Starting with any relevant education, walk me through the twists and turns of your career to date? How did one opportunity lead to the next + what was the key takeaway/ experience in each role + how did this lead you to where you are now
After my undergrad degree in business, I started working for my mentor who is one of the largest automotive dealers in the USA and I attribute a lot of my success to the things that I learned from him. From very early on I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I left his company to start a woman's fashion business with my own cash and grew that to be 40 stores in nine states. Retail was changing fast during that time, I would have needed to put a lot of cash in to sustain the business, but after 10 years (since I was 23) I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I was never afraid of going into an industry that I didn't know anything about as there are so many ways to educate yourself
I'm a firm believer that about 80% of every business is very similar. You're running accounting, finance, HR, operations and there's that 20% that's very specifically different to each business. I was never afraid of going into an industry that I didn't know anything about as there are so many ways to educate yourself, do your own research and due diligence, so women’s fashion was followed by a commercial cleaning business and an I.T business.
Then I started Oncotect. I'm not a scientist and don't have a veterinary medicine background, but over the last three years I've made a lot of connections with people in science, professors and industry experts who are interested in improving the outcomes for cancer in companion animals and believe our solution is really the one that's going to help improve this area of animal health.
What was the pivotal moment that put you on your current founder path?
My mom got breast cancer about six years ago and is now thankfully cancer free. That was a pretty traumatic event for our family, and I read a lot of cancer related journals and papers and that's where I read about C elegans being able to be used as a tool to screen and assess cancerous metabolites. Whilst I was doing the research, I realized there are a lot of cancer related screening tests for humans and a lot of money and time going into the space, but (back in 2019) there was nothing available in the companion animal space. Given cancer is a leading cause of death for cats and dogs and the large number of pets and pet parents out there that's when I started connecting the dots. I started looking into the opportunity and all the people that I reached out to were really gracious with their time and advice. One thing led to another and the rest is history.
we’re developing a microfluidics assay, which is a more commercially scalable platform
Can you provide a quick summary of the technology/ area of innovation and its potential application?
We had a peer reviewed paper published August 2022 in Frontiers in Veterinary Science with the technology that we used before, based on a chemotaxis asset, but we’re developing a microfluidics assay, which is a more commercially scalable platform. They both rely on C elegans sense of smell, but as opposed to waiting for C Elegans to migrate towards, urine that contains cancerous metabolites, we are actually measuring the intensity of calcium activity of a specific neuron in C Elegans. It's faster, the cost is far less, but it's also a lot more accurate. Once we get it fully developed, we'll publish a paper to show exactly how we developed it and how we validate it so we can share with the scientific community.
We've started in the canine space because it's the biggest market and the urine collection, which the tool relies on, is easier. Ideally, in the next couple of years we’ll extend to feline and equine, but the feline collection has definitely been challenging, but I am working with BluePearl and the Mars family of companies to collect urine samples.
What stage are you at?
When we launch our product in Q3/ Q4 2023, it'll be the only product available directly to pet parents. So whilst it’s a niche market, it’s a big niche market and we want to tackle accessibility and affordability as priority.
Discuss the biggest challenges of getting to this point? With the benefit of hindsight, what would you have done differently if anything?
In terms of scaling, we have a workstation that we are creating right now and that can potentially run up to conservatively 50 tests a day. We can create and replicate the workstations fairly quickly and cost effectively as demand goes up, we’d simply need a bigger lab space. But, this has probably been the single biggest challenge, taking what was a process out of a controlled lab experience and creating a commercially scalable platform.
the single biggest challenge, taking what was a process out of a controlled lab experience and creating a commercially scalable platform
Additionally, my original plan was to just work with veterinarians for about two years or so. They get really excited when I introduce the product but it’s one thing to get excited, it's another thing to actually use it and embed new products and tools in their day-to-day workflows. Talking to so many industry experts and our competitors, everyone's facing the same issue. Just selling through vets is such a challenging channel. That's why we decided to accelerate our focus on direct-to-consumer. We'll have to do a lot of education and awareness campaigns with pet parents but we've studied the customer journey from ordering to sharing results to make sure that we mitigate all the risks and friction points along the way. For instance, when we share the results, if they’re moderate to high cancer risk we're going to call them, make sure there’s some human interaction around this sensitive news, so we can walk them through and then guide them to what to do next, it can’t all be automated. Plus, if they don’t feel comfortable collecting urine at home, providing the right instructions they need has been key.
Hindsight is always 2020, but I have this belief that things happen for a reason and certain things you just have to face yourself and learn. Everything that I did, every decision that I made was a learning process and because I learned from it, we pivoted and we changed our direction. Even if I’d known how difficult it would be to work with veterinarians, I would probably still have tried and that experience allowed me to more confidently pivot to direct to pet parents.
How have you approached funding?
We’re at pre-seed. Up until our most recent raise of $200,000 from Leap Venture Studio, I was self-funding with close to $500,000 to get the technology developed. We’ve received a $100,000 unsecured loan from NC Biotech Center as well as $60,000 from NC IDEA grants (no equity position). So total outside funding is $360,000. We are running lean and mean and are totally bootstrapped. We believe that we’ll be profitable quite soon after launch around September time as we have very low overheads and don’t have to sell a lot to make money. Later this year or early next we’ll look to raise again for seed round.
What has the been the greatest source of help/ guidance along the way?
Unless you ask for help, no one knows how to help you. I participated in the Leap Venture Studio program, even though I was really on the fence about applying because this was not my first startup. But that program was really transformative for me and the company as everyone in that program is so nice and so supportive and well networked that, they’ve just been incredible partners for providing guidance and connections.
the Leap Venture Studio program...was really transformative for me
What I've also come to realize is, when you ask someone for help, you are also giving that person a sense of validation. I’m recognizing that person as someone with a particular set of skills, knowledge or expertise so I’m never afraid of asking questions.
Best advice you’d pass on to other founders?
This is my fourth startup. So my attitude towards learning and failures or setbacks is very different from when I started my first business to how I feel now. It’s definitely made me more resilient. You can't learn resilience by reading a book, listening to the best lectures in the world or mentors, it’s only by failing yourself. Standing by the decisions you make regardless of the outcomes, this is what builds your self-esteem and self-confidence as an entrepreneur.
Nothing good or bad lasts forever. So don't dwell on your mistakes, just learn from them and focus on the future.
What do you think are broadly the biggest needs and opportunities in the Animal Health and Petcare markets?
I think it's really the communication and collaboration between veterinarians and the industry. No matter how innovative and valuable your technology is, if you don’t have clarity over how it can be easily adopted by individual vets or large veterinarian practices, innovation in the animal health market is never going to accelerate in the way that it needs to or could. It’s both parties that need to come to the table and contribute to that conversation.
What’s going to have the single biggest impact on change in your area of the market?
There’s going to be more competition happening in the cancer screening space. The biggest cohort of pet parents are millennials and Gen-Zs. The pandemic has really driven the popularity of at-home testing kits. Once this new cohort of pet parents start demanding at-home diagnostics or just new innovative products, I think vets will just have to come along, otherwise they're going to get left behind.
The pandemic has really driven the popularity of at-home testing kits.
Pet insurance has blown up in the last few years, but 3% of pet owners with coverage are still in single digits. Nationwide pet insurance will cover our product if vets recommend it, which is great, but I don’t see the impact of insurance on our business changing anytime soon.
What do the next two years have in store for you?
Launching and expanding the direct-to-consumer cancer screening test for dogs is the focus. Over the next two years we’ll be looking closely at the feline and equine markets and expanding our lab capacity, doing a lot of education and awareness campaigns with the pet parents. We surveyed about 400 dog owners in North Carolina and about 60% of them had firsthand experience of losing their dog to cancer, 30% of them knew someone who has lost their dog to cancer, so 90% of people in that group had experience of losing dogs to cancer. When we speak to pet parents they get what we’re doing, so I really do feel like we are making a difference in not only the lives of animals, but also people that depend on them whether it's emotionally or physically. We’re super excited about our work and truly believe that we are making a difference.
