Michael Seres has not lost his accent or his dry sense of humor since moving from Britain to the United States.
Case in point: He recently proclaimed that 11 Health and Technologies Ltd., where he serves as chief executive, has not done too bad “for a company that measures sh*t for a living.”
11 Health’s business is, in fact, a little more complicated than that.
The Tustin-based device maker, founded in 2013, develops sensors used to monitor and alert patients when their ostomy pouch, or stoma bag, is ready to be emptied.
The pouches are used to collect stool and urine following bowel diversion surgery, when part of a patient’s bladder, small intestine or large intestine is damaged and needs to be removed.
Seres personally experienced the issues of having an ostomy pouch following a small bowel transplant in 2011.
The transformative journey from patient to innovator, to chief executive of a company that “gets the opportunity to change a patient’s life,” is “massive,” according to Seres.
He was one of five winners of the Business Journal’s fourth annual Innovator of the Year Awards, held Sept. 20 at Hotel Irvine (see other winner profiles, pages 1, 4, and 8).
He credits his team—11 Health employs about 34—for the award.
“I am the guy holding this, but it’s the 11 Health family that deserves this.”
Smart Bag
Seres was diagnosed with the incurable inflammatory bowel condition known as Crohn’s Disease at age 12.
He had over 20 operations that left him only about 15 inches of his small intestine; the intestine is normally about 20 feet.
That led to an intestinal failure, which resulted in him becoming the 11th person to undergo a rare small bowel transplant at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford.
He was given an ostomy pouch. He experienced problems such as leaks and spills while trying to empty the bag into a jug to provide output volume and timings to his doctors.
He said he was just trying to find some technology that would help him deal with the condition and ended up “buying some parts on eBay, some YouTube videos and hacking together a sensor.”
The device he created, ostomi-i Alert Sensor, can be attached to any stoma bag and is used to monitor output volume, as well as send an alert to a cellphone via a mobile app.
It also automatically collates the data of output and timings, allowing doctors to monitor patients remotely.
The product sells for $150 on the company’s website.
Seres said stoma patients have a high readmission rate, pointing out problems such as dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.
He said the device is designed to reduce readmission by allowing remote monitoring and patient self-management.
The product moved from dream to reality in 2014, when his company received Food and Drug Administration clearance for its sensor. It also received European CE Mark clearance.
Around that time, the company raised a Series A round of funding from two private investors, “Silicon Valley money and [an] Orange County investor,” he said, declining to disclose the names or deal size.
11 Health plans to raise an additional $20 million in a Series B round in the next year. Proceeds from the round will support commercialization and team expansion, mainly engineers.
“My job is to keep the company’s vision very clear and give them the right environment to flourish,” he said.
Seres and his team are not stopping at clip-on sensors. The next step for the company is to introduce smart bags. The next-generation device integrates the sensor into the bag so that data—including volume and content—can be measured and analyzed in real time.
The company said there’s no solution in the space—“all the bags at the moment just collect and dump,” according to Seres—despite having around 3 million people worldwide with either a temporary or permanent stoma.
The global market for all types of medical bag is about $12.6 billion, he said. The global ostomy bag market is expected to exceed $3.5 billion by 2022, according to a report from Market Research Engine.
2nd Family, Home
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Seres repeatedly told the Business Journal at the company’s Tustin headquarters.
He said he grew up in a very tight-knit family in North London and that family culture is something that was very important to him when he built the company.
“You have to want to be part of a team, want to do things together. If you are a loner, you’re not going to be a good fit,” he said.
The Seres family moved to the U.S. after getting FDA approval for their product and some sage advice from initial investors.
Seres said the Silicon Valley investor, whom he considers his mentor, told him, “Don’t run [the company] like a British company, run it like an American company.”
He took the advice and moved his entire operations. He said he chose OC from the onset, because the environment is very good for the medical device sector.
“I have no idea how to be a CEO,” said Seres. “You have to trust your instincts. You make mistakes. Surround yourself with brilliant people who are smarter than you.”
Another Life
Seres gives extra thanks to his hero, Dr. Anil Vaidya, who performed the 2011 bowel surgery.
“He saved my life,” Seres said. “He said to me, ‘You got the gift of another life, what are you going to make with it?’”
11 Health is the answer. Seres said he continues to battle with his condition, requiring injections three times a day. “But I am always that person who sees the glass [as] half-full, not half-empty.”
That optimism extends to his die-hard love for Queens Park Rangers, a professional soccer team in London that currently plays in the country’s second tier.
“I’ve never seen them lift a trophy in 40 years,” admits Seres, “but I still support them.”
The last major win for QPR was in 1967. They were relegated from the Premier League, the country’s top soccer league, at the end of the 2014-15 season.
