Samer Abboud Podcast Transcript
Samer Abboud joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Samer Abboud. Samer Abboud is a dynamic and accomplished professional with a diverse background in biomedical engineering and business management. At 39 years old, he has successfully balanced a thriving career with family life, being happily married with two children.
Residing in Shefarim, located in the north of Israel. Samer has accumulated a wealth of experience in the medical devices industry over 15 years. His journey in the field has taken him through various roles, both hands on and in management within small firms and large international corporations. Well, good afternoon, Samer, welcome to the show!
Samer Abboud: Good morning, Brian. Happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Brian Thomas: I appreciate you making the time hailing out of the great country of Israel. Sure. Love traversing the globe. And I know that you all are doing some great work over there right now. And again, our thoughts and prayers are with everybody for everybody’s safety.
Samer Abboud: We appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Brian Thomas: You’re welcome. And Samer, we’re going to jump right into your questions here. We’d talk about your career as a software engineer, general manager. You were a senior product manager. Now you’re the CEO of SwiftDuct. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
Samer Abboud: Yeah, sure. I mean, let me start with introducing myself. I’m 39 years old. I’m married to Hazar. We have five years old daughter Nissan and 11 days old Maj was born right, 11 days in fifth of 4th of November. So, we’re exciting to have merged with us as a new member of the family.
So, I’m a biomedical engineer with background also in business. I spent 15 years probably in the medical device industry in in Israel in various positions in bigger firms smaller firms international big corporates names like Philips and Alpha Omega and Insight Tech. With as I said, various positions from hands on positions and management positions you, you asked what inspires me and I think speaking about the medical device industry, uh, it is the most exciting, at least in my perspective, most exciting industry for engineers.
Because through the medical device industry, you can, touch people’s life, people’s health, which is precious. I have a story to actually demonstrate that in, in one of my previous positions, I was supporting cases in in a surgery. It’s a neurosurgery cases. During this case, a neurosurgeon puts a.
kind of pacemaker, a brain pacemaker inside the brain of a Parkinson’s disease patient to help relieving the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. You know, those patients are usually with shaking with tremors and rigidity in the muscles, et cetera. So during the surgery, the patient is usually awake.
And the doctor, after the implantation, he asks the patient, how does he feel after activating the implant, the device? And the patient was lying there on the bed. With his head fixed and after the device was turned on, he stopped shaking and he felt so good and you could feel that through his expressions, through his face, through his smile.
and also through his tone of voice. So that’s insane. And that’s, you ask what inspires me? This inspires me. I’m treating people with tumors diagnosing people with cancer through CT technology that they worked in. And of course, now what we do in SWIFT Talk, helping people with problems in the digestive systems feel better, quicker, and, get a better.
treatment so they don’t suffer from any side effects at the end of the day. So that’s what inspires me. And also working in the medical device industry, you get a bonus. Not sure if you agree with me, but in the development of medical devices, we always think about this term that’s called risk management and risk analysis, trying basically to understand through the development of the medical device, what risks can be imposed on.
Not only on the patient, but also on, you know, the medical stuff and also on the environment sometimes. So Experiencing this and always thinking about risk management and how to, solve risks. It helps with your personal life with, you know, thinking about being a better person, a better father.
So, when you always about thinking about, you know, risks and how to Solve or prevent these risks from happening. That’s makes you a better person. So, I believe that, this inspires me and I’m very excited to work in this field.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome Samer, I appreciate you sharing that.
I’m a technologist by education and experience, but I’ve worked in healthcare for 20 years and just love the things that we can do to help people better their lives. So, I appreciate that. And Samer. Let’s jump into the next question because we’re going to talk about your SwiftDuct here and what you’re doing and SwiftDuct is currently on the forefront of developing an innovative solution to revolutionize the way ERCP, or for those in the audience, gastro Endoscopic procedure is performed, reducing complications, decreasing radiation, shortened procedure time, there’s improved therapeutic outcomes, and it’s also cost effective.
What was the genesis for this idea turned solution?
Samer Abboud: Yeah, that’s a great question. And you know, it sounds like a beginning of a joke, but it all started with a biomedical engineer, a doctor and the business manager meeting at a specific program called BioDesign in the Hebrew University. And those guys were joining this program, trying to learn how to deal with development of medical devices.
And by the end of this course, they needed to go to the field and meet doctors and understand unmet clinical needs and provide solutions for those unmet clinical needs. So, these guys took it seriously and went down to Hadassah Medical University. Interviewed several doctors and, you know, they, they ended up at one doctor pointed at a procedure called ERCP and I’ll explain about it in a minute.
ERCP and he pointed at this procedure and said, there are lots of improvements that needs to be done there. And when those guys take this project and presented it at the end of the course, one of the Boston scientific managers, Boston scientific is of course a giant medical device corporate.
Right. He liked this project and he introduced those guys into an accelerator in Israel called Med X. And since then, they enjoyed the accelerator and the real development of the solution started there. Of course, it went through several changes across the, you know, across the time until we reached The point that we have the existing solution or the existing technology that we are developing.
So, I mentioned ERCP and I really want to explain briefly what is ERCP, why this procedure is done and what problems we want to solve within this procedure. So, if we take one step back, Brian, and we start with the food that we eat. So, it goes through our mouth. Into the stomach, and then the food passes the stomach into the initial part of the intestines called the duodenum.
So in the duodenum, there’s a specific opening in the wall of the duodenum. And from this opening, there are two types of fluids that are poured into the duodenum and mixed with the food. In order to break it down, those two fluids, one is called bile composed at the liver and the second is called a pancreatic juice composed at the pancreas.
Those two fluids flow through specific channels. Separate channels at the beginning from the liver and the pancreas, they flow and then at some point unified into a single channel and then poured into the duodenum. Well, the problem with these channels that sometimes with elderly especially these channels get blocked through a stone or through a.
different kind of tumors. And this blockage caused a big suffering to the patient. And this is where we come in and develop solution, which is a navigation kit that can actually help preventing the problems within this ERCP procedures. And the problems can be from, you know, entering the channels in order to take out the stone or entering the channel in order to open the blockage.
There’s a chance that the doctor when doing this procedure, he’s doing it you know first blindly without actually seeing where he is navigating with those within those channels and he might end up in the wrong channel not in the intended channel that he wants to open. And the second thing is that this procedure has a complication.
that is driven from the complicated anatomy that exists there in the human body. So those both elements, the complicated anatomy that exists there and also the blindness where the doctor do not see where he is navigating. So this impose a big challenge that can cause lots of You know, problems among them.
The biggest problem that can be caused is called, um, pancreatitis, which is basically inflammation to the pancreas. So we at Swift up developed a navigation solution or navigation kit to help address these problems. And I believe we can dive into this in a minute.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely amazing. I appreciate you breaking that down for our audience.
Not everybody understands the human body or health care. So we appreciate that. And I love this stuff as well. So yes, I want to get into that next question here with with you, Samer. Talk to us about Swift Glide. It’s the smart sensor-based guidewire that you developed for these difficult to navigate ERCP procedures.
Samer Abboud: Yeah, sure. So, let’s start at right where we ended the previous question. We said the doctors needs to go in and open these blockages in the channels in order to allow fluids to flow from the liver pancreas into the duodenum. So today the procedure is done blindly in a way that Doctors go at least a critical stage of the procedure when they go from the mouth through a scope, which is a basically a tube with a camera at its end, they go from the mouth with this tube passing the the stomach into the duodenum and they are looking at this point where the fluids are poured into the duodenum and from there they’re trying to enter and reach the desired channel.
And in more than 90 percent of the cases, it’s the bile channel that is blocked. And we spoke about two problems, two main problems that there are the complicated anatomy and the blindness of the navigation. So, we took these two problems and we want to address them both by Developing a navigating navigation kit that we call it a smart navigation kit that has two features.
So, the first feature it’s a very special catheter that has a superior advanced. Let’s call it a movement or bending capabilities that allows a doctor to bend it and take sharp corners within the anatomy, so it will be easier to, uh, to enter the complicated channels. You know, if we imagine channels, we might imagine like a, you know, a straight tube or a channel, but this is not the case in the human body.
So, the first feature is a catheter and the second feature that we call a swift glide. Is very exciting and very innovative feature that is actually a guide wire that is not passive guide wire that like the existing products in the market today that basically the doctor is pushing and hoping to end up in the right channel, but many cases ending up in the wrong channel hours.
Our guide wire has sensors. on its edge. And when the doctor is inserting it, introducing it into the channels, we can feel the fluids. This guide wire is swimming with them, and we can do a analysis to these fluids. We can measure specific properties of the fluids. And based on those properties, Provide a navigating tool to the doctors in a way that we tell him if he is going directly towards the not right channel, let’s call it and give him alert.
So, he will stop and pull the wire back. And we give him also indications about the right way he needs to push or to go through. So we don’t only prevent him from making mistakes, but also we guide the doctor to the right channel. Through these specific sensors that basically, you know, measure the fluids and in real time, based on the analysis of the fluids, we indicate back to the doctor regarding the specific location of the wire.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I love again. We’re tech platform. We talk about tech all the time, but this is amazing that we are assisting during a surgery with real time based on that analysis from that smart sensor, which is awesome. Love that. And I can’t tell you how excited I am about. Learning the new technologies that we’re introducing to the world to help save lives.
So, thank you again, Samer. Samer, as I mentioned, we are a technology podcast and platform. You’re obviously leveraging some of those new and emerging technologies within your business or your tech stack. Is there anything else you might be able to share with us today?
Samer Abboud: Yes so, you know, in the medical device industry, we always You know, develop specific kind of technologies, and we want to see how these technologies fit.
Maybe other applications in the, you know, in the health care system. So we also in swift duck. We’re trying to do that and think together with our doctors and advisors. How can we leverage or utilize the technology that we are developing to help in other applications. Sometimes also in your CP.
So, we ended up guess what? Brian knowing that using this technology can be sometimes useful. potentially for a specific case where the blockage to those channels is because of a tumor and in the existing situation there is a challenge to know if this tumor is benign or malignant tumor and, in this way, basically delaying potentially the treatment or the starting of the treatment that the patient can take.
So with our devices there is a potential way to analyze that. And based on the indications from the sensors, the doctors might know if the blockage or the root cause of the blockage, if it’s a benign or a malignant tumor. And in this situation, there’s a great chance that doctors can start treatment immediately without the need of extra, you know, accessories products or extra imaging or wasting any time until They get results from a biopsies or labs.
So we are exciting. We’re excited about this. We are now checking this thoroughly. And we have a good reason to believe that this can be done. And this is really exciting us that this will, you know, let us help more patients and even in a more critical way.
Brian Thomas: Thank you, Samer, for sharing again, thanks for giving just a little bit of tease on what you’re developing there within your company.
But again, at the end of the day, yeah, you talked about at the beginning of your podcast, the inspiration how you can help people and ease their suffering or save their lives. It’s just certain. Certainly, most impactful and of course inspires me as well. So thank you and Samer. It was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Samer Abboud: Thank you so much, Brian. I mean, if I may add something to close with you know, as a company in the as a startup company, actually in the medical device word, we’re always looking for, partnerships and ways to collaborate with. other industry players and this can be, you know, other companies that are acting in this domain and looking for collaborations or, doctors that are keen to to use or try new technologies or even investors that they want to, invest in the medical devices and they have this you know, also desire to help pushing forward.
New technologies. So, I want to use this opportunity to, you know, to say that we are also a startup company looking for those collaborations. We are keen and excited to form those partnerships with other industry partners, and, we’re looking forward to work with potential partners. So if someone wants to reach me, they can look for Swift up or my name in LinkedIn, and we can start the communication from there.
I want to thank you so much, Brian, for having me today. It was really real pleasure.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Samer Abboud Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
