Launching a pioneering AI product from 0-to-1.

Overview

In early 2023, Noze, backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), took a bold step into healthcare with an audacious mission: diagnosing diseases through smell. Following this pivot, my role shifted from developing new vertical applications on top of Noze’s digital olfaction platform to spearheading the creation of a novel device: a wearable e-nose for non-invasive health monitoring. Our objective was clear yet challenging – deploy the device in clinical studies before year-end, a major milestone for our next funding round.

My Role

As the program manager, my role required me to wear many hats at the intersection of leadership, strategy, product management, and partnerships. I was responsible for defining the product strategy, guiding a cross-functional team through the development process, and ensuring we met our ambitious one-year goal. Acting as the nexus of information for the project, I represented the user in technical discussions, formed a bridge between cross-functional  teams to ensure critical knowledge was transferred effectively, and steered the overall direction towards a feasible and attractive commercial opportunity.

The Problem

To meet our objective, we faced three significant challenges. Firstly, we had to identify a commercially viable use case, despite the limited scientific knowledge available to inform our feasibility assessment. Secondly, we would need to engineer the world's smallest electronic nose (e-nose), ensuring it was both safe and comfortable for prolonged use. Lastly, as Noze was new to the healthcare sector, we needed to position the company as a leader in health monitoring. This was crucial for securing the necessary partnerships and funding to support our study.

The Process

Opportunity Selection

— Snippets from our market research and use case selection process —

At the project’s outset, the vision for using our technology to monitor health conditions by analyzing skin-emitted volatiles was more of a general direction than a detailed plan. The field of disease volatilomics, a promising but embryonic science exploring how diseases could be detected through volatile organic compounds emitted by individuals, offered little consensus, especially regarding skin emissions. This ambiguity presented our first significant hurdle.

To navigate this uncertainty, I embarked on an exhaustive review, analyzing over 100 scientific papers covering everything from volatilomics to animal olfaction and medical wearables, aiming to connect the dots between theoretical potential and real-world utility. Collaborating with our chemists and material scientists, we narrowed down potential conditions that were not just scientifically plausible for olfaction detection but also matched well with our sensor’s strengths.

In parallel, early conversations with the leadership team concerning the product vision revealed a misalignment of perspective. We occasionally found ourselves drawing parallels to fundamentally different companies, inadvertently steering towards strategies misaligned with our core strengths. To realign, I conducted comprehensive market research on the wearable and remote monitoring landscape. This investigation was instrumental in better understanding the competitive environment while highlighting the core differences between device archetypes. Until then, we often compared to "generic platforms", which leverage AI innovation, large datasets and off-the-shelf sensors to create defensibility. However, the sensor innovation underpinning our device created a set of tradeoffs that better positioned us to compete along a different axis, doubling down on our ability to unlock latent volatile biomarkers.

Armed with insights from our scientific exploration, hands-on lab experimentation, and strategic market analysis, we embarked on a rigorous process to evaluate potential use cases. Each condition was assessed through the lenses of feasibility, desirability, and viability. This comprehensive evaluation culminated in the selection of a use case that stood out for its strong scientific feasibility, significant market potential, and the glaring absence of existing solutions.

Breaking New Grounds: The World’s Smallest E-nose

— Preparing for an experiment using one of the first wearable prototypes —

When we embarked on the journey to create the world's smallest electronic nose, our challenge was monumental. Our latest e-nose product, already among the most compact on the market and roughly the size of a home speaker, needed to be re-engineered into a wearable form factor. This transformation required not just a reduction in size but ensuring the device remained comfortable and safe for continuous wear.

Some decisions in this process were straightforward, such as the inclusion of local storage through a micro-SD card. This choice addressed our need for simplicity and speed, circumventing the impracticalities of designing a custom PCB within our project's tight timelines. However, the pioneering nature of our project meant that we faced a vast sea of uncertainties. Every aspect, from the method of odor capture to the management of humidity and airflow, required careful consideration and innovative problem-solving.

To navigate these challenges, we adopted an iterative approach characterized by two-week rapid prototyping sprints. Each cycle aimed to produce and test several device variants, focusing on specific research questions that would allow us to validate our most critical assumptions. This method proved invaluable, enabling us to make swift progress by learning from each prototype's performance in the lab as well as from feedback from internal volunteers.

The culmination of our efforts was a wearable e-nose that set new standards for portability and user-friendliness in health monitoring technology. By continuously refining the device’s design and functionality, we achieved a milestone not only for Noze but for the future of digital health diagnostics.

Securing Partnerships for Clinical Study and Funding

— Snippets from the pitch deck that opened the doors to several partnerships —

While our internal experimentation showcased the e-nose’s potential to distinguish between physiological states, the leap to condition-specific models necessitated direct data collection from patients. Given Noze’s relatively recent foray into healthcare, it was crucial for us to articulate a compelling narrative to convince research institutes to invest resources into working with us. 

To this end, I put together a presentation showcasing the potential of our technology in enabling low-cost, non-invasive health monitoring and diagnostics. Our vision to improve access to healthcare resonated with hospitals and researchers, enabling us to secure several partnerships to collect clinical data using our wearable and breathalyzer.

Early hospital visits and researcher feedback informed specific device enhancements—ensuring its maintenance was straightforward for healthcare staff and that it seamlessly fit within the hospital's tech ecosystem without disrupting other medical equipment. A particular focus was optimizing the data collection interface for ease of use by busy technicians and nurses, a critical modification that exemplified our user-centered design philosophy. These direct interactions and subsequent iterations exemplified my hands-on role in aligning our technology with real-world healthcare needs, setting a solid foundation for the e-nose’s clinical applications.

Results

Our project not only culminated in the successful deployment of the device within the planned timeline but also in securing the necessary funding for research and initiating a study with a top hospital to assess the device's effectiveness in distinguishing between health states, a critical milestone on our path to non-invasive health monitoring.