The Road To Knowwhere
Two weeks ago in San Francisco, our old friend the venerable tech investment banker Pete Conley of Boustead Securities invited us to a luncheon to present a new medical device and an investing opportunity. I’ll be candid: it was some moments before I realized my jaw really HAD hit the floor, and I found myself mousing around on the tile to find it. My jaw snaplocked back into position, however, KSS found himself bereft of words….neither a typical nor comfortable state for KSS. But we get ahead of ourselves. As I contemplated the potential of the technology, I realized my head was growing hot, and that had I wrapped my head in cool damp towels steam clouds would momentarily have filled the lunch cabana.
You probably recognize Dr.Leonard “Bones” McCoy above, played by DeForest Kelley, flanked by George Takei as Mr. Sulu. In a Jawja drawl he’s about to mutter that he’s baffled by where the patient’s “red corpuscles” have gone. You know how Bones was….dour, Spock-loathing and ever mindful of where his next mint julep was coming from. Mind you, at BioPub we take no one to task for being from Georgia: Associate Editor Jonathan Coulborn, MBA, is from there, and is widely known as a smart mofo. I disclose it not to boast but to have a point of reference: I have an IQ of 180 and in a wits smackdown versus Coulborn am quite concerned I’d blink and find myself disemboweled whilst Coulborn walks offstage muttering like Bruce Lee (“Be like water, my friend”). Georgians are not to be trifled with, and Bones was true to form, his judgement unerring. (I’ve always thought “He’s dead, Jim” would make a great moniker for a garage band.) Or was it merely that trusty thingie in his hands? The sees-all-knows-all tricorder.
Now, what if I told you that technology has encroached on a point where it can make devices that unmistakably summon the tricorder to mind, and is about to market them, and at truly affordable prices? And that a little known company with a market cap of about $20M that we have in our crosshairs owns the IP and is hustling finished product to market? And that as a subscriber to BioPub, you’re about to have the opportunity to participate directly in pre-IPO financing, getting in completely on the ground floor, of the company? Still with me?
The device in question, worn about one’s wrist comfortably like a piece of bangly hipster jewelry, allows non-invasive quantification of levels of blood constituents to a level of accuracy indistinguishable from determining the blood level by venipuncture and a multi-channel desktop analyzer. I jest not…and wipe your face, there’s egg on your chin.
Suppose you’re a beautiful young woman in her early 30’s, happily married to a wonderful man, but despite your best efforts to snuggle with him on a regular and frequent basis, you’ve still not procured for yourself that bouncing baby you so badly want. Your doctor assures that both your nursery and your playroom are copacetic, up to the task, and his doctor has given him hard copy of his results: he’s not shooting blanks. Your doctor assures you it’s just that your timing is off and suggests you begin practicing intimacy according to the rhythm method. So……you don the device in question, replete with software that empowers it to monitor your luteinizing hormone level, and via Bluetooth connection to your computer or smartphone, ping you when there’s action on the LH front (meaning you will ovulate within four hours). “Honey I need you to come on home, right now!”
I see a hand in back. Yes? “KSS, did you say this is, like, needle-less? No, I don’t believe you. Have you taken leave of your faculties?” Well, possibly I have but you’d better anyway believe it’s without violation of your flesh. It’s completely non-invasive.
How can that be? The simplest explanation goes something like this: molecules have quantum mechanical properties, indeed signatures. And those signatures interact with, slightly distort, electromagnetic waves in the radiofrequency spectrum as those waves waft by the molecules in question (which are in your blood vessels coursing by the device’s sensor). It’s possible thus to craft a radiofrequency ID handprint of each blood molecule and to tweak the device to enable quantification of the substance you desire to monitor.
The company is OTC-traded Know Labs ($KNWN) and it has outrigged two prototype devices: one that performs random-access or continuous non-invasive glucometry for diabetics (the first such device technology has succeeded with), and another that performs passive 24-hour carbohydrate calorie counts. Since insulin elaboration is mostly driven by carbohydrate, and since insulin level is such a subject of attention these days, nutritionist are beginning to think less in terms of total daily calories ingested and more about carb calories. Though with finetuning the device can in future monitor and quantify protein and fat calories.
Suppose you’re a 69-year-old guy with an array of cardiac risk factors, and in fact three years ago you had an MI. You were stented. Now, watching the game on a Saturday night, you feel something again. Mid-chest, substernal, no radiation. You’re not sweating or panting. But gosh it reminds you of what you went through before. Even though you had a meatball sub with jalapenos for dinner and ran out of your maintenance Prilosec 3 days ago. If you do what your wife is nagging you to do, you’ll surely be admitted to rule out MI. Ah, but you’ve a better idea. Last week you downloaded a troponin-I software package online for your device. Talking to the device via Bluetooth, you ask it to begin performing continuous determination of your blood troponin-I level. 30 minutes later, nada has happened, and you call the MD on call for your internist and run it by him…and you agree this is acid-peptic symptomatology and not a reason to crash the ER.
Again, in all this, no needle pricks and no drops of blood spilled. And no doctor bills, exams or lab fees. You’ve paid $99 for your device plus some fees for software and subscriptions possibly to software packages.
$KNWN needs a bridge loan to continue operations through 2019, and then plans NASDAQ uplisting with IPO in early 2020. The terms are being finalized but will likely entail 10-11 percent interest on invested capital, warrant coverage (terms TBA), with your capital converting to preferred shares in $KNWN according to a formula. Again, this is a work in progress. Please do not contact us asking about minimums to participate as we don’t know. But do revel in this exceptional opportunity coming your way as a BioPub reader. The financing will be managed exclusively by Boustead Securities and interactions regarding it will be strictly between individual readers and Boustead.
In coming days, we will follow on with more information about Know Labs and about terms of the financing investment. We just wanted to whet your appetite and get you thinking and planning. We think that few devices will utterly and irrevocably alter the landscape of clinical practice and democratize patient care the way Know Labs is about to…and we say bring it on! (In fact, we say, “About damn time.”) We hate speaking in the cant of delirious grandiosity, but surely you see how this could be that one investment of a lifetime.
Oh, and Apple is rumored to be interested.
Scotty, can you beam me to Ft. Lauderdale today? I don’t feel like flying.