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Med Tech Talks

The power of digital health with ANDHealth CEO and Managing Director Bronwyn Le Grice

Bronwyn Le Grice – CEO and Managing Director, ANDHealth

In the latest episode of Med Tech Talks, Robert Klupacs is joined by Bronwyn Le Grice, CEO and Managing Director of ANDHealth.

Bronwyn has over 20 years executive experience in health technology commercialisation, venture capital, capital raising and industry advocacy.  

In 2017, she founded ANDHealth – which is now one of Australia’s leading health technology commercialisation organisations.  

It’s flagship ANDHealth+ program has a successful track record in taking businesses to scale, with companies selected in the program raising over $150 million in dilutive and non-dilutive funding, creating 400+ jobs, undertaking 72 clinical studies and impacting over 700,000 patients over the past 6 years.

In this episode you will hear about:

  • How digital health technology could shape the future of health care.
  • Opportunities digital health provides to increase efficiency of care.
  • Advice for digital health companies thinking of being part of an incubator or accelerator.
  • Some of the key challenges faced by Australia in building a world class digital health industry.

    More information:

    Discover more about ANDHealth.

    Learn more about Bronwyn Le Grice.

  • Robert Klupacs [00:00:00] I’m honoured to welcome my guest, Bronwyn Le Grice today. Bronwyn has over 20 years executive experience in health technology commercialisation, venture capital, capital raising and industry advocacy. In 2017, she founded ANDHealth, an organisation that supports digital health companies in Australia, by providing education, resources, non-diluted funding and mentorship to help them navigate the complexities of the health care industry. ANDHealth is now one of Australia’s leading health technology commercialisation organisations, with companies participating in this flagship ANDHealth Plus program rising 19.7 million in new capital and generating $6.70 in new revenues for every dollar invested. It manages over $30 million in public and private commitments in support of digital health commercialisation, and provides specialist support to a further $100 million of funding managed by Brandon Capital. Bronwyn is a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council and a non-executive director of Lumos Diagnostics, alongside a number of other advisory roles. Welcome to the podcast, Bronwyn.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:01:13] Thanks for having me, Robert.

    Robert Klupacs [00:01:15] It’s a pleasure. It’s about time I got you on.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:01:19] Hard to track down. Just try and keep my mystery going.

    Robert Klupacs [00:01:24] Well, you do that very well. Let me start at the beginning, Bronwyn. I know some of this, but I know our listeners will be fascinated. You started… You studied business and commercial law, and you subsequently generated a wealth of experience in governance and leadership positions. Can you just share share with us a little bit about your journey in the health technology sector and how you finished up where you have?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:01:47] So it’s really interesting to…I love these podcasts, I get to reflect on on a journey, which has really been influenced by people, and I think people are really at the heart of everything that I’ve ever done. And so I actually moved to Melbourne from Western Australia, where I grew up on a farm, in my very early 20s. And I was actually working as a temp, and I got a role temping for the then CEO of Neurosciences Victoria, an organisation which still exists, Robert, and I think you might be on the board. And I was working as his EA, I think his EA had gone overseas on a long sabbatical. And he, you know, saw my CV and he was kind enough to let me continue to look for full time work. And he had seen my CV and offered me a role. And so, of course, I didn’t know anything about health technology or biotechnology at the time. I came from a pure business background – I’d actually worked in sporting teams primarily before that time. And so for me, it all started with William Hart, giving me, I guess, a job in an area that I knew nothing about. And then, I guess, a lifelong love of learning and being curious and always wanting to know more about what I was doing and the space I was in led to an ongoing career. But I think, after Neuroscience Victoria I spent time with great innovations in the devices space and then I moved to New Zealand in pursuit of cooler weather and, you know, rugby rather than AFL. And I was fortunate enough to be appointed the CEO of NZ Bio. So again. Very different space. So only about 20% of the sector the biotechnology sector in New Zealand at the time was health biotechnology – sort of industrial biotechnology, agricultural biotechnology.

    And that was a really. Interesting experience because I really got passionate about where different types of technology converge. Wheter it’s ag biotech and health biotech or industrial biotech and ag biotech or whether it’s biotech and ICT. And one day I was thinking. Through my archive of presentations, and I found a presentation I gave in 2011 about the convergence of the life sciences and ICT sectors.

    So that’s really interesting when you think about where I’ve ended up at ANDHealth I think. I then came back to New Zealand to work for bioscience managers, so I spent a lot of time in venture capital, under the guidance of Jeremy Ken O’Cooke and his team before I did a couple of deals with those guys, and worked inside portfolio companies as well as inside the fund. And then I started ANDHealth when I was pregnant with my first child.

    Robert Klupacs [00:04:19] Fantastic story. I mean, you’ve obviously followed your dream. Well, from Perth to Melbourne or New Zealand and back.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:04:25] Yeah. It’s interesting, I think, I would say that, you know, it’s a terribly non-political thing to say. I think luck plays a big part being in the right place at right time. And I think when you are in the right place at the right time, being prepared to back yourself, to be opportunistic and put yourself forward for things. And take opportunities or back yourself to start your own business. Or all those types of things, things that, you know, I’ve done, but also I’ve been supported some amazing people, and I couldn’t have achieved any of the things that I’ve achieved without those people giving me a shot at a different type of career at various times.

    Robert Klupacs [00:05:00] As you as you alluded to, and we said at the beginning, you’re now running ANDHealth, you mentioned before in 2011 you found that presentation about the convergence, but can you tell us what inspired you to create ANDHealth and and tell us a bit more about what it actually does? Because I’m well aware of the power of what it’s doing, but I’m not sure all our listeners do. And I know the background to the story will be just as fascinating about what you’re doing today.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:05:24] Sure. So, I think, Robert, you know, that I’m occasionally a little bit contrarian in my approach to not.

    Robert Klupacs [00:05:30] Not at all.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:05:31] Probably not necessary follow the path less travelled. When I was one of the Bioscience Managers we did due diligence on a company that became Adherium. And then I was fortunate enough to to work on their IPO and work inside the company post-IPO. And it was really interesting time. So we’re going back. 12 years. Ago when we started to look at that company and, you know, we were looking at companies with devices that had these really quite big software offerings attached to them.

    And one of the things that really resonated with me was the ability for some of these technologies to have a benefit to every player in the health care system, in, in creating business and economic models that were really quite compelling, but then also recognising that potentially the health care system wasn’t yet equipped to deal with these types of software based technologies. And so I think over the past 12 years, and at the time, it became really clear, some of the the kind of more traditional commercialisation. pathways of medical devices – when you added software as an active component of the product or ‘priceable’, which is probably not a word, but a, you know, commercialised component of the product, the business models changed quite dramatically, as did the pathways to reinvestment, as did the economics of what you were trying to build on the company side.

    So I think for me, it was understanding that the pathway for digital health companies was rapidly becoming very different than the pathway for a traditional device company. And by pathways, I mean not just the technical and clinical evidence pathway, but also the commercialisation pathway, the investment pathway in the value and where are the value inflection points. So really seeing that, you know, clinical evidence and a clinical trial may not drive a value inflection point for a digital health company the way that it might drive an inflection point and drug development or medical device company. So I got really fascinated by that and then realised that there was this whole other suite of conferences and people and networks and companies that were just doing digital health and got really interested in, again, that area of converging technology where clinical grade medical science meets tech. I guess, not coming from a medical science background myself, but coming from business and law, I was quite I’ve always been quite fascinated where you can bring different skills together and harness that collective to create something that’s quite distinctly different. So one of the reasons that ANDHealth was created was a number of things. I think at the time, Robert, you may remember it was at least it was over 140 accelerators in Australia. That we counted. And most of them were promoting themselves as the Y Combinator of Australia. I think from my perspective, coming to the accelerator landscape from a capital market standpoint, one of the things that’s really evident was really evident with the our capital market functions differently. Therefore, an accelerator that’s designed to prepare companies to engage with the capital market needs to operate slightly differently.

    But also it was an environment where the digital health companies that I was meeting after I left Adherium were either being funnelled directly to pure tech SaaS based accelerators. where they were often told to prioritise revenue over regulation and revenue over evidence, which I struggled with from an ethical standpoint. Or they were being pushed into medical device programs where if they had a hardware component that was well looked after but the complexities of commercialising a software piece were not necessarily well addressed. So there was a few things that we wanted to do with ANDHealth: one is we wanted to provide a space that was specific for digital health companies. And a lot of people said they wouldn’t be enough companies and wouldn’t be enough pipleline. But we wanted to create a space where we could be dedicated to digital health, to see if we could capture the innovation that was happening, and provide a space where companies could access advice from people with experience in digital health specifically, so not people from drug development, not people from tech necessarily, but people that actually got it in digital health. Which at the time globally was a very small group of people. And the other thing is we wanted to reframe the accelerator model. So one of the things, I was really adamant about when we set up was we wouldn’t take equity. And lots of people think that that’s, you know, that was a financially uninformed decision, but actually it was around understanding the drivers of the other people on the other side of the table. So from my perspective, if I take equity as a person that runs an accelerator, so I take equity in those companies, in order to meet my own performance here, my Board should expect that the value of that portfolio would increase. That means I’m not actually ever incentivised to sit down and have an open, honest conversation with companies if their products might not be investable or if there is probably a better pathway for them to amalgamate their company with somebody else’s. Or, you know, sometimes it does happen, it’s just it’s just not going to succeed. And what we wanted to do is have the freedom to give our companies really open, honest and objective feedback – not just our own feedback, but the feedback we gather from our industry members and our collective, multi-sector professionals, but be able to give that feedback without being at risk of being perceived to not be performing ourselves. Right. So we what we’ve done is dissociate our performances in delivering programs from equity in the company. It also means that as an accelerator, we can maintain trust in the investors and the enterprise customers that we engage with, because we don’t have any vested interest in breaking company today. We support our portfolio companies. They go through a really robust selection process, but we’re not incentivised to separate them at all costs because there’s no financial performance to gain in that.

    Robert Klupacs [00:11:27] So how do you how do you actually get a return from providing the services that you do?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:11:33] That’s a very good question. And so I am a venture capitalist that established a non-profit industry development and acceleration engine, because I thought it needed to be done and I didn’t really think about that.

    Robert Klupacs [00:11:44] Okay.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:11:45] So the return that we are trying to drive is a return for Australia, not a return for us as individuals at this point in time. And so what we wanted to be able to do was prove that we could grow the pipeline of digital health companies and we’ve done that with the over 70% year on year growth of the operating companies that we support and also grow the maturity of the companies and we’ve done that as well. But we now support over 900 operating digital health companies across Australia. For us, our return is we are funded by private industry contributions from our industry members, and we are also funded through government grants and the management fees that we we the small management fess we get to managing those grants. And the programs that we are funded to deliver. The returns for me are the fact that, you know, including the cost of managing our ANDHealth program, SMEs are raising $19.70 and they’re creating and they’re generating revenue. And they’re created something something like 56 jobs.

    Robert Klupacs [00:12:39] You know, that was one of the questions I had.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:12:41] Yeah. So so for us, it’s about a return to Australia rather than a return to us as individuals. And that’s, I guess, the non-profit ethos that we’re trying to bring.

    Robert Klupacs [00:12:51] And the question that a lot of people ask me is, well, that’s great. I think, understood that now. And you’ve articulated it very well.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:12:58] Yeah.

    Robert Klupacs [00:12:59] The question that a lot of people had was, how do you find yourself? But I think you’ve answered that yourself. But which is there’s a group of people who would like to invest in digital health, but they’re worried that unless they get mentored, accelerated, winnowed, that they’re not investible. So they’ll give you a bit of money so that they don’t have to put all their money at risk. I’ll give you some money to actually bring those people to the stage where they are investable, is what it sounds like is your model. And then governments come in support of that, and together you can create, as you said, a not for profit model. But there is an economic interest in it for venture capital because if they support you, it sounds like they’ve got a better chance of investing in a better product. Bronwyn Le Grice [00:13:39] Yeah. Well, interestingly, we don’t take funding from investors because as as I’ve been an investor, I’m really aware that many investors don’t. So not all investors work for every company. I, you know, the right company and the right investor is what you’re aiming for. So we don’t give any of our institutional investors that we work with preferential access through membership. So they’ll they’ll engage on a fee-free basis. I think where we’ve where we’ve gotten to at the moment, we’re probably we’re very good at selection and acceleration. And so often the majority of our funding does come from government on the basis that we can accelerate companies that are viable for investment. So it’s all about delivering great economic value. Certainly over time we filter our fee for service model, so we provide services to various other organisations, we provide consulting services and other things that all are very selective basis but predominantly our main business is making sure that government investment in digital health is for the greatest possible impact for the taxpayer, including in how many patients are impacted by these technologies once they’ve been accelerated.

    So, last year, across our ANDHealth+ and Masterclass programs, we skipped through 1.1 million patients impacted by the FMEs that we have supported in those programs over the past six years. So, you know, for me, it’s all about patient impact, jobs and capital flowing into the sector. Because I do fundamentally believe that with the right.. Firstly you and I were around in the, you know, early 2000s when the government invested very heavily in biotechnology and the result of that investment with the creation of a number of venture capital funds, the largest, which is Brandon Capital, I think probably has over $1 billion under management at the moment. And so it is known that sustained public investment into new technology areas will drive up private investment over time and solve an investment gap. So I think what we’re trying to do is demonstrate that Australia has a unique competitive advantage in this intersection of ICT and medical science and really try to drive the private industry and public investment to the point where an investment capability of its own dedicated to the space evolves over time.

    Robert Klupacs [00:16:00] And you’ve done a great job and continue to. Question for you is a lot of people ask me when I knew we’re going to put you on, and I’m interested in myself because digital health is a very broad term and is that is SaaS, is that wearables is it data analytics, is it algorithm development? What what are the boundaries for you in the meaning of digital health?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:16:23] Yeah, so I’ve never.. our approach since day one has been that we adopted the FDA definition of digital health because at the time, out of the forefront. They’re at the forefront of regulators taking a position in digital health. And so from that perspective, it is a relatively broad gamut and it includes the application of technology to health care, and it does involve telehealth and digitisation of services but it also includes wearables connected to sensors, software as a medical device, software in a medical device, and also other applications, I guess for technology across healthcare. So at the deepest level that can include the use of technology to drive precision and personalised medicine when it’s done through, you know, a technology basis. So it’s a relatively broad gamut, what we tend to say, right, the short version would be we look at digital or digitally enabled clinical grade medical products and services. Software based or software enabled would be another way of doing it. What we’re looking for is technologies where the software is instrumental in delivering a clinical impact.

    Robert Klupacs [00:17:32] Okay.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:17:33] And where the software itself is part of the commercialisable technology, product or service. And so therefore there’s a greater complexity to the commercialisation pathway from the inclusion of software. And we’re seeing this increasingly with, you know, we’re approaching… all medical devices will have some type of software. For me, the big interesting point is does the software do something interesting? It does. Is the software instrumental in delivering clinical benefit? If all the software does is report what the sensor says, that’s not particularly interesting. If it reads what the sensor standards and then applies the diagnostic algorithms to … capability that far exceeds the accuracy of human diagnostics – that’s really interesting. But if it’s, you know, it’s just a reporting of a number on a screen that’s not really our bag. It’s really where the software is active in delivering the clinical benefit.

    Robert Klupacs [00:18:32] Quite a few questions. But just something that’s come up. So you know you and I work very much…. Well, you know I used to both work in the same academic style of arrangement and try to commercialise that. ANDHealth is doing something different. You want to have pretty much that future focussed on software. And I’ve worked with a lot of academics have said I’ve written a software code. Fantastic, just for our listeners, and I’d love you to tell them. There’s one thing to write code in the lab. There’s another thing to write code that’s going to become a product. Can you just give us a bit of a view, in your view, about where there’s a lack of understanding with some of the people that are approaching you? Because I hear this all the time. Not sure it’s true. I suspect it is, but I’d love to get your expert opinion on that.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:19:16] I mean, code is a language, right? So we see a lot of companies talking about that they’ve developed an algorithm or a piece of machine learning, or a piece of artificial intelligence that can do certain things. I think the question to me is always about what evidence do you have? So at the end of the day, health care is an industry which we all know is incredibly slow to change and therefore evidence is really important. And it’s not just important in the case of you need regulatory approval, it’s important because your purchasers will need to see evidence. So code on it’s own is not sufficient. Similarly, we see a lot of people saying, oh, but we, we’re going to monetise our data. That’s cool too. But A: are you legally able to monetise your data and B: how are you going to monetise your data? I want to see evidence that somebody will pay you for your data. So for me, it always comes back to evidence and data or code on their own is not sufficient – it doesn’t deliver an actionable insight. So and I think the keyword there is actionable. So having information is great, but it’s whether or not it delivers an action that changes outcomes or process or health care delivery. That is that is key. If it is just data or information or code for its own sake. And there were so. When action that impacts clinical output then arguably it’s a nice piece of tech with no real purpose in life. I think where I thought you were going with that question. Now I’m going to answer my own question. Where I thought you were going with that question is talking about academic transfer. And we have a different model. And I do really love talking about that. So we have an open source or not open source in the classis sense of software – but we are completely open to where our innovators and innovation comes from.

    So I think in Australia we do talk a lot about commercialisation in the context that it is only the translation of science from a scientific research environment through into lay market environments. Whereas commercialisation for us is taking any type of any innovative technology, no matter who has created that and taking that to market.

    And so we have found a set of clinicians, we have found a set of patients, we found a set of nurses, we have found a set of tech people that have never worked in health care before. But they’ve got a bright idea. We’ve got founders who might be care workers, family members, but we and some of them are scientists and engineers. But we’re not. We don’t. Require our innovation to come through a specific channel. And I think one of the things in Australia is that so much of that commercialisation focus and funding, and even the way we define commercialisation is about what comes out of a university, research institute or applied research organisation. But innovation happens everywhere and what we should be trying to capture is the innovation. Interestingly, it doesn’t really matter where the founder comes from. If they doing a medical-grade product, they’re going to engage with medical research institutes and hospitals and researchers anyway in part of their development. But the technology doesn’t need to originate in an academic setting in order for it to be a valid medical research project.

    Robert Klupacs [00:22:34] Yeah, that’s that’s a really good point.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:22:35] And from an ANDHealth perspective.

    Robert Klupacs [00:22:37] We know a few founders that – I think we’ve sent a few to you actually. And they don’t come from that traditional background. But as you say, eventually they have to interact, but they don’t have to have come from. And that’s one of the things I really like about your model.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:22:49] Yeah. So it’s a, you know, we we don’t require our pipelines to come from any particular place. And it’s incredibly and I mean, it’s really amazing when I look at some of the technology that we have incubated and some of them, one of them is, you know, growing, you know, well in the US market, you know, they were two guys from wellness and private equity and wellness and consulting.

    Robert Klupacs [00:23:11] You sort of answered this question before, well, look, I’ve got it written down. How do you see digital health technology shaping the future of health care and in particular, what opportunities do you see for innovation? And I think you’ve sort of alluded to it before. It’s about the evidence and the impact. But perhaps more broadly, most of us just think, oh, it’s software and someone’s going to run a piece of software and make a product. But where do you see digital health leading to medicine of the future?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:23:38] So, look, I think you’d have to look at, you know, you and I remember life before the iPhone, just look at how life has changed right since the iPhone was invented. And we now basically walk around with, a device that has infinitely more power than our desktop computers have, sitting in our pocket. And that in itself changed medicine. And so but now we all wear, you know, i-watches and Oura rings and all sorts of things and we’re very into monitoring ourselves and all of these things. And so I think for me, harnessing data and knowledge and insights from people living their lives where they live and being able to support them to live best – whole human health in real time, which would guide prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of any health condition. And you’re specifically in prevention. You know, no developed nation can afford their health care budget. And prevention. We all talk about preventative health. What we haven’t done though is change the economic incentive and way care is delivered, and specifically the way health care is paid for to incentivise preventative health. And so I think whilst the potential of digital health is huge. The uptake is limited by the fact that every other industry is a business. Without significant policy disruption or disruptive policy change, entrenched business models means there is very little incentive to change. And we saw this in the US in 20 1516 when they started introducing their CPC codes for remote patient monitoring. Where clinicians were actually incentives financially to review data from remote patient monitoring devices. What that actually did was drive a massive uptake and push by clinicians to be able to monitor their patients in their own time. In Australia, if you push out those RPM devices, you either have to call your patient back in or a telehealth consult to get a bulk billing fee. But that means that you’re reviewing that data in a consult time, versus reviewing the data and being paid an amount to review the data, and then deciding on whether or not the patient needs a consult. You know, that whole idea of shifting health care out of clinics, removing bottlenecks, all of those things are, absolutely achievable: increasing efficiency of care, ensuring triaging of patients so that, you know, the high end specialist is seeing the patients that need them when they need to be facing the same people because they’re on a four month visit cycle, and all of those things achievable, but they’re only achievable if we can change the economic incentives and the payment structures to allow that to happen. And of course, changing any kind of health care payment structure is incredibly fraught with political challenges and fear on behalf of Australian consumers, which is equally understandable.

    Robert Klupacs [00:26:30] Yeah, this sort of maybe flows into my next question because you come from a venture capital background, you help, you assist a lot of the digital health companies moving into the next phase. And clearly they’ve got to make money at some point. But when someone comes to you and you’ve got them in the incubator or the accelerator that you’ve now got your mentoring them through the process, what advice do you would you give now to people who are thinking about perhaps becoming part of ANDHealth and digital health start-ups per se? How do they go about securing funding? What do they need to do? Do they need what level of understanding do they need to come to the table with? Because I think you’ve said a couple of things already about evidence, about understanding the systems they’re going into and the like. But just because we’ve got quite a few entrepreneurs who listen to this, I think they would love to get some free advice from you.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:27:19] Free advice that’s me.

    Robert Klupacs [00:27:21] You’re a not for profit after all.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:27:24] Exactly. That’s me. I think regardless of whether you’re speaking to an investor or customer, you actually need to know what the what success looks like compared to on the other side of the table. Right, so all engagements like this are human, and so how does the other person, the person you’re negotiating with or presenting to, how do they… what makes them look good, what, what gets them their performance bonus, what drives their success. And so for an investor, success is not actually driven by writing cheques. And, you know, many of the startups we meet literally think a VCs job is to write cheques. But a VCs actual job is to make money for their investors. So from an investor standpoint, their risk kicks in after they’ve written the cheque, so they’re going to do everything they can before they write the cheque to make sure that investing in you is the lowest risk pathway for them to hit their KPI, which is making more money for their investors, which is how they get paid. Right. So you just got to understand drivers and be aware that they have no risk at play until they write the cheque. So they will be doing all everything they can to make sure that the risk that they do take on is under their control or manageable post-investment. But it also means that, founders need to be really open to the fact that a lot of investors are going to be in and around their business asking difficult questions post-investment. And so they also really want to know, as a founder, you want to know that you can work with the investors; and with as an investor you want to know you can trust with your founders.

    And by the way, founders or CEOs – they don’t have to be the same people. I also think with companies, and I was having a chat with one of the expert advisors we work with yesterday about knowing the difference between what is a business, what is a product or what is a feature. So we do see a lot of people with, with technologies that are really interesting. But, you know, if you were … So for an investor to invest in that they need to be really confident that your feature is so good that a bigger company will buy it versus build it themselves. So a bigger company’s already, you know, widely spread through the healthcare system. Similarly, you know, do you have a product? Okay. One product doesn’t necessarily make a business. So how are you going to make a business out of that one product, that one product have different customers, you know, different segments, different market. Different drivers to purchase, you know. And what is your business. And business is everything, you know it’s team, it’s financial responsibility, financial management and product development and skill sets, it’s Board, it’s governance. It’s are you a safe pair of hands with someone else’s money. So I think all of those things are things that companies need to think about. And but also from my perspective, having sat on the other side of the table, knowing your investor is really key. So know if they have any dry powder or money to invest if they are currently investing. Know whether the fund mandate or guidelines that they currently work under – know whether you fit into their fund guidelines because otherwise you’re having a meeting with an investor that can’t invest. And I’m not saying don’t do the meeting, but you need to have really well-researched expectations when you go into the meetings.

    [00:30:49] And then I would also just talk about two things. One is the narrative. So you need to actually be able to communicate a compelling story. People believe in stories – like you’ve got to take them on a journey, but you can’t… the journey shouldn’t necessarily be about just you and your product. It needs to be about the journey that the investor is backing and how it’s going to lead to their success. Going back to what drives success on the other side of the table. So storytelling is something that we I think being in a science-based industry, we don’t talk about the power of communication and power of words and the power of storytelling enough. But good capital raisers, people who can raise capital well, tell a great story. And then the final thing, which I would say is not specific to investors, it’s actually a core value to ANDHealth, and my team will tell you how often I say this; remember it’s opm: it’s other people’s money. So whilst you are dependent upon us, private investment fees, public grants, whatever. To grow your technology, your company offerings, you need to be really behave in a way that is really respectful of the fact that you have your job and you are growing your company through the generosity of other people’s money. And so I find people who are dismissive or negative about their investors or the sources of their funding, I find those CEOs to be difficult to back because eventually that will get out. And. It’s kind of a self-defeating prophecy if you. If you don’t respect the fact that you actually, you know, are potentially taking home a salary and that salary is from other people’s money. So I think for me being really respectful of the fact that when you’re, you know, in that cash burn, development, early revenue stage and you’re still burning cash, that it is other people’s money, you should be really respectful of the fact of that fact, whether it’s being respectful to the people, which is being respectful in your everyday operations.

    Robert Klupacs [00:32:47] Thank you for that. I think hopefully our listeners listen very closely because everything you said just resonates with me. I have to say, having tried to do that for 30 years. I just wanted to touch on a few other things just for our listeners. We are so thrilled that you’re going to be a panellist on at the upcoming Innovation Lecture on May 29th that we’re holding, and we’re we’re exploring innovation, investment in Australia in particular. I wanted to touch on how you see public and private investing driving commercialisation of digital health in particular. And you can’t go too long because I want the audience to, to hear you say on the night. But very quickly, what do you see are the key challenges for someone looking in Australia, developing its digital health capability, its innovation capability, and then linking that to sources of capital? What’s been the challenge that you’ve seen? And I’m going to ask you to give me the solutions now, because I want you to do that at the night. But what are the key challenges you think we have to really build a world class digital health industry from Australia for the world?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:33:49] So in work in industry because we do a. Every couple of years. So from industry perspective, access to capital is the single biggest challenge. The fact that we don’t have any dedicated digital health experience methods in Australia. So that lack of the, you know, beyond the cheque capability that is specific to digital health, lack of – and this is changing rapidly and really heartened by the inclusion of digital health in the National Reconstruction Fund Co-investment Plan for medical science. Digital health was included but lack of digital health specific grant programs. I think implementation, implementation and uptake challenges, I think is a policy setting issue.

    [00:34:29] And certainly we’re seeing this government being very active in changing lots of policy settings and lots of sectors. And we’re hoping the primary health reform activity and other activities will lead to, you know, increase, I guess, changes the way we incentivise different health care. And then outcomes to help customers. Specifically, you know, really the Made in Australia campaign is fantastic. And it’s great to see Australian manufacturing being backed. I’d love to see a buy Australian innovation campaign at a similar level where we’ve – and America does this really well – we preferentially support and procure. We spend an enormous amount of money on health care. It would be amazing to see, you know, a preferential procurement process for Australian innovators.

    Robert Klupacs [00:35:16] That’s something we can really flesh out at the at the lecture and thereafter. But there’s two things I want to touch on.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:35:21]

    Robert Klupacs [00:35:22] Yeah, two things I want to touch on in the short amount of time we’ve got left. As I mentioned at the beginning, you’re your’e part on the board of the NHMRC and you come from the digital health background, really fascinated to see how you see NHMRC embracing digital health into their into their ethos, and their guidelines. How are you doing that?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:35:43] Yeah. So I’m the member with expertise in business on the National Health and Medical Research Council. So the composition of Council is actually set by the NHMRC act. And, you know, having never been an academic researcher, when I went into council, I didn’t actually really know much about the NHMRC. But it is such an outstanding institution for Australia and, you know, established almost 100 years ago in 1936. So Billy Hughes the then health minister talked about promoting the health of the people of Australia, protecting them from disease and advising, coordinating and directing research into the cause and cure for those diseases.

    [00:36:22] And that ambition to put Australia on the global health and medical research map almost 100 years ago has come to fruition, with Australia consistently now being, you know, I think we’re currently 7th on the Nature index for health medical research. There’s about $1 billion in investigator-led research funding. And it also protects Australia through consulting on an improving all our health guidelines and safeguarding our scientific integrity. The international health, medical research and digital health just really just they just released they targeted research, successful applicants for targeted research call for safety and efficacy, telehealth. So they’re definitely across emerging things that impact, Australia. And being investigor-led research, you know, is it is up to investigators to bring forward that digital and digitally enabled research to the NHMRC. I do want to say one thing on NHMRC which is a world first and one thing I’m incredibly proud of being part of, which is under, former CEO Professor Anne Kelso and current CEO Professor Steve Wesselingh, the NHMRC implemented measures to address the systemic disadvantage for women and non-binary researchers in Australia. So in 2023, our investigator grants were awarded in near equal numbers to senior levels, for women and men; and equality in the emerging leadership level. But specifically it resulted in women receivers for the first time ever receiving $8 million more in funding. And then, compared to an average deficit of $73 million in the first four years of the scheme. So, you know, the NHMRC is a very established and very old institution that is being one of the most aggressive. Addressing systemic, inequity in research. And I’m just so privileged to have been a part of Council doing that.

    Robert Klupacs [00:38:08] You have had. We’ve had Anne and Steve on the podcast, and, you know, they’re both very, very impressive people. I know you’ve listened to a couple of podcasts before, so you know what my last question is going to touch on. And, because we love talking about our guests, about the power of mentorship and the influence it’s has had on their careers. And I’d love to know about your mentors over the years and what you’ve learned from them. And I also know you do a lot of mentoring yourself. And what do you think makes a good mentor, Bronwyn?

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:38:35] I don’t want to go into a list because they’re so dangerous and you always forget someone and then spend the next five days thinking that you left someone off the list. And so many people and, you know, so fortunate just the support of some of the life sciences industry’s most successful scientists and industry professionals both here and overseas. I have a panel of people that I reach out to all the time just to seek their guidance, including my own board of directors who are absolutely, amazingly supportive. And, you know, I really do invite friends and solicit advice from them. I think for me, mentoring is a really interesting thing, and the approach people have to approaching mentors or seeking mentorship has really changed, I think, in the last couple of decades. So probably the biggest learning I ever had was from my mentor in New Zealand, who was actually a former policewoman and communications specialist. And she was always very big on: you never write anything in an email that you don’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. So, you know, be cautious of your communication and always think about what would happen if your information got into the hands that you know may mean you ill will. So that’s also I mean, I think that’s always a very, astute thing and also to always take the high road.

    [00:39:57] So if you act with integrity and you maintain your own standards of behaviour, versus meeting other people wherever they may be, you keep your head up high and, you know, deal with pretty much whatever comes your way. On mentoring and mentorship I think always try to bring something to the table. The best mentor relationships, in my experience, are reciprocal and they’re based on mutual respect and learning. So mentors who respect what you bring as well as what they can give you. So, you know, always bring something to the table. It shouldn’t be a one way exchange. Look outside your backyard. As I mentioned, some of my most amazing mentors have been nothing to do with life sciences. But they taught me a lot about business and people and stakeholder communications and government. And all sorts of those things. And I also think the biggest thing for me is always be grateful for their time, for their insights and most of all for their friendship because I think my life is all about people and no one really goes wrong if they surround themselves with good people, but also people who are prepared to tell them how it is. If you only surround yourself with people who agree with everything you say, then you basically create a self-fulfilling bubble. And that’s not the pathway to success. You need to be able to surround yourself with people who challenge your thinking and stimulate you to think better, or think differently and be better. And always be improving.

    Robert Klupacs [00:41:27] Bronwyn, I don’t think we could’ve ended this podcast on a better note. Thank you so much for that advice.

    Bronwyn Le Grice [00:41:29] Thank you, Robert for having me on the podcast. I’m really grateful.

    Robert Klupacs [00:41:32] Bronwyn, we’ve reached the end of the podcast now, and I have to thank you so much for sharing all your insights on how I can improve innovation in Australia, particularly in giving me the pitch about what digital health actually is. I’ve learnt a lot today. To our listeners, I hope you enjoyed listening and I look forward to introducing you to our guests in future podcasts. There are links to everything we’ve talked about in the show notes, and we look forward to welcoming you next time.

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