Patrick Sauvageau, Zilia - Non-Invasive Ocular Biomarker Assessment | LSI USA '24

Patrick Sauvageau  0:04  
All right, good morning everyone. My name is Patrick Sauvageau, and I'm the CEO and co founder of Zilia. The eyes and just a window into our soul, it's the window to our health. It offers important information about the health of the eye, but it also offers direct views into the circulatory system and the brain. Today, I'm excited to share our we're unlocking the AI's potential to revolutionize healthcare. At Zilia, we've developed a breakthrough platform to interrogate the eye like never before, like combining advanced imaging, spectroscopy, and AI, we're able to not only look at the eye, but to get an in depth profile of all the information it provides. The potential for our platform is huge with applications in ophthalmology, neurology, cardiology, primary care and more. Let me tell you a bit about zilis origin story. I started working on this as a first year optometry student. And I immediately became fascinated by the fact that we could non invasively get access to such critical information in the eye. So with my brother Dominic, who's a bio engineer, we were frequently discussing the potential of the technology and how it could change the lives of millions of people. So by the time I got out of school, we decided to join forces and create what is now resilient. And this is where we're at today. Our IP portfolio includes four patent families. More than 700 patients have been enrolled in diverse clinical trials using our technology. We're ISO certified. And we recently achieved our first FDA 550 clearance for retinal imaging securing a CPT code with wide coverage. And we achieved all of these milestones with less than 10 million in equity funding. More than 380 million people are impacted by ocular diseases like glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and macular degeneration. And I am certain everyone in this room as a loved one affected by one of these conditions. And their prevalence is rising due to aging to do the aging population. Now yearly, direct and indirect costs related to blindness and visual impairment total more than $2 trillion. And blindness is still the biggest fear of all because vision is, it's at the heart of the human experience. And to top it all, there's a huge unmet need for early detection of ocular diseases. Current eyecare tools Miss early signs of disease, because they only show structure not function. While structural damage appears late in the disease process and is irreversible. So we need to look beyond structure. We need functional biomarkers to intervene sooner and better. And this This is particularly the case with the leading causes of blindness. Where research as demonstrated that functional changes precede structural damage, underscoring the importance of Advanced Functional biomarkers. And at the heart of this revolution is ocular oximetry or oxygen saturation measurement, since it provides early insights into the metabolic changes that signal impending ocular damage, a claim that is well supported by extensive scientific research. The Xillia ocular changes the gate is the first retinal camera to assess oxygen saturation. Promising to catch disease early when they're still preventable. This is crucial as we know that 90% of visual loss is preventable. This area ocular is a combination of hardware, software and cloud services. Our technology harnesses low intensity light to eliminate the eye the light reflects from the retina providing us with high resolution images and spectra. This user friendly device can be used by anyone with a basic training. Such an advanced, non invasive technique permits the real time assessment of many biomarkers, including oximetry. Spectroscopy is pivotal to our process. It is a study of our light interacts with matter, revealing a spectral signature unique to each protein and molecules. Much like fingerprints, these spectral signatures enable us to identify and quantify the biomarkers present offering a window into the body itself through the eye. Our immediate focus is oximetry. analyzing the light absorption of Oxy and deoxyhemoglobin. We've been able to build on concepts similar to those used in pulse oximetry, but greatly expand on them and implement them in the eye. VISIE the ocular integrates seamlessly with entering clinical workflows and optometry and ophthalmology, providing structural information through imaging and functional information through spectroscopy. Each patient assessment enriches our unique and comprehensive dataset, which includes an anonymous patient information, images and spectrum. Independent studies using the Xia ocular I've already shown correlations with diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, but we're not stopping there. We're venturing into neurology and cardiology with active programs in Parkinson's disease and cardiac amyloidosis. And we know there are many, many more biomarkers waiting to be revealed using our platform. We envision ocular oximetry as a standard across the research, pharma and clinical markets. We already deployed devices in the research and pharma markets started generating revenue. And with a 510 K recently obtained for retinal imaging and the de novo on the horizon for ocular oximetry. We aim to penetrate the 50,000 eye care clinics in the US than Europe and Canada. And we will do this through a combination of direct and indirect sales. Our pricing strategy is market aligned with the hybrid model for clinical use consisting of a one time purchase plus a SAS, a rental model for pharma, and the one time purchase for research. Our profits margin are range between 70 and 75%. And we are partnering with specialized CMOS for our manufacturing. Our multidisciplinary team consisting of 27 people, represents a fusion between experience and knowledge I bring to the table 15 years of experience in eye care as a clinician consultant, and clinic owner backed by master's degree in ocular symmetry. My brother Dominic, with whom I co founded the company as a PhD in engineering and solid experience in biotechnology and robbing our CFO brings the solid fifth 25 years of financial leadership, including his role in the recently acquired public medtech company. Now we're raising a 15 million series A to help commercialize our first product, expand the portfolio of biomarkers and develop a second generation device with added bio sensing capabilities and substantial reduction of manufacturing costs. Now we invite you to join us in revolutionizing healthcare one eye at a time. Thank you very much