TechVibe Radio is back on air at ESPN 970 AM every Saturday at 8:00 a.m.
Earlier this month, ALung Technologies CEO Pete DeComo stopped by our "Business as Usual" webcast to tell his amazing story of building life sciences companies in the Pittsburgh region.
Pete is a true technology/life sciences pioneer! With 25-plus years of life sciences start up experience, Pete founded and shepherded Renal Solutions to a $200 million acquisition by Fresenius Medical Care before leading up ALung. Hear Pete discuss how ALung has become a leading developer of advanced medical devices for treating respiratory failure.
Come hear more about ALung's remarkable journey and Pete's dedication to scaling this tremendous business!
Transcription:
I've seen so many cool ways that people have created distancing. Yeah, giving candy. Okay, our county exec. Yeah, has really long steps, several sets of steps. Okay, like pvc piping, sending it down the pipe through, any candy down. It's, I love it. I saw another person Larry DiGioia. Yeah, he actually created like this big beast. Okay. can soar through his driveway. Candy, so there's a lot. I love the amount of creativity. Yeah, that's what makes it fun, man. That's cool. So it's Halloween already
I love Halloween. So much fun. Glad we're doing a show on Halloween. One thing that is not scary, but it's very cool is one Pete DeComo, who is the CEO and Chairman at ALung technologies. And Pete has this long story of doing awesome work in Pittsburgh Life Sciences tech is a great story. Here's a great story because he actually started his career as a practitioner. And the thing is, is that he just couldn't keep himself away from being entrepreneur.
Exactly. And so we had him on our Business as Usual webcast a couple weeks ago, I was so excited to get him on because like I said, I think his story is pretty inspirational and shows it takes a lot of grit, and drive and determination to build, you know, a life sciences company. And you did a fantastic job interviewing him getting key parts of his story. And we're gonna play that today because I like taking our Business as Usual and bring it some of the guests we get there. And let's bring him over to TechVibe Radio because it's all about at the Council, we share our content, right? It's like we share our Halloween candy afterwards. But guess what, this year because you're gonna come up with something clever for Halloween.
I never do.
I wish I could.
But speaking of Halloween, in the end of October, beginning of November, it means Tech 50 is right around the corner. November the 12th, our biggest night in tech still happening virtually still offering loads and loads of connections and fun and celebration. So I'm looking forward to it, Audrey. That's for sure. So how about we play this first clip where it's kind of Pete talking about just his background, what he's done, and what got him stuck into a long, just as he's getting ready to retire? Can you believe that?
Sounds like a plan.
Let's play it real quick. And let's see what happens.
Pete, it is so great to see you. It is so great to have this opportunity to talk to you, you know that I'm one of your biggest fans. And it's just thrilling to have you here.
Thank you very much. I'm not sure I deserved all that. But I greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Well, I think you do deserve it. Because now what we're going to do is we're going to say who is Pete the man to give us a little bit about Pete yourself because your actual professional background was not necessarily that of an entrepreneur, but you pivoted so can you just tell everyone about that?
Yeah, I never thought I would be an entrepreneur. But as I look back, both my parents were entrepreneurs and I didn't realize it at the time didn't even know the definition of entrepreneurship at that time, but they were you know, small time on small time entrepreneurs, running businesses up a little bit up north, up the Allegheny River and Ford city and they have a number of restaurants up there at that point in time and, you know, they were truly entrepreneurs and I doubt I delved into the restaurant business one Time, I'll never do that again. But I shouldn't learn my lessons from my mother and father. But you know, I've grown up in this area, I've stepped away from this area a couple of times, I was out in San Diego for a while in a startup out there, and I was also in Indianapolis for a while with a startup out there. And you know, I became an entrepreneur about 25 years ago. But prior to that, I started my career in here in Pittsburgh, got my education at initially at community college, became a respiratory therapist, then went on for my bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Pittsburgh and, of course, graduated from there. And, you know, it never occurred to me that I would come full circle back into the pulmonary medicine space with a long. And I'm one of those individuals and entrepreneurs that mostly takes advantage of opportunities that are presented without having a, you know, a clear path mapped out for myself. What's interesting about my entrepreneurial career, is that the last three companies that I've been with, without any pre planning whatsoever are all extracorporeal components. What that means is that they've been in the medical device space, and they've been with technologies that take blood from the body, treat it in some fashion, and then put that blood back into the body. The first one was out in San Diego when I was chief operating officer of a company called chemotherapies. And it was the first FDA cleared medical device for liver dialysis. So people that had liver disease, and toxins were building up in the body because the liver couldn't remove them. We had a device that removed those toxins, and then return the blood back to the body. That was a short stint. And then I met my co founder there for my next company, which was renal solutions, which was based here in Pittsburgh. And that company was a technology that was founded in an r&d house in, near Purdue in in the state of Indiana. And they asked me to find the company and I said, I would only do that if I could go back to Pittsburgh and take the company of Pittsburgh. So we founded renal solutions with my co founder in actually in early 2000s, July of 2000 brought it back to Pittsburgh. And that is also when the Pittsburgh Life Sciences greenhouse was being formed. And we were sort of in the right place at the right time. And, you know, to jump to the end of the story, that company was very successful. We raised $40 million in venture capital, and then five years later sold that company to the largest kidney dialysis company in the world, for syneos for $200 million. And that was a that was a great journey. But the world was very different back then, in terms of the ability to raise venture capital, the strategic strategics out there that would acquire companies had a very different outlook, they bought or acquired much earlier than they are today. But a very successful company. And then a number of my investors in renal solutions became involved with a long, and they asked me to come over day long in 2009, after we were acquired at renal solutions. And we were acquired by a $12 billion foreign giant, if you will, at rental solutions. And I had to spend a year in that environment. And being an entrepreneur is much much different than spending your time in a $12 billion a year revenue company with lots of bureaucracy. So I couldn't wait to get out of there and was very, very thankful that I can I could come over to to a lawn and help Usher a lawn along to where it's at today.
You know, a funny story regarding anglong is that some of my investors who recruited me to come over basically said, Hey, Pete, this is going to be a quick turnaround. Probably two years at most, three years at most, you will be out of here you'll have another exit and you'll have a lot of fun and you can finally retire and it's been 11 years now. I've been done and it's it's clearly a sign of how times have changed. in entrepreneurship and how they very much change for medical device companies, because you know, the old cliche that it takes longer and cost more is clearly the way it is today. We've raised a ton of money at a long. Fortunately, our investors are believers, they've been very supportive of the company and of the technology. And one of the reasons they've been supportive and and believe in the technology is some of the accomplishments that we've achieved most recently, especially as it relates to COVID-19. So it has been a long journey, I think you can tell that from looking at me. It's often joke when I talk to entrepreneurs that get in CMU that I'm only 39 years old, and you can see. But, but it's been a it's been a great ride, I wouldn't change it for the world. I grew up in large companies after my after my education and learned very quickly that I was a person that enjoyed entrepreneurship, small companies much better than I enjoyed large companies and all the bureaucracy that comes along with that.
Well, so talk about a long Tell, tell us what a long is and what's happened since COVID.
Well, yeah, you know, for those of you that don't know, a long actually the devices in the picture right behind me here. And we refer to our therapy as respiratory dialysis. Because if you're familiar with kidney dialysis, and you saw a patient on our device, you would oftentimes think that they're on kidney dialysis because there's a catheter here in the neck, or in the femoral down in the groin area, and we're removing blood from the body and we're passing it through an artificial organ, in this case, an artificial lung and then we're returning it to the body. And this technology was conceived at the University of Pittsburgh McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. And I told you,
Audrey, Pete's an amazing dude. I just love what he brings to the table.
He is a pretty incredible guy. He has been going to really just remarkable in terms of his contributions to the community, he's been active in the angel community. He's been active in building companies and you know, as you heard his success. Just masterful at being a good Ombudsman for all things that are life sciences and innovation. So always thrilled to talk to him. And plus, he was on the tech council board for such a long time. It was time really tremendous.
What a cool dude. That's why we're gonna bring you more Pete de como, we come back with more tech vibe radio, he's gonna talk about more about ailing itself, how it works, and of course, how they pivoted through the whole COVID thing because their solution works pretty well for folks who are suffering from symptoms. So it's a really cool story. We're gonna come back with more tech five radio, this is Jonathan Kersting. And this is Audrey Russo from the Pittsburgh Technology Council and good PGH tech.org learn more about us more importantly, go that registered for tech 50. It's November the 12th. It doesn't even cost you anything to attend it and it is your way to connect with who's who, in Pittsburgh technology ecosystem. We'll be right back.
As promised we've come back and we got another 10 minutes of Mr. Pete DeComo from aALung Technologies. You know when you interviewed him in this segment, Audrey, you start setting up really what a lot is all about in the journey of it. And then really how when COVID hit, how they were able to actually started using this device to start treating some folks that were suffering with symptoms?
Well, you know, really what's just so admirable, is during the in the time COVID? Obviously, with so many pulmonary issues that have been tied to COVID, I always wondered, would ALung be able to be one of those, those companies that will have, you know, rapid FDA approval right through the process quicker. And so it was really great to be able to hear from Pete to talk about the FDA process and think about what does it mean for the future of innovation in terms of life sciences, COVID may have taught us some things. And while you know, his his technology, while simple, is very sophisticated. So many people around the world are working on things, particularly in Pittsburgh, on making life better and easier and safer. And I think COVID has probably worked to help the FDA understand how to how to sort of rapidly accelerate these technologies to get into the hands of people. I think that's that's one positive thing that comes out of COVID.
Absolutely. And I'm so glad we got to capture that on business as usual. And now our tech vibe listeners can get a little slice what's happening over there in aylen. During these COVID times, let's give it a spin Andre and see what it's all about.
And it's really the only technology that's not only been conceived, but designed and manufactured from the ground up for a therapy that we call extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal. So our focus as an artificial long is to remove carbon dioxide directly from the blood. And the reason for that is when your lungs are failing, for whatever the reason may be, and you cannot move enough air into and out of your mom's, you're then not removing enough carbon dioxide from your body, which is a byproduct of normal metabolism. And so we're an artificial long that functions very much like the native one that sits outside the body and removes up to 50% of the metabolic carbon dioxide that the body produces. Now, we never want to remove 100% of the carbon dioxide that the body removes because that could be detrimental number one. And number two, we want the patient to continue to breathe on their own and use their own respiratory muscles. We don't want those muscles to become debilitated for from lack of use. And so we want that patient, for example that has emphysema or chronic bronchitis to continue to breathe on their own. But there are times that patients need an artificial ventilator and machine that sits beside the bed and inflates their lungs because they can't breathe on their own. And in that particular case, we use our device simultaneously with the ventilator. But the objective there is different, we're still removing carbon dioxide directly from the blood. But what we want to do in that case, is allow the physician to turn the breath volume down from the ventilator. Because in order to inflate the lungs with the ventilator, oftentimes, very high pressures from the ventilator are used to drive that volume into the lung. And those high pressures can cause what's called a ventilator induced lung injury. Basically, you're beating up the very gentle tissue of the lung with high pressures from the ventilator in order to force that air into the lungs. So our technology enables the physician to lower breath volume and lower the associated pressure, because you don't need as much breath while in when we're removing the carbon dioxide directly from the blood. So is a remarkable technology. And I can tell you as a respiratory therapist that worked at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for 15 years in critical care, and took patients took care of patients on mechanical ventilation. It's a remarkable device in terms of avoiding the ventilator totally or minimizing the need for the ventilator once the patient is on the mechanical ventilator and then protecting the lungs while the patient is on a mechanical So we're a small company, we produce small volumes of our technology. But since we started to treat humans back in 19, I'm sorry, 2014. We've treated 1100 patients worldwide. We've been all over Europe, Latin America, the Asia Pacific, as well as in the United States. And for a new technology out of the box, we've not had one and unanticipated serious adverse events associated with our technology. And so what we're doing now is working with the FDA to have our technology approved here in the United States.
So what has changed, anything changed since COVID-19? Like just a long the demand?
A lot has changed, you know, a lot has changed a lot of doors for many companies, not only in the medical device space, but also in life sciences in general, a lot has changed due to COVID-19. Many companies have been affected adversely, especially revenue generating companies have been affected adversely with COVID-19, especially if their product lines have nothing to do with treating COVID-19. So for us, in particular, we're not a revenue producing company, we're still pre revenue. So it did not have that negative impact on us. But it had a tremendous negative impact on us and closed the door, if you will, on a very important clinical trial that we were conducting here, United States, that would have led to approval of our technology here in the United States. And it's not just our clinical trial, the great majority of clinical trials being conducted here in the United States, were basically halted as a result of COVID-19. Because the hospitals were consumed with taking care of COVID-19 patients, and clinical research personnel were considered an essential in sent home. And so as a result of that, our clinical trial back in March of this year of 2014, basically came to a screeching halt. We've been we've enrolled a few patients since March, maybe five or six, but not many, in the end, the clinical trial had a target of enrolling 180 patients, we basically stalled at 93 patients. So we're about halfway through the trial. And we couldn't conduct a trial. So we needed to pivot to be honest with you. And you know, I often use a quote by Alexander Graham Bell, you know, that, sometimes one door closes. But another door opens, but we spend so much time focused on the door that closes, we don't recognize the door that opens.
And so what that what that really means is, when you're confronted with things like COVID-19, that affect your company, you do need to pivot. And so I went to the FDA and I said, Well, two things have happened here. First of all, we can't conduct a trial. And if we can't conduct a trial, we can't raise money, because no investor is going to invest in a company that has an uncertain future in terms of when it's going to be approved for the US market. But perhaps more importantly than that, we can help with COVID-19 COVID-19 manifests itself in respiratory failure. It's a syndrome called acute respiratory distress syndrome, or RS a RDS. And we just concluded a 412 patient trial in the United Kingdom on a RDS, we had a lot of good experience there. So we petitioned the FDA for what's referred to as emergency use authorization. And the FDA turned that around pretty quickly within 30 days and granted us emergency use authorization to treat COVID-19 patients. And so a small company, we can't we can't treat the world with our technology. We don't have enough of it. But we've treated 42 COVID-19 patients worldwide 36 here in the United States, and six in the United Kingdom and Ireland. And the reason for the United States and the UK and Ireland is that's where we had our major presence. We were already installed in clinical trial sites in those countries. We had hospitals and hospital personnel already trained in those hos in those countries and in those hospitals and they could turn around pretty quickly and start to treat COVID-19. So we're in we're in very prestigious hospitals here in the United States, University of Texas Heart Institute, Memorial, Hermann, Minneapolis heart, Tufts University up in Boston LSU in Louisiana, and I could go on and on. And all of those institutions are treating covid 19 patients with our technology. In addition to that, in addition to our clinical trial sites, we have a lot of 10 additional hospitals that were dark clinical trauma hospitals, to treat these patients on an emergency use basis as well. Now one of the one of the features that I want to point out about our technology is that it's designed to be very simple to use. And that's not that's very unusual for a device that touches blood removes blood from a body and, and then treats it and puts it back but it is very simple to use.
Well another TechVibe Radio under our belt Audrey, I'm so glad we got to take a little bit of the Business as Usual webcast and remind everyone we're doing Business as Usual, every weekday at noon, if you go to PGH tech.org, you can see a whole back load of them. You can also register for the webcast there and get a front row seat in front of women and men like Pete Docomo who are really making a positive impact on Pittsburgh, great job talking with Pete. Audrey I love these kind of conversations. And Peter's definitely been someone who has been addressing issues that you know many of us take for granted in terms of our health and many people who don't have access to the kind of technology and innovation that will make their life better. Pete is one of those guys that have been you know, sort of pounding away to develop products that matter.
Absolutely great stuff and we're all out of time. And Audrey have a very Happy Halloween happy throwing candy at kids.
If you stopped by Rich's house, give me a couple pieces of candy to come to the shoot. That will be a lot of fun.
Always good hanging out with you, Audrey. I love stories to Pittsburgh. Great stuff. Hey, this is Jonathan Kersting and this is once again we are from the Pittsburgh Technology Council. We love bringing you this show every single Saturday. If you can't catch us on a Saturday download as anytime go to I Heart Radio. You can download Techvibe and all the side projects we have as well too because there's so much content. We can't possibly cram it into a Saturday morning.
Thanks everybody.
Thanks for listening to Techvibe Radio coming at you from the Huntington Bank Studios.