Laura Yecies (CEO, Bone Health Technologies)

Can you explain your job to a five-year-old? 

I lead an exciting company called Bone Health Technologies. And what we are doing is building a device and a solution to help patients improve their bone strength and prevent fractures. And by preventing fractures, we’re helping them to stay strong, active, and healthy. My job is to make sure that we have a very clear plan and strategy to do that and that I have the right people at the company to do all of the different things that have to be done for us to achieve that vision. And then also to make sure that we have the resources that those people need. That is how I view the CEO job. Now, we are a very small kind of entrepreneurial company. So I do things in addition to that. I will be very hands-on with marketing tasks and with clinical research tasks when we are going through the FDA process with our regulatory work.

What excites you most about your job?

I'm motivated because there are 64 million Americans and literally hundreds of millions of people around the world who are suffering with this condition. And now, I think a lot of CEOs of healthcare companies would say something similar, that they are motivated to help improve the health and lives of patients. And that is true for me. But what makes me especially motivated is that I am doing this in a field where there really aren't other clinically proven, safe, and effective solutions. 
There are no new drugs being researched right now for osteoporosis. People with osteoporosis are using medications, and then for osteopenia, which is where we have our Denovo indication for use, there really are no prescription treatments. So I am doing something in a field where there's just tremendous unmet need and reflecting this unmet need. If I ever falter in my motivation, I inevitably will have an email or a communication from a patient that re-energizes me. They are so excited to have this product available. And not just patients—physicians too. We're hearing from literally hundreds of physicians that they cannot wait to prescribe this.

Which trend will change the future of medicine? 

Empowering patients to improve their own health. One of the things that I think is exciting about Osteoboost is, this is something that you can do in the privacy of your home. Or even if you decide to wear it out and about, it's something that you manage. You're not reliant on going to a clinic. We're empowering patients to take responsibility and do what they can. And so they'll get information. And, our vision is that this is a comprehensive solution for low bone density. And we'll include things like diagnostics and partnering with the patient, so we're not bypassing the clinician. The clinician plays an important role. But we are empowering patients. This is a chronic condition, something that you need to do the right things for every day to have a chance of optimizing your bone health. And I'm very excited about this trend of empowering patients, giving them the tools and information that they need. And I think, especially for chronic conditions, that's what's going to work.

Looking back, which trends have you missed or underestimated? 

As a field, something we’ve overlooked is early intervention. I'll give a comparative example. Think of cholesterol. If you have high cholesterol, you build up excess plaque in your arteries, and that's dangerous. The younger you start managing your cholesterol, you will build up less plaque. And if you start later, it can still help, but it's hard to undo what's been done. Most medications that treat chronic conditions tend to not undo the damage that’s been done.

I think this kind of idea is particularly true in bone health. As you're growing up, you're building bone. How many teenagers are thinking about not wanting to end up with a head fracture when they’re 80, so they’re going to do their exercise and get their calcium when they’re 15? But their families, or we as a society, can help them optimize when they're younger. And then thinking about just bone loss, which tends to start in your 30s, there's a lot of data that shows that bones are more responsive to exercise interventions when you're younger. And we saw that actually in the pivotal trial, that the younger patients had a larger effect size. The older patients still had a very good effect size, so it's never too late, but I think it would be really exciting if at 35, everyone got a DEXA scan and we see what your peak bone mass is. If your peak bone mass is below average, and then you lose bone, you're going to get osteoporosis sooner, you're going to have more problems. And, if you knew that at 35 you were at the 20th percentile of peak bone mass, you might be even more motivated in your forties and fifties, especially before menopause, where it's easier to build bone, to do that intervention.

And we've moved that way in the cardiovascular space. So we're checking people's cholesterol younger. We check blood pressure frequently. And doing a bone density test is safe, relatively cheap and easy, but it's not right now a standard of care to do checking early. Then you can say why is that? And one of the reasons is because we haven't had an early intervention. It's not appropriate to use the osteoporosis medicines so early, typically for one of these low peak bone mass people. So a lot of doctors will say why do testing for something that's not actionable? I do think it's actionable here in terms of lifestyle, but now it will be actionable even with an intervention like Osteoboost.

Which MedTech initiative or startup deserves more attention? 

I think in general, medical devices for chronic conditions. I think our whole system is focused on and is optimized for drugs. Drugs are reimbursed more generously and more quickly than devices. And so I think medical devices and in particular those for chronic conditions. 

Where would you put a million dollars? 

One thing that's on my mind in terms of bone health conditions is what you're trying to prevent is fracture, right? Osteoporosis is otherwise typically not painful. It's silent until you have the fracture. And you can prevent fractures in two ways: by improving your bone quality and bone density, which of course we're working very hard on, and also to not fall. And there are very well understood interventions to reduce fall risk, and they're not expensive. And so a million dollars goes a long way. 

What's the best advice you've ever received? 

Test everything. Test as much as you can, as early as you can. I spent a big chunk of my career in tech before I got into health tech, and in the entrepreneurial tech world, there's this concept of the lean startup. And there’s all kinds of methodologies where you're really trying to identify the unknowns and test and gather data about them before you put a big investment in a product to make sure you're building the right thing and the way users would want. And that mindset is not as common in healthcare. And I think there are some reasons for it because there are some problems that are really well understood. If you have something that cures lung cancer. You don't have to do the research about whether people want that, right? They do. But most big chunks of healthcare don’t have as much certainty as other parts of tech, and there are things that you can do to learn more before you make some of these big investments.