POSTED BY
Liz Moyles
I genuinely don’t know how to introduce this incredible powerhouse of energy, innovation, and foresight. Quite simply - let me introduce - Torrey Smith. He is quite unique as is the team around him. Together they are Endiatx and they are developing ‘Pillbot’.
I always love to ask this question because it is so insightful and so many people like to learn about how others in this industry ended up where they are today. So, Torrey, how did you end up in your role and in this industry …. where did your passion for medical devices come from?
My education was at Cal Poly SLO for aerospace engineering, but I had fallen in love with the industrial manufacturing department where I learned as much as I could about making real things with my hands and with machines. I would take 500-level classes with no prerequisites and fail them, just to be closer to the people and technology involved. It didn’t look good on my academic record (I still owe Cal Poly my senior project), but it felt right, and it paved the way for my lifelong commitment to taking the visions that I have in my head and realising them here in the real world.
I was making custom carbon fibre parts for experimental aircraft when a med device internship opportunity came my way. I was uncertain about switching away from aerospace at that time, especially for $15/hr, but my aunt Katie was dying from a glioblastoma, and I wanted to see if I could personally make a mark on the industry that we all turn to when we get sick.
- Oh, wow Torrey, I don’t know what to say …… part of the above is so funny – and knowing you now as I do, so you …. but I am sorry about your aunty. I genuinely am. I’m sure Cal Poly will be proud of what and who you have become. Genuinely. So, you took a really brave step into the medical device world leaving aerospace behind. Was it everything you had hoped it would be?
My first medical device role was in 2006 as an R&D Engineering intern at Ensure Medical, a vascular closure device that sold to Cordis/J&J for $110M as an 11-person company. They let me work as much overtime as I wanted, and while the other interns were playing with spreadsheets on their computers, I was making mountains of aluminium chips in the shop and fixing problems they couldn’t solve with equations with chewing gum that I would borrow from a tech’s mouth. My boss kept walking in on me late at night telling me that they just gave me another $1 or $2 raise for taking so much initiative. It felt good to have an open-ended licence to innovate. I made more than $100K that year.
- Wow! I know the money was the last thing you thought about when you made the transition to medical devices, but that gamble paid off in various ways – I think most importantly for you, it gave you the opportunity to realise the ability to innovate freely. Innovation and you – you seem to go hand in hand. Tell me…… Why are you so passionate? I know it a strange question to ask, but you really are one of the most passionate CEOs I have encountered …….
All I am, is passion. Passion for what I love. And I love making a dent in the normal, perhaps even a puncture. We have to innovate, fiercely, if we want to experience true adventure. Our adventure with Endiatx and with PillBot is to show the world that you can build and operate tiny robots inside the human body as a safe platform to do a whole new kind of medicine. We are simply taking what we have all seen in science fiction and making it real through sheer determination, and a commitment to first principles thinking. Our arena consists of baryonic matter, and as far as I know, there is no rule or law in the book of Nature that says we can’t build microscopic machines and do medicine with them. It may be hard, but that takes us right back to what it means to be alive.
We intend to surf this wave of innovation across 3 orders of magnitude in terms of opening up access to the highest evolving standards of care, and lowering the cost until we simply extend this blanket of care for all people as a universal basic human right. And while we’re at it, let’s give our doctors and scientists the most amazing arsenal of tools that they might not even dare to dream of.
- That is a dream I hope will become a reality, much sooner than later Torrey. Honestly. Please tell me – I’ve often wondered about the name ENDIATX -. It I such an unusual name – has it got a special meaning?
The rule here in Silicon Valley is that when you launch your med tech startup, it has to have an esoteric name, so that when you finally hear it in public venues organically, you know you’ve made it. I remember learning in 1987 that a Googol is 1 followed by 100 zeroes, and I also remember in 1999 someone saying “just Google it” for the first time. That must have been satisfying for Sergey and Larry (I’m still trying to get those guys to invest in us!).
Endiatx is a portmanteau of Endo or Endoscopy, Diagnostics, and the TX that means Treatment in the medical world. Our charter is to develop ever-smaller robots that can go inside the human body, find and understand what is wrong, and actually treat it – We aren’t even living up to our name until we start microsurgery using the PillBot platform!
- Love it – it makes sense now! So, what are you working towards next – what are your priorities? What would really make a difference?
Well, I will say that I am grateful that we have a tangible first product under development in the huge anatomical region (and market!) of a stomach filled with drinking water, but we are incredibly eager to put the TX in Endiatx with microsurgery. I think that adventure begins with tissue sampling and analysis, probably with a lab-on-chip approach in concert with spectroscopy.
I see a very real development pathway that leads us to a rice grain-sized microsurgery bot, perhaps in creepy-crawly form factor, perhaps nuclear-powered (google NDB “Nano Diamond Battery” and have fun with that rabbit hole!), that would open up the entirety of the human anatomy to swarms of therapeutic micro-surgeon robots. I can’t bring my aunt Katie back, but one day my team expects to actually help someone in the most meaningful way with this adventure.
- I can actually envisage the creepy crawly element – yuk – and yep – I’m busy googling and getting befuddled by all that is NDB!!!!! ……. I’m not the only one who is excited by you and the team and pillbot- but tell me, how is the market receiving your concept? What makes you most proud in this area?
We are incredibly proud to have a know-how agreement in place with the world-leading Mayo Clinic, and to have their top gastroenterologist Vivek Kumbhari MD PhD on our founding team. Viv has built us a scientific advisory board consisting of the top names in gastroenterology, where our adventure begins. GI’s all around the world are telling us that if we can actually give them a virtual endoscope that a patient can swallow at home, that they can control in 3D flight for a true active diagnostic experience over a video call – that they will use this technology every day in their practice. We see this as really taking the next logical step from the traditionally passive pill camera model and decoupling it entirely from the hospital visit itself while we are at it! This would have been awesome during COVID– we just get excited about increasing access to the finest care to anyone on –or off– the planet.
We just had a wonderful pre-sub meeting with the FDA, and we are excited to be going into IRB trials in Auckland, New Zealand with Cameron Schauer MBChB FRACP at the helm. We won the Thomas Edison Game Changer award in 2023, and 2024 is all about making the final improvements to PillBot and releasing it into proper clinical testing.
- That would be amazing. As someone who has had too many endoscopies in their lives, a pillbot would be amazing. Even though I am very fit and healthy- it’s not a pleasant experience. It would mean such a lot to the elderly or more inform home ridden patients to have access to such technology one day. I imagine ultimately, one day, it will also be so much cheaper than the costs involved with today’s hospital-based endoscopy systems. This all started with your aunty. What legacy would you like your company / technology to leave on the landscape?
We believe that we are creating the first FDA-compliant ecosystem for micro-robotic telemedicine inside the human body. We strive for a world where the standard of care reaches patients wherever they are, be that rural patients, patients in refugee camps, or simply patients who aren’t inclined to travel to a hospital, get sedated, and have a tube inserted into their body – all so their doctor can simply have a quick look around
This regulatory ecosystem, and the new market category that it heralds, represents a huge frontier of new medicine, and we expect to welcome dozens of new companies into this space in the years to come. I can’t wait to see all the different directions that other innovators take this, and we are proud to be making a contribution to help get the party started!
- So, you’re starting the party………………. What opportunities do you see out there in the medical devices world to be more innovative in offering patients and clinicians a more joined up solution?
I can’t wait to put on an AR or XR headset and see a live anatomical hologram inside a patient being created in real-time by PillBot! I can’t wait to be swimming inside a huge stomach, working in concert with AI, to create the best treatment plan for a patient. Imagine the flood of data that will come from devices like PillBot; this is the basis for a fundamentally new understanding of the innerspace inside all of us, and what an honour it is to embark upon such a fantastic voyage with brilliant minds all around the world.
- That is truly a mind-blowing thought. I hadn’t even thought about it till you mentioned it. Torrey – tell me, what is the best piece of advice you have received from investors?
The best advice we’ve received from investors has been in the zeitgeist of Silicon Valley, where you are encouraged to swing for the fences (baseball phrase there) and go for multiple orders of magnitude of progress with your technology. Cancer isn’t pulling any punches, ever, so why should we? If I should fail, it would be in the arena that Teddy Roosevelt spoke of. I refuse to water this dream down until an average investor understands it, and I am grateful to the brilliant minds in the deep tech community who support us every day, and not just financially. I feel like we are in the Right Stuff scene when Gordo Cooper is going for multiple orbits and the entire deep tech network is saying “GO!!!”.
- I and so many others really don’t want you to water this dream down. Aim high, shoot for the moon and stars and go for it!!!!!! On a similar theme, has anyone played a particularly key role in your career - perhaps a mentor …. what and how did / do they influence you?
My original med device mentors were a group of Silicon Valley cowboys who could shoot from the hip and hit a bullseye in a single shot – because that’s all you have as a startup company – one shot. You don’t have the luxury of Google money like they did at X, but at the same time you don’t have the safety cushion either, so when you innovate in a startup, you innovate for the life of your company. Speaking as an expectant father, you innovate for the life of your family. The call to innovation is entirely non-academic, and you have to follow your intuition because it may be the only thing that won’t quit on you.
- What advice would you give to someone who's looking to enter this space? Whether that's a fresh grad straight out of university, but then also someone looking to transition their career?
My advice is to start your company the instant you have an idea that you can’t get out of your mind. Once you know the truth in your heart, then you must pursue it, lest you wallow in regret for the rest of your life. This means quitting your job before you get funding, and building a team that fills in the gaps in your own knowledge and skill. Inspire them, lead them, and ask them for help in making it real. And know that the window of relevance for you and your team in this quest may be measured in months.
- That is truly inspirational advice. I can hear and feel the passion, sincerity and utter conviction in your words, and I am sure there will be plenty reading this who will be driven to act. Torrey, do you have any final thoughts / comments you’d like to make?
To prospective and current founders, please reach out to me on LinkedIn for help and guidance or show up to our HQ with a functional tech demo. But please be pounding on the sky – I'm not interested in your app or enterprise software platform.
- Please investors, do get in touch with Torrey and his team- they have all sacrificed a lot and pushed themselves beyond their comfort zones for Endiatx and Pillbot. And they continue to do so. I’ve seen the plant where the team works. You will be impressed by the sheer energy, passion and radical way that the Endiatx team can challenge your thinking of what is and isn’t possible.
- Finally, what song would get you jigging on the dance floor / what do you do in your spare time to relax and inspire / re-energise you???
I’ve been in the depths of a retro Belgian Industrial kick, and my current running or design jam is Front 242 Neurobashing / Punish Your Machine (Live).
Torrey – you are simply a whirlwind of energy, passion , vision and guts and the team you are lucky to have around you are just the same. I am only sorry, that we can’t continue talking more because I honestly never know what you are going to say next……… just that it won’t be anything I would have imagined!
Keep on pushing and re-inventing the accepted principles.
And if you are reading this and are an investor or know of individuals who would like to know more about Endiatx and Pillbot please don’t hesitate to reach out to him and the team at https://www.endiatx.com/
Thanks Torrey and team and good luck with the forthcoming fatherhood!
Liz
