CEO of Quin: Cyndi Williams

If we touch a bit on nutrition and maybe training as well, when it comes to nutrition, what's something that works in this context? I hear a lot about ketogenic diets, for example, where basically you reduce the carbohydrates level to zero and technically the glucose levels. Does something like this work or not?

It works for some people. I mean, that's the thing, we have to remember it's an incredibly complex condition. Everyone's biochemistry is unique to them. Whatever is broken in your endocrine system could be different than what's broken in mine, broken in someone else's. So it could work. And also some people could just be not in cultures where carbs get eaten that much. It's not hard for me to cut carbs and I have the kind of diabetes that this thing actually works for.

I think Virta is probably the best example. They've had recent studies released that show a lot of success really on their platform. A lot of it is about a keto diet basically. Keto can work for a lot of people. I think there's not enough research into the long-term effects and complications related to keto. So that needs to be looked into. But yeah, it can work. But I think that's the problem in diabetes.

There's no one size fits all. There's no one solution that says, if we all do this, then we're gonna get this result. We've got to remember, people are people. They're not just diabetes patients. That's not feasible, viable, or desirable to do keto for a lot of people.

We just have to look at solutions that work and try to be as personalized as we can in the approaches. You still need to stratify at some level just to get started with technology and solutions. So you've got to find ways to say, okay, these kinds of people could respond well to this kind of a solution. Let's put that together. There's a ton of research around that, basically stratifying and saying, what's gonna work with whom?

That needs to continue. But I think the more and more personalized that we can get with the therapies, and that's something that digital and data and algorithms allow us to do really.

If you think about what we've done in gaming and social media to really get to know a person and place an ad in front of them, that's exactly what, I mean, those companies know a lot about us. Those technologies have been, whether we like it or not, very smart in personalizing things for us. I think we've not even begun to do that really in the health space, certainly not in diabetes and chronic conditions more generally, but in health across the board.

There's so much more we can do with technology to really understand who is this person, not patient, but person. What do they need? How can we support them where they are in their life, in the life that the condition that they're living in and put the right kinds of solutions in front of them. It's gonna be different for everybody. And that's so hard.

I guess it's an engineering question as well. The more data you have and the more hardware devices you get, the more understanding you're going to have of the problem. Then you would need to create many feedback loops in order to test, iterate, and learn how each individual's body reacts, which is different in each person, and then give them a very personalized recommendation, which is so much different from what we've used for the last 20 years, isn't it?

Yeah, totally. I mean, that is what you're seeing, like all these different metabolic companies and platforms, like understanding for you personally, how does this food affect you? How does that affect you? How does this exercise affect you? That kind of thing. We can definitely go a lot further in that, but I think we can also do it at the psychological level. What is this person's personality? Are they somebody who's super achievement-oriented or someone who's a bit more relaxed?

One of the big things we look at, particularly in diabetes, is how can we personalize and do patient-led engagement with your healthcare team, basically. So helping the individual understand who are all these people in my healthcare team? What could I use them for? What do I want out of them? What are my goals in working with this team of people? How do I want to be approached and handled and treated in a conversation?

Am I somebody who needs much more emotional support versus like, let's sit down and look at numbers for eight minutes and pick on specific things and really personalizing it to that level, kind of help, like so dealing more with the kind of emotional, mental side of things, in addition to, okay, how does your body react to this particular food?

Fantastic. And then, just last question from me. Where is Quin in five years?

We are definitely, as I mentioned already, we're expanding now beyond type one into type two. Our approach is all about self-management of a condition as a lifelong learning journey. It requires skills and education and knowledge and personal understanding and motivation and support through that journey. How can we use data and algorithms and really good user experience, like really thoughtful user research and understanding and experience to provide solutions for people who are self-managing chronic conditions, basically, so to help them through that lifelong learning journey?

We see doing that type one, more segments of type one. We've not even begun to cover all the people there. Type two and several segments of type two. I don't know if we'll be able to do everything well. Then moving into other chronic conditions down the line. I think in five years, we will certainly have done a very good pass at type one and type two, and we'll be in a few others as well. Again, all about really self-management.

We're not talking, I mean, I think what we see in the industry right now is taking the existing care models around diabetes, around MSK, around, I mean, name your chronic condition. People are looking to digitize that. We've basically taken the care models, which may or may not be working for individuals, and put digital stuff around that. We've not acknowledged the self-management load here. So much of chronic condition management is self-management.

Really just going deep into that and empowering people to better manage on their own when they're away from their doctors, living their day-to-day life, which is where most of the care happens, and really going after that. So not virtual care solutions backed by doctors looking to digitize the healthcare system, but rather deep in the weeds, in the wild with that individual 24 by seven as they're going through life. And actual life, not just patient life, but their life.

Fantastic. Cyndi, thank you so much for this podcast. And we will speak soon.

Yeah, thanks for having me.