TechTalk: Age Tech Investments: How a VC Firm Is Driving Healthcare Innovations for Healthy Aging

Soyoung Park:

Fritz, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

Fritz Spencer:

Likewise. I was fascinated to learn that you've invested into over 20 emerging life science companies and even contributed to the exits of three of those through acquisitions. Super interesting. And to kick things off, if you could please give us an introduction of yourself and the story behind the founding of 1004 Venture Partners.

Soyoung Park:

I actually came to the United States as an immigrant and then I literally start over from the scratch in the Silicon Valley. Here, I started working for a medical device company focused on cardiovascular catheter and worked on the medical device sector for 10 years. During my tenure in medical device companies, I made two exits, M&A basically, and then I joined to a company who acquired us that there I actually worked on post-acquisition integration mainly for the cost optimization. From that project, we got a lot of attention from the media and our market cap three-folded. There I got inspired to learn about business. I wasn't more like finance person. And in the startup in finance, we do basically everything. Not only the accounting finance but also business development. You actually work with the investors, investor relations, I got through a lot of different hats in the startup and then big company, it was very different setting. So I went to school, the Fuqua Business School at Duke University and studied health sector management there. After school, my MBA program, I pivoted to biotech industry. There I actually worked on gene therapy, muscle therapy as well as sickle cell disease, rare disease area. And my final company, sickle cell disease company got acquired by Pfizer at $5.6 billion. And I did post-integration at Pfizer and I sensed what actually the pharma company is looking for when they do M&A. I already have expertise in M&A business development in med device companies. And combining this expertise, I realized that I can really help a lot of founders. I can actually guide them to destination of exit. So that's the one motivation. And then while I was at Duke, I actually did the research about digital health market entry in Alzheimer's sector in East Asia. At the time I learned about aging population in the world. So for example, Japan is the oldest country in the world. China has the biggest aging populations in the world and then South Korea, surprisingly, the most rapidly aging country in the world. So I didn't intend it, but through my research I realized that there's a lot of interesting factors in aging population globally and I turned my eyes to US. What's going on in the United States and United States, by 2030, all the baby boomers will turn to over 65 years old, which means they are eligible for Medicare. Medicare is all about tax fund, came from the general population. Considering the biggest population is the aging population over 65, we never experienced before, with a very, very small number of younger generation. I concerned about the economic burden of the younger generation. From there I thought about it how we can actually reduce this economic burden and I realized that from my perspectives, if I can keep this population healthy, then they can be productive and they can be independent. Eventually, they can maintain their dignity of life. Then the younger generation can reduce the burden to take care of their aged parents and grandparents. And also, it'll definitely eventually reduce the overall economic burden. So that's my motivation and I found the solution from the transformative technology based. Regarding I'm in the Silicon Valley, so that's very, very natural option for me to transformative technology as a solution. So that's the story behind of the birth of 1004 Venture Partners.

Fritz Spencer:

Thank you so much for that introduction to yourself and the background of the founding of your business and that journey that you've been on. It sounds like you had quite a journey and we can dive into that more in the future. Quickly, just tell me 1004 Ventures, it really sticks out to me, what does that mean? What's the origin of the name itself?

Soyoung Park:

Thank you for asking. 1004, it's not just a number. I always ask people, "Please Google 1004." If you see that it gives you answer. This 1004 means angel. So it's very interesting, my Korean heritage. In Korean and Japanese, if you read the number 1004, it's the same pronunciation with angel. So I thought about it, we are like angels. We are actually helping the founders to execute their dream. They bring their dream to the world and the benefits of people in need. That's what we want to do. And we all call ourselves angel when we enter all your faith. So I always wanted to have a name, something start with A. Once this number actually goes to above the alphabet. So I always see my fund listed, number one, the first line on the list of the venture capitals when you go to conferences or the index of venture capitals. So that's the kind of reason we decide to choose this unique name for us.

Fritz Spencer:

That's so funny. As someone who sorts and filters in Excel all day long, I know exactly where your fund would show up and it's right at the top. That's too funny. Thanks for sharing that with us. And I'd also like to jump right into the core thesis behind 1004 Ventures. And you've kind of touched on it, it seems like it's really around health. Give us your thesis around investing and what makes evaluating potential investments worthwhile.

Soyoung Park:

We are the global early stage global fund to invest in transformative technologies to support healthy aging. You probably already noticed that. I mentioned about my research about Alzheimer's and we have so many areas we need to take care of, but I decide to focus on healthcare, which is the age-related disease. For example, oncology, neurodegenerative disorder, and also metabolic disease. Those are more directly related with ages. Before, there was a lot of research about this is related with the gene mutation. That's true, but we found more science researches that even these gene mutations actually affects to oncology about seven to 10%. What is the other majority of the factor to affect this kind of disease? With you aging, it actually more related with your metabolic functional decrease and also it triggers the gene mutation as you get older. So we are thinking about more in the prevention, diagnostics, and therapeutics. So I'm going to explain about our portfolio companies later. For example, we are looking for more find-fast and act-fast prevention overreaction. That's my slogan. We can find the issue as fast as we can. We can actually cure that way easier and then increase the survival rate way, way higher. Much, much better outcome than found that diagnostics, like for example, cancer stage three is already too late. We are targeting to technology find cancers forming even before they are forming the tumors or sign of the disease.

Fritz Spencer:

Yeah, it sounds like if it's something you can't prevent, you need to be able to detect it as soon as possible. And so that's what you guys are looking at as your investments. What are some of the portfolio companies actually building? I'd love to learn more about your technology that you guys have under your portfolio.

Soyoung Park:

So continuing to the previous explanation of preventive diagnostics. So we have a company spun off Oxford Lab, and this company actually developed liquid biopsy through the proteomics approach. There was a huge movement about finding the tumor, those oncology diagnostics through cfDNA and ctDNA previously. It was literally the rock star in our diagnostic sector, but now we know more about the genetics. We found out this approach is not really effective. They show more than 90% at stage three, not stage one or two. So now our portfolio company approached this problem through the proteomics approach. Using the machine learning, they identify all the biomarkers in the protein level, not the DNA level, but in the blood you can have abundant protein information, but very rare DNA information. Our portfolio company actually identified 5,260 biomarkers from the blood and then they achieved 95% sensitivity and 99% specification for the lung cancer, which means you can find the lung cancer typically more than four years before the tumor formed. And actually in our research we can find this cancer before seven years of actual diagnosis with the current golden standard. So this is a huge improvement. There's definitely technology available. It's up to you who can literally to choose to use it. Then you can actually prevent if you actually develop it, you can find it and then get the right treatment as soon as possible.

Fritz Spencer:

Wow, that sounds like some groundbreaking discoveries that you guys have been working on over there. It's very impressive and it sounds like it's definitely one of the success stories that you currently have. Are there any other success stories around some of the technology that your portfolio companies are building?

Soyoung Park:

Absolutely. We have so many. I could stay overnight to talk about all our portfolio companies. So I'll introduce one device company. This company is more like resident device, I should call more software embedded to the hardware. So this company founded two Italian founders, one in Harvard University and they used non-invasive wand over the head. And then using the electric physio stimulation we call RTMS EEG technology, it stimulates the cognitive function on in the brain. With that, they actually brought more than 83% slowing down onset of Alzheimer. That's the best data I've ever seen. And they are just completed phase two studies. So the hope is eventually if you start this kind of cognitive function treatment when you are younger, let's say forties, then eventually you can slow down the onset of Alzheimer for good. So which means that you're not going to have Alzheimer, even if you have the gene or you have in a very difficult situation with a trauma or brain damage by increasing your cognitive function little by little on a daily life. Of course you're not going to do that every day, but you go to clinic and then you take this treatment regularly. There's a benefit for your brain function and also literally hoping you don't have any cognitive issue in the future.

Fritz Spencer:

And Alzheimer's is so prevalent and I've experienced it firsthand both aggressively and slowly over time and it's very frightening and it seems like something that always wins in the long run. So it's very good to hear that you guys are combating it ahead of time and you have data to support the success of those efforts and to see that come to fruition, it's going to be very, very exciting for myself and others to be following along in the journey of 1004 Ventures and your portfolio companies. And to leave us off, I would love if you could share one defining moment or one pivotal moment that has happened along your journey, whether investing through the Venture Partners 1004 or even in your previous experience.

Soyoung Park:

Yeah, the pivotal moment for myself is definitely when I studied about the market. So I encounter a lot of founders who wants to solve the problem. What I noticed was they are talking about the big problem, but the solution they bring to us is actually not the real solution to serve the root cause of the problem. So the impact is way, way smaller. When I advised one founder about this point, that founder literally changed, pivoted right away, they can go to the right direction. And I really felt catharsis personally and I decide to provide mentorship to the early phase founders. Before they invest too much time, energy, and money, we can help them to go to the right direction so we can actually bring the technology that people really can use it in the future, not just a scientific project or some technology came from individual or several small group of people's technology, challenging project. We want they, these founders actually develop product that majority the biggest community can be benefited by those technologies. So that's probably a pivotal moment for me personally.

Fritz Spencer:

Yeah, I know exact catharsis. I mentor startups through an incubator with my college, my alma mater, and getting a chance to advise younger either college or even professionals on their startups and lead them in the right directions. Almost nine times out of 10 there's a pivot, there's a change, there's a bigger picture. So I know exactly what you're talking about there and it resonates very well with our listeners. Soyoung, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me. It was absolutely a pleasure.

Soyoung Park:

Thank you so much having me. I appreciate that.

Fritz Spencer:

And a special thanks to our listeners for tuning into Tech Talk, the entrepreneurs and innovators who turn to EisnerAmper for accounting, tax and advisory solutions to help propel their business forward. And again, please subscribe to EisnerAmper podcasts wherever you listen and check out our Tech Talk episodes or visit EisnerAmper.com for more tech news that you can use.

_{Transcribed by Rev.com}