our you know, the the so-called net promoter score and like survey a patient and how you know how well they like the solution and what they recommend it and that sort of thing. Um network promoter score is awesome, and and it's because of that, like like individuals, especially when they have been on lots of medication, they get introduced to us and now we've kind of taken over and we have the touch points or we've actually changed things up. People have been on these medications for maybe four years straight, chronic condition, no one's ever touched them. And we come in and we change them all up and they're feeling better, they're sleeping at night, all these things. Um, yeah, and they would they would suggest that, you know, again, best care they're having is with our organization, um, only because we have the data and we have the clinical team that can reach out, right? Doctors don't have time to do that. I I absolutely do not blame physicians at all because they do not have time to be inundated by alerts and data and stuff coming at them. They have no time to look at it. So really what we're doing is filtering that off, you know, working with the patient, get the right data to the doctor at the right time so that they can actually make the right decision and and move the uh you know progress forward of the patient.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

And and with that tech too, I mean, you're you're doing that in real time versus, you know, a doctor's visit, you know, filling out paper and paper moving around and scanning and like it is so far behind of where the world is today. Where do you see custom health in five years?

SPEAKER_01 30:23

You know, I I I I think we're heading down this path of, you know, changing pharmacy. If you look at the retail pharmacy situation, uh maybe not as much in Canada, but definitely in the U.S., you have some of these larger chains, right? The Walgreens, the CVSs, some of these big names that have been closing down stores for you know different, different reasons. But even the model in Canada, if you really want to contain like healthcare costs and help patients, the model worked for a while, but I think there's an evolution coming. It really is leveraging the pharmacist to drive clinical outcomes and ROI to the healthcare system. And you're not really doing that when you're standing behind a counter, you know, counting the tablets so much. So I think some of these big guys, um, these large chains, are gonna have to evolve into technology to kind of do the packaging, 100% accuracy, um, and really look at extracting data, whether it's from wearables or from a device in the home like ours, and and capture that that data that allows you to actually be um, you know, proactive in the care of the patients, not reactive. Our system is extremely reactive in Canada and and it's starting to get a little better in the US. But if you have the data, you can start to provide proactive care, right? Make sure the patient doesn't end up in the hospital, you know, due to side effects or whatever else could be going on. Um, and that uh drives an ROI for the system, right? Save money, uh reallocate resources and really take care of these patients. So I th so I think there's uh, you know, I think we're gonna be uh in a in a hopefully in an envious position of of changing the model. And um some of these large groups will probably look at us and say, that's pretty cool, we might want to adopt that.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

For sure, because you're speeding up the whole process by like 10 times more, because it you're saving that person from driving to making an appointment to waiting to waiting to waiting, where or they just don't look, is it working? Is it working? Like we all have taken medicine, right? And you're like, hmm, is that placebo? Is that real? Is it work? Like what's actually happening? And and to have that that done at at real time, I believe, is is uh a game changer entirely. Absolutely. Someone listening that's like has the the big case on their on their kitchen counter and and they're like, oh my god, like I they they feel by just listening to this, they feel that freeness of what we're talking about because I do think you're right, and they do I do think you hit the nail on the head and saying that people anxiety goes down and and and just their um their love for life could come back right by having um Spencer in their house and and being there for them. How does someone talk to their pharmacist? How does someone go about like getting the machine and and getting into um you know custom health helping them deal with their prescriptions and whatnot?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're you know, we're we're we're signing up, you know, especially in the US, signing up certain payers that are paying for this because it makes a lot of sense um, you know, to help patients with certain chronic conditions. We have a lot of individuals that do reach out to us um for the service and they absolutely love it. And you know, the best way to get to a pharmacy that we may have a partner with across Canada or one that we own and operate in Canada is like honestly just fill out a form on our website, customhealthcook.com, um, and uh you'll find a form on there, and then someone will follow up with you and we'd actually put you in the right direction to, you know, uh what's the closest pharmacy that may have access to this technology and and help you out for sure because it absolutely is a game changing for a lot of these individuals. Um, there are more and more payers lining up in Canada. It's it's it takes a while to get there. And unfortunately, our our healthcare system looks at pharmacy as a cost center. Expensive drugs and prescription fees. That's all people think about or payers think about, right? How do I decrease the the cost of the drug and uh eliminate these prescription fees so that pharmacists don't get a chance to make any money in their business, right? So so um that creates a bit of an issue with these payers. So it's been a lot of, I think, effort and trying to show the payers in Canada that in fact when you don't have a nurse going into someone's home four times a day to give med management, because the patient doesn't necessarily want them in the home anyways, but they have so much medication they need the help, this replaces that and it saves all that money. Then you can reallocate that time and resource to other areas of the healthcare system, which we really need in Canada. Um so it's taking kind of some convincing, but we are getting there. The pairs are starting to line up here, which is which is great. So I'm hopeful that, especially in, you know, like Parkinson's and opioid uh you know, pain management, and you know, that should be uh pretty much a hopefully a given in the next couple of years that if you have one of those chronic conditions, the government, someone's gonna help you out here with with this technology and make sure you get it. Um but that said, a lot of people will will just adopt it on their own. And um, it's definitely worthwhile.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Well, we'll make sure we put a a link in the description and and uh and attach it to to our site for people to to learn more about it and absolutely if they if they're if you know if you're listening and you have that feeling of just like, oh my god, this would just change my life. Yeah, um, let's make sure we can try to to help those people because it it is, I think, that someone going through just the bad news, the the whole process of this to have that um that feeling of lightness come back in their life. Absolutely. Um so we'll make sure we we kind of get do everything we can to to give people the opportunity to learn more about it. Fantastic, Matt. Thank you. What is the custom health growth growth strategy kind of look like going forward here and and what are the plans?

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, so I mean, you know, you know, excited to announce that we're we're driving towards our listing on on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which is pretty cool, which is which allows us to grow quicker. Um, you know, we've had amazing, amazing local investors along the way to kind of get us to where we are, but we're at the point where we have really large contracts to deploy and really help certain populations. So, you know, accessing that that capital from the TSX is going to really allow us to impact the lives of patients. And our growth is really centered around um, you know, two things. We have very large payer contracts, especially in the US, like this pain management space. We have a lot of, you know, a lot of the largest providers in the U.S. are signing up for this because obviously, again, liability, accountability of, you know, tracking that tablet through the system, helping their patients looking for opioid use disorder, you know, uh working with the physicians to make sure their patients are, you know, um having the best quality of life. So that segment is really taking off. So our growth is really centered on when we sign these large contracts, we want to invest in a pharmacy and acquire it in that region. So it's kind of a two-pronged approach. You have these organic contracts that drive revenue to us and a lot of patient population, patient growth and count. Um, and uh, you know, acquiring in a pharmacy is like a creative, you know, if you can, you know, pick up pharmacies that are doing five, ten, fifteen, twenty million dollars in revenue, um, some EBITA, um, and you then you get to grow them quickly with new patients. It's a pretty cool model, right, of both you know, inorganic and organic growth coupled. And that really is our our strategy moving forward as we uh you know as we uh jump onto the TSX. That's very cool. Um how's that process been? It's been fine.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

I bet.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

I bet. Yeah, no, I yeah, it's it's uh I mean we're we are we're we're doing the TSX big board, um, you know, and and and to possibly jump across to the US because we have obviously a lot going on in the US, which is which is exciting. Um I would say it's uh, you know, we're not uh, you know, we have a lot of um amazing people in our company. I would say we don't have internal lawyers and and you know, we're we've built up and now we've built up an amazing finance team, so to to get ready for you know for the listing, some just some awesome individuals on our team. But along the way, yeah, it's been a handful of us doing a lot of the legwork here and getting this done. And it's I would say it's been grueling the last three or four months. But you know what, we made it, I think it's been it's been amazing. Like anything you you live and learn now that I've done this with the big board concept and everything that goes into it, next time would be a lot easier, but um, but um lots of work, but will be worthwhile for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

What one question I always kind of ask on the show is because I've been there, I've been to a point where I'm like, you know, what am I doing all this for? And you know, I think every entrepreneur goes through that like fuck this. Yeah, right? Like I've done, yeah, yeah. I can't do this anymore. What's kept you in the chair? What's kept you kind of pushing forward to to push this to where obviously I think it's very um very easy to see where it's gonna go. Yeah. What's what's keeping you there? What's keeping you pushing forward?

SPEAKER_01 38:59

You know, there's probably two things. Um first, I'm competitive. I I don't give up on anything. Never have, never will. I mean, there's definitely easier ways along the way to make money. Like I could have just opened up my own pharmacy with this technology and built it quickly and sold it, like very easy way to make money. Um honestly, it's it's this opportunity to help people, like you just don't get that opportunity, right? Uh you know, 99% of the, you know, the pharmacists out there are doing everything they can to help patients, but we're literally changing the lives of these patients. They absolutely need this technology, they need the service. And if I'm not doing it, I I don't know if it's going to get done or not. So it just it drives me to like make this happen. And we've had amazing people in the company along the way, and we're, you know, we're pulling in some acquisitions that, you know, solidify what we're doing on the go forward. Um, and I'm just so excited to get to the point where we can actually stand up. I can actually tell my kids, hey, we we improved the opioid, you know, uh, you know, issues and concerns and addiction, you know, societal issues out there, and we're we were part of that, right? I think that that's pretty cool. And then some of these chronic conditions, I I mean, I've been focusing on Parkinson's a little bit today, but but there's lots of chronic conditions out there where patients take tons of medication and and that like their lives are just completely upside down and and seeing what happens when they get the help, like you just don't get that. At least I did it, standing behind a counter. You get, you know, you know, help people a little bit, but but this is game changing. And um, I think the combination of being competitive and just driving towards a solution that I absolutely 100% wholeheartedly believe in is the solution. I'm just not gonna give up. And and so that's a big thing. Um, but the outcomes it just it just keeps you going. If you didn't see the outcomes, we'd you know, probably you know, switch directions. But at this point in time, the evidence is there. Like it's just literally game changing.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

For sure. I can see that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

What uh you know, another kind of entrepreneurial kind of thing is, you know, for me, I I I make sure I create space for myself. Right. And, you know, especially like going through all this and and and building a business of this size, what do you do on the daily that is something that you just do for yourself and time you take for yourself? Like is there uh you know a routine you go in that uh that helps you kind of stay on track?

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Or yeah, I would say, you know, I I I've uh I'm a big you know fan of you know sports and exercise, and that'd always have been my my my entire life. Um definitely start early in the morning, have a little gym in my basement, get in there. But I'd say that what I what I absolutely do my best to do, and I've been really good at this the last few years is um we have a little, you know, a little you know cabin slash trailer up at, you know, up at Posta Lake, just you know north of uh you know east of east of Kelowna here. And uh we go up there every single weekend with our daughter. And I have to go fishing with my daughter or quatting or whatever it is, just being outside in general for sure, at least once or twice during the week is absolutely mandatory for me. Um in the winter's same thing. Um, you know, my boys uh grew up playing hockey, spent a lot of time in arena in arenas um with my girl doing something a little different. We do skiing and that sort of thing, absolutely. Uh my wife's uh side of the family, they're amazing skiers. Um but just being outside, you know, got into sledding. I know you know you and I have to catch up and do that for sure one day, but but um, you know, we have the sleds, we're outside, and and we we we do everything we can to make a weekend of it all the time. Now, I might be on my phone a little bit, I have a Starlink up on my trailer, but at the end of the day, we're fishing, we're outdoors, and it's it's it's recharging you. And that's that's that's what I do.

SPEAKER_02 42:34

That's that disconnect to be able to recharge, right? It's absolutely uh a lot of you know, especially stuff on the internet now is is you know, you just need to be there's no balance. And and I I believe there needs to be. I believe that you know you need to have that disconnection, you need to have that, you know, and it could be whatever. I mean, any anybody can find what they find that peace in. But I'm I'm the same as you. I need to be, you know, I need to disconnect by going outside. Yeah. And and um, you know, I think as human beings, I think the being out in the forest and and just being somewhere kind of remote where you don't have the hustle and bustle and and the ability to be reached on your phone by everybody. Um and I and I think, you know, especially you know with young kids and and everything else, to get them off their device and out doing something that kids should be doing, right? Out riding their bikes, they shouldn't be, you know, sitting there scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. I think uh I think it's huge. And I think, you know, I think people really need to take a good look at that and and make sure that they're balancing their life to a point where they c they have to disconnect to recharge. Yeah, you you have to you have to do that for yourself, you have to create that space, and it makes you more intentional, it makes you um remember those good times, I think, a lot more than than just you. You could everybody can go on a vacation and go somewhere busy. But you know, I'm the same way we had a we had a cabin up a uh at a lake around Kelowna too, and super small, you know, no running water, a wood fireplace. And and to me, that was just all the necessities and all the easy things that we take for granted every day just kind of give you like just shook you a little bit enough to be like, I'm grateful for everything around me when I come back down.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Absolutely. And and you're right, you know, we have the the the same small cabin, you know, in the wintertime and yeah, the wood, the the wood fire, right? The the non-running water, the simplicity of everything. The phones are away and and super important, and you know, and everyone should have an opportunity to do that if they can. But um, but you nailed it with the kids, right? I mean, you know, my my boys, you're you know, amazing boys, super smart, but they kind of grew up where you know they all had the phones and they were on them quite a bit, and as parents, we didn't know as much and then live and learn, um, definitely spending way more time with you know with the youngest child now um off the phones, in the bush, like doing like fishing and all those sort of amazing things. Um, you know, my daughter can, you know, hunt, fish, you know, shoot guns, drive quads, and she's like 10 years old, right? And uh she's, you know, sure she can jump on uh you know on an iPad and you know, she looks at Arden and that sort of thing. But it's just that it's just you can't go there. Like it's you've had, you know, probably, you know, individuals, you know, on the show before, but like it's it's it's uh so detrimental, you know, what we've done to I think all of us with all those phones and the connectivity and the constant pinging and dinging and everything that goes on and you react to it's I don't think it's healthy. It probably isn't healthy. Um so yeah, for me it's definitely doing everything we can to, you know, um stay away from that as much as possible on weekends.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

There's something to be said about like out chopping wood and creating heat by yourself. You know what I mean? Right. It's not just you know, go turn the dial. Oh yeah. Um, you know, it's not easy to uh just make a cup of coffee. That's right. Right? Sometimes, like I know mine, I I couldn't we had power for lights, but if I wanted to make a cup of coffee, I had to hook up a generator and run an extension cord into the cabin to make coffee, or you just put it on the top of the fire and you wait for for it to heat up enough to have coffee and and it tastes better. You know what?

SPEAKER_01 46:27

I don't think food tastes better. For sure. Coffee tastes better, yeah. You sleep better. I don't know what it is, but the food, like if you're yeah, you have the barbecue and if you're if you can grab a stick, it's just everything's better up there. Fresh air, rustic. It's it is, it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Love it. I I I agree whole uh wholeheartedly. I think it's something that that uh you know it does people listening doesn't it does that doesn't have to be your answer if that's the way you feel. There's other things you can do. It's a walk, right? It's uh it's just something. It's it's just you know, leaving that phone alone, being outside and and just being intentional with what you're doing, yeah and and looking around you and being grateful for that. Absolutely. Um so what I call the last lap is kind of my last question. You know, someone going through you know, just gets uh diagnosed with let's use Parkinson's as an example, in and out of doctors' offices and you know, trying to get uh their medication sorted. Walk me through what Custom Health thinks their lives should look like in three years from now and how you think that their the impact that custom health could make on their life makes such a difference to them.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

I think where where things are going quickly, at least with what we're doing and some of some of the partnerships, we're we're landing some really cool partnerships, especially, especially in the US, and we should be able to, you know, pull some of these relationships and things up up into Canada. But it really is, you know, with a with a chronic condition like that, it's about sharing the data in a timely fashion with everybody. Because if you have Parkinson, you might be in like physiotherapy, you might have an occupational therapist coming into your home, you know, you have specialists, you have primary care providers, you have your pharmacist. Nobody has the same data, right? And um and I think ultimately the way we see the world, it's it's actually the patient's data. The patient are allowing all of us to coordinate and use this data. So that's a something that has to happen between now and the three-year mark. Um, but I think in three years, you know, a lot of these barriers will be will be ripped down. And I think you'll have actually pharmacists and physicians working together. Right now you have the pharmacist over there, the doctors over here. We get prescriptions and you can make some phone calls, but you're really not working together and aligned. So so I think when you coordinate the care with the data, um, and you can look at these daily, you know, um, you know, you know, alerts to action in real time, I think it's gonna change the lives of patients. It's gonna change care. It's gonna, you know, you're always moving care forward versus reacting to it. Um I think you just that that is a huge part right there.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

Absolutely. Is is is not being reactive. Yes. Being proactive all the time in real time and allowing where the world's going with AI to help you guys be faster, stronger, and and more impactful and more intentional for the client.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Absolutely. And uh and our our next version of the the in-home technology that's in, it's we call it Gen 2, it's it's well underway now. Um, it's gonna have more of a like a voice interaction, right? So um, you know, Matt, how's your golf game yesterday? You know, was your back sore? Were you were you okay? You know, oh, maybe try this exercise, do this. So we'll get a lot more data off of conversation when the device comes your friend, um, and you're, you know, and and it's kind of a Trojan horse for us because you have to go to it to put your medication. Once you're there, we can engage in conversation and the questions, and that's where we get all this data. So I think this is going to evolve into, you know, something like that becoming your friend, it's gonna be a source of information. Um, and you know, probably and it won't take long. Three years from now, it's probably asking you questions and probably giving advice at that point in time, I would imagine. So um, it'll be pretty cool to see what can what can happen with all this technology. Um, and um, I think patients will be better taken care of and uh hopefully less side effects, they'll be on the regimens, it'll slow down the progression of their condition, hopefully. Um, and um, they can only be better. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Thank you for spending the time with us tonight. And and for those listening and watching, you know, follow along this journey. I think this is gonna be uh a huge journey. I think you're you are going to change a lot of people's lives and a lot of a lot of loved ones' lives. And you should be super proud of yourself for for what you've done. It it's it's astonishing. And I'm excited to watch your journey and and watch uh custom health kind of grow to the next level. And um I hope to see everybody having a Spencer in their home and and helping them through the toughest part of life. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for joining the show. And yeah, we appreciate you.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Really, really had a good time and yeah, amazing. Thank you so much.