Adam Torres and Britt Gottschalk discuss Geno.Me, Inc.
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Show Notes:
The monetization of health data for medical research purposes has the ability to change healthcare in many beneficial ways. In this episode, Adam Torres and Britt Gottschalk, CEO at Geno.Me, Inc., explore Geno.Me, Inc. and how it monetizes health data.
About Britt Gottschalk
Britt serves as the Chief Executive Officer for Geno.Me. Britt’s role focuses on advancing the mission, work and overall vision of the company. She is a Milwaukee native and holds a bachelor’s in Psychology from UW-Milwaukee and dual masters’ degrees in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Business Administration from Elmhurst University.
Britt has cultivated a professional background in the healthcare, services, and communications sectors for the last 15 years. She is passionate about championing the innovative ways that Geno.Me is revolutionizing the future of healthcare. In her spare time, she enjoys running, getting together with friends, hitting the dog park with her dog, Brock, or grabbing a bite at local restaurants.
About Geno.Me
At Geno.Me, they enable the users to control their health data at scale because they own it. By making clinical-grade information accessible from anyone at any time, their users have the power to give medical researchers the ability to discover new treatments, while being compensated for their contributions. They’re a team headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin made up of thinkers, doers, problem-solvers, and innovators that have accepted the challenge to change the world for the better, starting with the people.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on B our guest to apply. All right, so today’s guest is Britt Gotch, and she’s the CEO of gmi. Brit, welcome to the show.
Happy to be here, Adam. Thanks for having me. All right, Britt. we got a big topic today. Going to have lots of fun. So, improving public opinion on medical research. So, we’re going to get into that and more. And just to get us kicked off, we’ll start this with our Mission Matters Minute. So, Britt, at Mission Matters, our goal and our aim is to amplify stories that we feel need to be heard.
That’s our mission. Britt, what mission matters to you? The mission that matters to me is helping advance medical research by allowing people to monetize their health data. That’s a super interesting topic. We’ve been talking about monetizing data and what that looks like for a long time. Like, did you get this idea?
Like, where’d that come from? Yeah, well, you know, like all people that try to find something good to create a business around, I started in consulting. And so I actually don’t have a background in any kind of clinical research, genomics, biology, none of that. I had a background in psychology. It was really interested in helping people solve really complex problems.
And in my journey of doing that some of the companies that I worked with in the management consultant space focused on project management, process improvement, that kind of stuff. It’s usually in industries that, you know, we’re ripe for innovation and change. So industries like insurance, finance, health care and I actually came up with the idea of, you know, me in working in some of those different capacities, working with some clients and figuring out, you know, what are some of the things that they want to see improved about.
their day to day jobs and everyday lives. And a lot of that came back to data accessibility. The pandemic really exacerbated the issues that come with the transferability and accessibility of different types of medical data. So medical records, genetic, genomic data, all that good stuff. so like any idea and a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this, by the way, so I just say, you know, so a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives.
So what you just not saying, I mean, that’s a big idea. Like, like, where’d you start with this? Like, how did this all begin? So this is actually my second company and it all started with my first company. So at the time I was working for a management consulting firm out of Madison, Wisconsin, and I, the pandemic hit.
And so I had this somewhat of a come to Jesus moment with myself where I was like, you know what? I don’t know if i’m doing everything that I want to with my life. Is this really fulfilling? And so, you know, I decided to cut my teeth and start my own consulting firm And while I was doing that, was that scary?
Was that scary? Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, totally. I didn’t know what I was doing And some days I still don’t right but I was like, oh, you know what? I’m, just going to take a chance because what do I have to lose, you know, the whole world was full of uncertainty And so, I don’t know, I just found that to be, you know, reason to try something new, and so did that.
And about a year into my consulting venture I had been working with teams in finance, insurance and health care to help them with the remote work transition. You know, I was faced with a very difficult decision because we weren’t able to. Keep up with like the McKinsey’s, right?
Like I was a mom and pop operation. It was me and my business partner. And we were just trying to figure out how to do this thing. And it was my first time starting a business. And so I was like, okay, I got to find something more sustainable. I got to find something that is probably going to make a bigger difference.
And in that research, it was like, I kept seeing with some of the clients that were like, and my advisors, there were different areas of focus that were starting to kind of rear their head rear its head over the pandemics. So for example. Issues with data accessibility issues with technology and integration.
these are things that got exacerbated because of the pandemic. And so, as I started talking to my advisors and clients, I’m like, what other problems they’re coming out that you want to solve. So. You know, took a lot from the people closest to the problems and figured out a way to commercialize the idea of, you know, me.
And so, of course, this is expedited, but this is over, like, you know, maybe 12 to 16 months of doing research and trying to figure out what am I going to do? Right? And so when I decided to pivot from consulting to biotech. guess what really solidified that was when I pitched the idea to an investor in Milwaukee, and they’re ready to write me a check for a seed round for 400, 000.
And I was like, all right, I guess we’re doing that. So I closed down the consulting firm and opened up, you know, me. Yeah, now, okay, so you have this concept, you have this idea, you’re moving forward, you have your first seed investor, and now you’re thinking about, like, obviously you’re getting further and further within the industry.
Did anything surprise you, like, as you’re thinking about like, figuring out how to, like, extract the most value from this data, like, did anything surprise you about the industry or otherwise? Oh, definitely. I remember I had this thought that, okay, well, you know, because it’s clinical research or medical science, like, oh, they have the best of everything.
They’re going to be able to access whatever data they want on any population. You know, all of the health systems, the ones that keep track of our electronic medical records, they all talk to each other. It’s just transferability is super easy. And that was something that I was really, you know, interested in digging into when I found out that that was not the case is really this huge black box that needs a lot of improvements.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think it’s really common for people to think that, oh, you know, just because, like, there are these companies or universities that are pumping out. Great medical treatments and advancements when it comes to, you know drugs and different types of care. They don’t always have the best of everything.
And a lot of the times they have to rely on people like us to be able to get that information to help them create a better outcomes when it comes to clinical research and trials. Talk about monetizing the health data just for medical research purposes. Like, how does that piece of it? How does that work?
Sure. Sure. So I guess, like, like, from what, you know, me does, like, we allow people to control their health data at scale. And it’s because we believe that they own it. And so you have the rights to your own data. You have the rights to access it because it is. Yours even though it is housed in systems, like I think what’s most common is epic my chart, or sooner millennium, or, you know, you might even get some different information from 23andme or ancestry.
com reports, but all of that data is yours. And so it’s, it’s yours to sell. There aren’t really any restrictions around you commoditizing or monetizing your health data. It’s just about finding which guess which industries are going to get the most use out of it. And in this case, it’d be medical researchers.
Hmm. how does the public, when you’re having this conversation with the end user, like the consumer that, you know, the one that actually has the data, like, how does that normally go? Cause this is a new concept. I feel like, if you’re in the tech side of things and otherwise, like, then you kind of understand this, but if we’re thinking at the very basic level for the masses, this is like, this is kind of new, it’s a different kind of conversation, like how does that piece go, like public adoption of this concept?
Yeah, yeah. So we actually call people that would like to contribute their health data. We call them contributors. Yep. Yep. Contributors. And so, you know, in the medical and the medical sciences space, just generally research, you know, there’s been discussions and whispers about allowing people to monetize their health data.
But know that that’s not necessarily something I could discuss with the public a lot. But what’s. But realistically, that’s what I mean, like the hierarchy knows this conversation and they know the value of that data and they know all of this, especially like whether it’s big pharma, whatever it is, right?
Like they know, but the public, I feel like they don’t necessarily always know. Speaking for myself, I can’t value what, what my data would be worth. You know what I mean? Right. Right. And so, you know, what we’re trying to do here is also a bit of a proof of concept to be able to say, you know, we will charge X amount for your data and you will get X amount back if you decide to sell it.
a lot of that comes back to more consumer rights, more patient protections and patient rights around being able to own and, you know, house their own data whatever systems they choose. There hasn’t been a ton of, there’s been a ton of patient centric ideas around the ownership of data, even though it does make these pharmaceutical companies and research facilities trillions of dollars every single year.
And talk to me about some of the benefits other than the monetary side, because I feel like there’s more reasons why somebody might want to share their data. Obviously for money, that’s good. I’m not saying, I’m not negating that, but like putting that piece aside for a moment is like research or like, I don’t know, can you go like a layer deeper on like the implications of why if somebody wants to, obviously it’s a right, if somebody wants to, why it could be beneficial for them to share.
Okay. Definitely there’s that altruism piece to it. So more widespread data usage can create better medication options, better treatment options for people. You know, the research that’s affiliated with using any kind of genetic tie pharmacogenomics, how a person’s genetics influences the body’s responses to drugs.
In addition to electronic medical record data, When you get data on different populations, you’re able to research how those different drugs affect different populations, whether they’re part of a family, or whether they’re part of a main demographic. A lot of the data that’s out there right now.
It’s being used for medical research purposes or clinical trial purposes belongs to 1 major demographic that has access to medical care. Or you know, has the ability to afford it. And that is Caucasian men, for the most part, that are middle aged. And I’m not a Caucasian man. And so if there’s any kind of like study or trial being done on a drug that treats a form of cancer that I might have, you know, I want to know how that affects people that are part of my demographic.
Yeah, that’s a great point. I think what this also does and correct me if I’m wrong, but like over time, like the amount of additional, this also is a, it’s gotta be cheaper, right? Like in terms of like for the companies, people doing the research, everything else, because the data’s already there, but the cost to purchase data that’s already there versus trying to, you know, Create this subset of people and trying to bring them together in light.
Like, don’t know if there’s even a number on that. If you want to just speak to that in general, when you kind of think of the other side of this, like the cost has to be like, there’s win wins I feel like in, in, in across the board on different sides of the coin. definitely like affordability of drugs.
That becomes more widespread. You are getting data from the source, which is the patient, not just, you know, a patient consented to a system to being able to use it and the idea, identify it and then sell it. I mean, with our platform, we’re able to connect patient to researcher and researcher to patient through that consent process.
So you’re getting, you know, yeah. You’re getting the data that you need on specific populations based on, you know, their ability to provide that for you. And they’re constantly informed about it. Also, you know, a very different way to look at it is looking at you know clinical trials, clinical research as a form of primary care.
You know, I don’t know about you, but when I go to the physician or, you know, just go to my physician’s office, my primary care physician, I don’t usually get talked to about how I could potentially get involved in clinical trials or maybe how my family members can get involved unless, you know, they’re very sick.
But there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of really great uses for, you know, control population data. So somebody who might not be sick, but it’s just interested and, you know, hey, here’s my health data, like, you know, use it for any type of research that you might want to conduct as long as I’m getting compensated for it.
You know, I’m fine with that. So, yeah, and I can think. And I can think of, so I have one example, and for everybody listening, my mom’s okay with me sharing this, okay? So I don’t want no emails. You shouldn’t be talking about your mom’s personal. This isn’t it. She says it’s okay. But she was one of the first people really diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, like years ago.
I mean, I was a kid and I mean, to the point to where she’s in, like, the medical books, like, they study her, like, period. She’s still with us, by the way. She’s fine. She’s, like, she’s healthy. She’s retired in Florida, listening to this somewhere, so don’t worry about her. You know, she’s living her best life.
I think she told me she just went to bike week, and why didn’t I come? Like, come on, she’s okay. but that being said, like, she’s been participating in, like, providing her data for years without being incented, and that’s okay. Like, she’s not complaining about that. She wanted to be able to help others as well while they were trying to figure out what this disease even was.
And so we’re talking, I don’t know, maybe 20, 20 plus years more probably if I’m, if I’m off on my numbers. Because a decade, when I blink nowadays, a decade passed. So maybe it could have been more. I don’t know. point. But with that being said I see like how like beneficial that other side of it is and in developing and how her information has been able to help a lot of other people.
Like now that it’s a little bit more, I won’t say a mature disease that might be using that, that, that, Terminology wrong, but I mean, like, we just understand more about it now, right? There’s other treatment options, but her participating and spending that time Was a piece of that so that become of whatever whatever amount it was, but that’s a piece of it So I can see like that being Like there can be some other wins there like long term just for all of us because one thing’s for certain when it comes To healthcare and anything else i’m all like I don’t whether you’re sick now not sick now Whatever like at some point in our lives, we’re all gonna need it In some way, shape or form.
So I love when people like yourself are out there innovating and thinking of new ways and finding out ways to progress the whole system. Because when I need it, I want it to work. How about that? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No. And I’m glad to hear that your mom is still with us. And, you know, to your point, like chronic condition, Yeah, absolutely.
Rare diseases, you know, these affect, you know, millions of Americans. I think like, you know think it’s don’t quote me on this, but about 30 million Americans actually have some type of rare disease that rare. I mean, with gene therapies, increasing. Especially you know, being able to say within degree of certainty that certain drugs or treatments are going to have a positive impact on people that might have different types of blood disorders or cancers you know, it’s it’s more beneficial for all of us to be able to.
And get treated from a pool of our peers, and we can make that happen with way that’s a little bit more accessible or a little bit more comfortable for people to share their data. So, I agree. Well, Brit, it has been great having you on the show and I appreciate you letting us into the world of genome.
If somebody’s listening to this, and they want to learn more, how do they do that? Well, they can go to www. your. org. G E N O dot M E and you can become a contributor or researcher or submit a contact form to get in contact with us. Or you can send an inquiry to hello at your genome dot me. And we’ll get back to it.
Amazing. And we’ll put all that information in the show notes so that the audience can just click on the links. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with us, hey, and you need that in, that invitation, that special invite this is it. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t done it yet.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new episodes, new amazing entrepreneurs like Britt and we’re upskilling everybody because the whole point is we all want to learn and grow together. So definitely hit that subscribe button. button and if you’re a long term listener and you haven’t left review yet, hey please do that.
Just hit the, you know, write a review on Apple podcast that helps the show grow. And we, again, we really appreciate it. And Britt, thank you so much for making some time out to come share the Genome E story with us. So we appreciate it. That was wonderful to be here. Thanks, Adam.
