EPISODE 44: DANIEL URIBE, CO-FOUNDER & CEO AT GENOBANK.IO

Episode’s transcript

Julio Martinez: 0:00

Welcome to the Latin MedTech Leaders podcast, a conversation with MedTech leaders who have succeeded or plan to succeed in Latin America. Please subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast. Amazon Music is teacher. Tune in iHeart Radio, Pandora or Deser . Welcome back to the Latin MedTech Leaders Podcast Today, our guest is Danielle Uribe , CEO of Gino Bank . Hey Danielle , how are you doing today? Welcome to the show.

Daniel Uribe: 0:32

Thank you very much, Julio. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here with you in your show. And yeah , uh, it's , it's gonna be fun. Thank you.

Julio Martinez: 0:40

Excellent. Danielle , I'm very pleased to have you here. Um, our topic of discussion today is very relevant to the current , uh, pandemic that we're going through today in the world. So let's get started. Danielle is the co-founder and CEO of Geno Bank . He's a serial entrepreneur and angel investor in the Bay Area. Uh , he has over 15 years of experience in cybersecurity cloud computing , uh, over four years of experience in blockchain and bioinformatics. Recently , uh, he specializes in bioethics, genomic and healthcare data. He holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering and MBA from my father , business school executive programs in Stanford, GSB, singularity University Data Science at Galvanize Digital Marketing at General Assembly, and RNA sec at ecec Bioinformatics GMBH in Berlin, Germany. So, Danielle , could you please tell listeners about your experience or how you got involved with Latin America? I know you are from Mexico, but , uh, you wanna , uh, do a quick introduction of your history and, and tell listeners how you got involved with , uh, biotech and MedTech or whatever you're doing today, <laugh> in the us

Daniel Uribe: 1:59

Of course. No , thank you very much, William. Yes. Um , I believe from 2015 I've been involved , uh, here in the Silicon Valley area with the Latin entrepreneurship ecosystem, especially while I have the honor to be part of the Stanford Latin Entrepreneurship Initiative here led by Mark Madrid. And from there is, and you know, obviously the Bay Area is very well known for being a good place in order to learn and grow a startup , right? So in this case, it was personal reasons that will pushed me to involve , uh, myself into the MedTech or the biotech kind of space. Um, but it's more, let's say MedTech slash cybersecurity kind of thing, because it has to be with the data management regarding specifically to direct to consumer genetic testing or clinical genetic testing, right? Which is, and the personal reason is my son. So my son has a DNA mutation in his 17 chromosome, and the expression of that mutation is pathological, unfortunately. And although he's, he's good, he's a very healthy , uh, 99% normal boy, his platelets are affected. So we have to be very careful about the time when he gets a caught or something like that because he's , uh, the expression again of this , uh, disease is very similar to hemophilia, but it's not hemophilia. So when everything began, like , um, almost four years ago, I started questioning like, well, what is the data that is generated through these , uh, DNA tests, right? Where is it stored? Who has access to it? What laws are involved, and so on and so forth. So by then I was already involved with the blockchain, and here's where the intersection between, let's say med tech or genomics, then cybersecurity and blockchain conversed , and then everything started.

Julio Martinez: 4:06

Very good. So Danielle , you are talking about what happened to your son . You started asking all these questions about where is that information that people upload to these platforms with their genetic material and the laws and et cetera . So could you please tell us what problem you found and how you came up with a solution?

Daniel Uribe: 4:29

Yes, of course. Um, actually today as we speak, the problem is even more visible in terms that we just heard like a couple of weeks ago. How compared like 23 and me and just , uh, recently, I mean like , uh, maybe even three days ago, my Heritage, which is another company and Israeli based company also are going to be acquired or merged or going through an IPO. And the thing with, or the problem with these type of companies is that the inventory that they have is DNA data sets from their users, right? Of course, somebody can argue, hey, but that's not everything that the company has. I mean, they already have their own algorithms for new drugs, discoveries and everything, which is true. I mean , they are pioneers , uh, especially like 23. And me, I don't know even my heritage. But at the end of the day, those companies will value zero if they wouldn't have, or they wouldn't be, you know, opening or sharing or selling or whatever the appropriate word might be. All these , uh, raw data coming from the sequencers or these machines that , uh, you know, digitalize or digitize your , your DNA , right? So what I'm trying to tell you is that these companies from your saliva track , your DNA , they have a digital version of it, and that is very, very precious and very, very sensitive. And like for instance, 23 me has approximately 10 million , uh, users. And , uh, yeah, it's valued something between 3 billion and 4 billion. And that's precise the problem because people, when they hear that these companies are going to be acquired, they say, Hey, dude , there's go my data, I'm being kind of a merchandise. And , uh, I mean, again, people signed and it's legal. I mean, I'm not saying they are doing something wrong or , uh, but again, privacy is about , uh, very specifically not giving a bad surprise to your users, right? And a bad surprise is like when you get hacked or when you just say, Hey, I just sold your information for hundreds of millions or billions or whatever, and you cannot do anything, right? And let's just remember, I mean, DNA , it's , it's a family kind of file where 50% comes from your father, 50% comes from your mother, 25% come from your grandparents, and so on and so forth . So it it's a family reference actually. So the thing is how you can still contribute to research, right? How you can still navigate and learn from genomics. I mean, genomics is super useful science, right? It comes from biology, from computational biology, and , um, is obviously the foundations for precision medicine. And precision medicine is a genome guided medicine, right? It's personal . This information is obviously the seed, right? Is the genesis . So what I'm trying to tell you is , uh, the problem is that there's a lot of companies that just aggregated this information for years, and now they , it is very valuable. And then obviously there are many bids , right? For these kind of databases, but the users are not in control. And one of the main premises of blockchain is obviously to allow people control and own their digital assets, right? Uh , blockchain among all other things created digital scarcity because it prevents the double spend phenomena, right? But yeah, that is how I started to see the problem. I believe the problem is still there. This is a consequence of the centralization of this data. And obviously the blockchain is famous for the opposite, right? Is that decentralization of, in this case, like for instance, Bitcoin is a decentralization of money. Our company Geno Bank is about, or this movement is about the decentralization of the governance of D-N-A-D-N-A data.

Julio Martinez: 8:56

Excellent. All right . So you started this work in the US or in Mexico?

Daniel Uribe: 9:01

Everything started here in , in the us And to be honest, I believe it wouldn't be able to do it in Mexico. There is a genomics space in Mexico and in Latin America's super interesting, obviously the market for genetic testing in our countries, or at least in my country of origin , Mexico is very small, so it's expensive, right? For most of the people, even if it's a hundred dollars, well, people has other priorities for those a hundred dollars. But things are changing rapidly. And now there's a lot much interest , uh, especially we are partnered with a company called ria.com . It's super exciting. 'cause Federico , the CEO is creating the largest biobank for Latino pacifically Mexican DNA information. But the main difference is that he's already using our wallets, right? So he's putting the client in control first, right? So they still can access information, but the access button is in the phone or in the dashboard of the customer. So they can opt out anytime . But this is digitally enforced, right? This is very, very important because even without the cooperation of the company, people will be able to opt out .

Julio Martinez: 10:25

Okay. So let's go back a little bit on your history, Daniel . So you settled in the San Francisco Bay area, you started Geno Bank . And how's been your experience building a, I guess a med tech and biotech company , uh, genomics company, all combined ? What's been your experience finding funding talent? Please tell us a little bit about that.

Daniel Uribe: 10:54

Thank you very much. So even any startup , right? Is challenging, but it's true that the Latino and Latina entrepreneur has to, to struggle. I mean, they say you have to be two times, three times better than anybody else in the same space, because it's exactly the problem is finding funds, right? It's more, let's say biased, right? There's a , everybody knows that it's a phenomena and well, it's part of the deal. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying, hey, it is true. I mean, that specific thing in terms of the access to capital is true. To be honest, this , the rest is up to you. I mean, you , you have to, to be very focused, you have to be very passionate about it and still pursue the objective regardless. But also we have to say that if the product is well described , if you have a good team, people stop asking about like your origin or whatever. I mean, it matters if the , there's a real need, if it's a scalable, if it's , uh, the appropriate team. And those things matters a lot, much more. But it is true that also our culture is less inclined to take risk . We are less like risk takers as Latinos and Latinas in terms of frontier kind of technology. I mean, we , Latinos are really, really into real estate , for instance. So everybody wants to invest in real estate, you know, or in a famous restaurant or, you know, I mean those , uh, more like kind of typical businesses. But when you say, Hey, invest here in this company that could have a 400 x exit , potentially, right? They say , uh, I don't know. Let me just think about it. So

Julio Martinez: 12:59

Because they don't understand, I mean, most people don't even regular , uh, white Anglo Saxons understand this concept. I mean, it's a difficult concept to grasp. It's also a change of paradigm what you guys are doing. So

Daniel Uribe: 13:12

Hopefully, I mean, we are still every day , you know, it is a struggle for this, but we're doing fine. Thank God the people is responding and they are looking for us. They wanna learn. You said a lot of investors contact us and , uh, we're getting traction and , and attention. Yeah,

Julio Martinez: 13:29

Very good. I'm really happy to hear that.

Daniel Uribe: 13:32

Thank you. Sorry. I mean, as you were saying, one of the collateral beauties, I mean, this being said, with all the respect of the people suffering from losses in DYS emia, or, you know , it's been horrible, but I believe one of the collateral beauties, if I may use the term, is that biology became mainstream, right? Specifically is how we can exchange data. How can we respect people's privacy while exchanging data for science? And yeah, the thing is that we realized , uh, globally that we are not close to something as an interconnected scientific network for exchanging information, even for COVID-19 , which is a less, let's say, privacy sensitive information. Because in this area, you exchange the virus . I mean, it is the genetic map of the virus and its mutations, right? So it's not people's DNA , uh, specifically is the virus DNA information, well , in this case, RNA, because , uh, the coronavirus is an RNA virus. But what I'm trying to tell you is that there's no interconnection. I mean, not , not even here in the United States, it's the 50 states are really, really disconnected. And that hurts science. Everybody's like saying, Hey, let's open the data. Data is siloed. It's very difficult to access it. You have to go through boards, you have to go to, you know, so a regular student right now is saying, Hey, where are the data sets ? I wanna do data science. I want to cluster it. I wanna do machine learning. And data is, is not there. So again, that's one of the other problems, which is part of the centralization of the first one that I described. But we, here , you can say, Hey, my data is available and I can decide who to share it in a peer to peer transaction mode, right? So it is like , uh, you might receive a broadcast invitation to participate in a study, like for instance, like Latino latina study for COVID-19 survivors, right? So you , if you already have or had the virus and you thank God survived your information is really valuable. And then if you receive now any of the vaccines and you suffered any kind of reaction, that information is also super valuable. And everybody's looking for it . Specifically big pharma, because there's no information regarding vaccines reactions and Latinos and African Americans and islanders, I mean the , the minorities, right? The only information is about other ethnicities, but it's always the case. I mean, you can close your eyes without looking at the peer reviewed papers of phase three , and you could say, Hey, I'm sure that the paper does not have enough people from the Latin American , uh, population, and you'll be right. Uh , because that is what happened . So the other problem is diversity, right? Diversity in genomics, and obviously that is also related to trust. So that's again, like related to what we were thinking about. Capital Latinos are less from to , you know, to trust platforms. I mean , and , um, that is because we are not in control. So this applies for everyone, right? For Latinos, African Islander , uh, Asians, Caucasians, whatever. But at the end of the day, if you solve this for the most picky kind of persons or cohorts, right? Or members of the community, well , you're solving it for everyone, right? And this include even the Native American communities, which are, I believe the most jealous custodians of their data because it's a community. They consider it a community data set , right? Sorry, I just , uh, went on <laugh>.

Julio Martinez: 17:42

No, that's, that's fine. It's very interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's speak about Latin America. Danielle , where are you guys exactly doing in Latin America? What problem you guys are solving in the region?

Daniel Uribe: 17:54

Thank you. So currently we have good connections with Chile, with Colombia , Mexico, and the United States. So that's , uh, Brazil as well. So what we are doing, so it's, everything is related to genomics, but then the necessities are like kind of, well, a little bit different. Like for instance, in Brazil, we partner with a company called Portos . And Portos is similar to some ancestry in Mexico, which is like a , an ancestry based kind of offering to the market. So they have a company or a kid called CO Brazil or colors of Brazil and referring to the diversity, right? So there's, it's a super diverse and colorful country in terms of genomics as well, population genomes, i , I would say, but obviously everybody is just like different doors to precision medicine. So everybody, we need to get to precision medicine, which would be a precision or a Latin American focused precision medicine effort. So we have a lot to do with European ancestry, right? Our , our heritage mostly come from Europe. So you need to have like a international or cross border kind of technology to help you. Everybody's data is important. I mean , meaning Mexicans, Colombians, it's a reference, it's part of the puzzle, right? The puzzle obviously is human genomics in general, right? Then the pandemic brought a new one, which is again, a epi in terms of the epidemiology, kind of surveillance. These mutations that we hear over and over in the news that say, Hey, there's now a new strain, the UK , B 1 1 1 7 , um, or there's now an African one. And we will hear for sure one coming from Mexico and so on. And so, because obviously the biology is smart, right? It's adapting to the changes and it's evolving like everything, right? So this information is very, very important, right? To be sharing the genetic map of the virus coming from Latin American citizens. Because then we as humans can literally monitor how this is going, right? And if the vaccines are really also helping with the new strains, I mean, this is the , the very, you know, ultimate question right now, are the vaccines going to help us with the new mutations, right? We don't know because we already had the question, are the vaccines are going to help us with the , let's say, genesis kind of virus? So the answer is yes, in between parents is for mostly Caucasians. I mean the data again, is for European people. There are few cases where there's uh , data coming from Latinos and let's say the cohort was 50,000 people, Latinos are like 450, right? So it's very scarce and we want to promote that. We want to increase the liquidity of information. And I believe one of the main aspects to do it is to put people in control. I mean, to literally say, Hey, here's the switch, here's the wheel. Right now you're driving and please help us to increase the liquidity of the data for research, because it's always been my case. It say , Hey, do you want to sell the information? Believe that's not the question. People might want to sell it, and I don't blame them, right? Personally I don't. But it's about control. It's about knowing who has my information for how much time, what is the purpose. And the only thing is that yes, if you are planning to get acquired , are you planning to merge, et cetera, you need to ask for my permission if my information could be involved in that operation or not. Right? And that's obviously, again, the same problem coming from the start of your show that people is just figuring it out in the news and say , oh, now my information is being , you know, exchanged from hand to hand . Nobody told me. So what I'm trying is to tell you is people wants to share the data. If you say you want to help research, obviously people will say yes, right? The problem is it comes with a trade off today. Say , okay, but I will be in control. I want you to forfeit ownership because I want you to sign terms and conditions that are predatory sometimes and that they just give, well, we are doing science. Yeah , but you're making money in , in the , in the meantime, which is fine again, but I would love companies to make money out of, you know, algorithms from artificial intelligence that are really, really valuable. The , these interpretational algorithms or imputation algorithms, I believe those are really valuable. And those would be super fine to sell them, right? There's going to be a Watson of genomics. I don't know if it's going to be Watson, maybe. Yes. But what I'm trying to do is, is it going to be this artificial intelligence and it's, let's say 10% of the merit is there, but 90% of the merit is all the information coming from people that will make this possible. 'cause it's, you're as accurate as the number of data sets you have in order to make these invitation algorithms. Well, sorry again, just uh , trying to make a point here that we are out of artificial intelligence algorithms strictly talking. I mean, we just don't have enough information there. So,

Julio Martinez: 24:06

Okay, so let's go back to Latin America. So you have Brazil , uh, one company, right? Um , Chile you said , um, Mexico, so almost in Colombia , four countries so far. And how many partners you have in each country

Daniel Uribe: 24:25

For the moment? Just one,

Julio Martinez: 24:27

One in each. Okay. So a regular person in Columbia , in Brazil can just go to your partner and request or buy the service of uh , having their genomic information analyzed. So you guys have a kit that is given to the patient or to the person, right? And then it's a saliva kit. Uh , you guys provide the full kit, you have the full service , uh, in partnership with the local company. And uh, that information or that kit is sent to the United States or how does that work in, in Latin America?

Daniel Uribe: 25:06

Thank you. Very important questions. So as today, we have not launched on those countries. We're still working with our partners because as you were saying, it's also a logistical problem. We want to work with , uh, local laboratories. So that's a challenge today because reagents, I mean to import the reagents for the laboratories is very expensive in terms of taxes. And again, the pandemic has also, it's making more difficult. I mean, somebody could say, hey, it has to be the opposite, right? The governments have to react and say, Hey, let's just ease the regulations in order to make it easier for the laboratories to acquire technology. But it mean the opposite, right? Because if it's everything related to labs, then, like for instance in Mexico now , now they have to even go to a military revision, right? Usually took , let's say two to three weeks. Now it's taking four to five weeks. Well, that being said, that is a logistics problems. Nevertheless, we totally support to grow locally. And it's not easy in many countries to extract DNA on any of its forms to a foreign country, right? I mean, usually it's fine because again , uh, governments recognize that also most of the , the most advanced laboratories are not in their countries usually. And the samples needs to be exported to other countries, specifically United States or and Canada, right? So in a nutshell, we are still working with our partners to make the kit available. I believe we will be able to do it may or June this year, maybe in Q2 , uh, 2021. But certainly it's going to happen whether if it's us or not. I mean it's, the need is growing. And again, specifically saliva kits for COVID-19 detection are going to become mainstream here in the United States. Just uh , an FDA was approved like couple of months ago and saliva is becoming very useful. Bios sample , it's not blood, it's not invasive. Kids can do it. And uh , obviously what we do is we secure and tokenize the saliva kit, right? And the information that is extracted. So it could be a COVID-19 , it could be an RNA test, which is for longevity or epigenetics. It could be for ancestry, for DNA extraction. It could be for microbiome. So we have a good partner that we are working with that is studying the microbiome of the buccal microbiome. So again, very interesting, but specifically in Latin America, we are just, I mean today we're just in Mexico and in the US and we are preparing the rest of the countries,

Julio Martinez: 27:59

The rest of the countries, okay, so in Mexico it's operational. Now it's available.

Daniel Uribe: 28:04

Yeah, it's for invitation on nearly right now. Because again, we have some logistics , uh, restrictions.

Julio Martinez: 28:09

Okay.

Daniel Uribe: 28:10

So that will be some senses . Three , the company, because we are a business to business, our kit is a white label . In essence, what we sell is the wallet, right? The ability to, through QR codes, generate a wallet. So user will create 12 words. We call that a private key or a private passphrase. And you don't need to provide your email or your name or your phone number. Everything is done with those 12 words, right? And that makes the system pseudo anonymous. I mean, because it still can be tracked, but obviously the data will be encrypted using everybody's private key . So at the end of the day, Geno Bank is a network of client side encrypted information, right? So Geno Bank is a zero copy network. We don't keep a copy of anyone's data. We do not have access, we just manage permissions basically, right? So we control and we help people to say, Hey, I want to share this data with this company or university or researcher and say, okay, just let's open the access. The permissions are public. It's a public notary for permissions to use of genomic data that has no central authority.

Julio Martinez: 29:35

Interesting. Hmm . Fascinating. So how were you able to find these partners in Latin America? Danielle ?

Daniel Uribe: 29:44

I believe it's mindset compatibility. My partners are real scientists. I'm not saying this like putting me aside. I consider myself also a scientist. I have a couple of research papers published. Uh , but to be honest, we are in the shoulders of giants here, right? And I am very honored to be working with the scientists in genomics. 'cause I'm more in the cybersecurity space. I don't consider myself obviously a genomics expert. I just handle, again, the data securely. But the scientists , um, we have like for instance in Latin two , two women scientists, very famous and two men, right? They recognize that genomics is not scaling. They recognize that these data sets are not their , that is almost like private digital property, right? But they still recognize the importance of ethical data exchange, right? Because they need in order to advance in their discoveries. So again, I believe blockchain, they know blockchain, which is the other part is usually a scientist that is in genomics but also has some experience in cryptocurrencies. They have handled a wallet and they know that this premise of I am in control of my data is true, right? You can verify, let's remember that we come from an internet that it was no trust at all. This was just the connection. The internet we had in the nineties was universities and let's, let's connect everybody, right? That was like web 1.0 . Web 0.2 0.0 was about to add some security. And now we're in Web3 0.0, which is let's separate public data from private data and let's put the private data in control of its owner or its user. And they recognize this as the essence to scale genomics to a true worldwide capabilities. We need 1 billion people to sequence 1 billion people if we are really going to get somewhere in precision medicine, right? And today's maybe 30 million people or maybe 50, right? We're 7.8 billion people. We are starting, we are in the tip of the iceberg of genomics. 'cause 99% of the data is going to be produced in the next 10 years. And again, this pandemic is accelerating this, it will be fantastic to have the genomic information from the person, the genomic information from the virus and combine it with a phenotype, right? The phenotype is again how the people is reacting to the vaccine for instance, right ? Or or the virus itself, right? So imagine having this as they call the scientists, call the digital twin, right? Of yourself where you can run models. So again, mindset connect dots. And we've been working since .

Julio Martinez: 32:59

Okay, so Danielle , we're close to the end of the show. Let's talk about your experience doing business in Latin America because you're Mexican, you did business in Mexico, you moved to the United States and uh , you started your own company. Now you have a global reach of course, but you are going back to Latin America and one way or another to find these partners and to start working locally eventually with them to make your product available and selling because you are a B2B company, you are selling to these partners in Latin America. So how's being your experience doing business in the region now that you are in a different role than you were when you were living in Mexico?

Daniel Uribe: 33:38

No , thank you. It's a very important question. So again, this is lower the process. You have to be more patient in Latin America in in just , you can exchange the NDA , you can exchange the um , memorandum of understanding of maybe a national agreement in the same session. I mean I'm talking about one hour to close a deal, right? Say, okay, here's the NDA , here's the thing, I'm sending you the contract by DocuSign or whatever. Okay, we just signed it, thank you, let's start working tomorrow. This same process can take months in Latin America and it hurts, right? Everybody. So you say , okay, let me think about it. So first of all, they think, can I develop this technology myself? So they are starting, you know ,

Julio Martinez: 34:27

Can I copy this ? Why do I have to pay this gringo <laugh> ? Correct,

Daniel Uribe: 34:30

Correct. So I say, okay, sound interesting, I recognize it, but can my developers do ? So they have to ask, right? They say , no, no, we are , we're too far, we it will take you us let's say one year, right? Okay. So they come back then the price and then so on. And so until literally something explodes, right? Like for instance, we're working with laboratories to protect the reports from COVID-19 , I mean to, to make the COVID-19 traveler passport. Apparently it's just a piece of paper. But the cool thing about it is that it has a secure code, right? That is stamped into the blockchain so nobody can modify it . And these certificates only last three days, right? And they are temper proof . I mean you cannot modify them. I mean you cannot edit them by Photoshop and put my family name or whatever, right? And start using the logo and the signature of the lab representative to just clone it and you know, start selling it because they've been sold for $40 by Uber drivers, right?

Julio Martinez: 35:32

<laugh> . Oh my god, really?

Daniel Uribe: 35:34

So that was a case of one of our customers say , Hey, I originally need your technology. Yeah, but we've been talking about like for months, right? And now suddenly somebody just showed the clone and say, hey, here's a clone from your laboratory, right? So usually we are reactive, not proactive. I mean, and that's one of the things, but it's changing rapidly. I mean people is learning to collaborate faster.

Julio Martinez: 36:04

Well I mean this is considered a medical innovation of course. So what's your take on the opportunity that Latin America represents for companies, MedTech companies, biotech companies or companies like yours in the genomic space to sell their products and services? Because that's really the spirit of the podcast to portray Latin America as a land of opportunity. And of course it has risk and not everything is perfect, but that's why we have guests like yourself here to tell their experiences. So what do you think about the region as a place to do business or to sell medical innovation?

Daniel Uribe: 36:37

Yeah, I mean totally . We need to change this mindset from localization or tropical or customization, right? Because everybody wants to be the Mexican version of 23 and me or the Brazil, you know, but it's not that. I mean you can be many other new, like for instance this uh , single cell genomics, right? It's fascinating. And you can be in that space even in the RNA vaccines space. I mean there's a lot to do and we have the talent, but we don't have sometimes the access to capital, we don't have access to data. People is not as connected and so on and so forth. But it's a diamond in the rough. Definitely. I mean it's a region of 500 million people. Exactly.

Julio Martinez: 37:28

Yeah. Probably more. I think it's more like 600 or something. Yeah, yeah. 30 something countries. Yeah,

Daniel Uribe: 37:36

Exactly. So for sure it's something that we need to find a way to have more MedTech and more biotech uh , clusters of innovation right now, the young people is leading these uh, efforts, right? They recognize that it's not only to make business like facilitating to big pharma things because that's the usual thing. I mean, it's like local medium companies. The only thing is that they're just like an arm, right? A partner for big pharma. So they are facilitating the access for clinical trials. And so those are, you know, all over the place. But people doing real science, I mean novel science in Latin America is just uh , beginning. And I am excited about it because now people are saying, Hey, I, let's try to disrupt big pharma. These young people is really thinking big. They're not just saying, Hey, I'm just going to partner with them and you know, no , no , no . They want to say, Hey, we need to have local frontier technology. And that is happening, but still early days.

Julio Martinez: 38:45

Excellent. Alright Danielle , we are about to finish our conversation here. I like to show listeners how they can reach you, what's your contact information. Please tell us a little bit about how they can , uh, find you online. And please go ahead <laugh> .

Daniel Uribe: 39:06

Thank you very much. No, I appreciate the opportunity. So this is ways by email, my email if I may. It's daniel@generalbank.io. It's very, very simple. I am very vocal in LinkedIn. You can put Daniel ubi slash saliva and you'll find me <laugh> or blockchain or genomics and I'll somehow be there. And , uh, please reach us if you have like an application for a saliva kit and you are , uh, respectful about people's privacy, we certainly can help you to deploy your kit to give you our wide label kind of version in weeks, maybe days, right? Because we, we can do that for

Julio Martinez: 39:50

You. Excellent. And you guys are in a crowd founding campaign right now, is that correct?

Daniel Uribe: 39:56

Oh, yes, yes, that is correct. Thank you very much. So we are raising money . We founder our campaign founder , we founder.com/genbank . We just recently surpassed our minimum. So we are today at 50 4K and you can invest even from a hundred dollars . So support us, support privacy in genomics and we will be more than honored to have everybody on board .

Julio Martinez: 40:21

Excellent, Danielle . Awesome. Alright , Danielle , thank you so much for being a guest in our show, in our Latin Med Tech Leaders podcast. I appreciate you sharing your plans in Latin America. I'm sure listeners , uh, learned from your experience a little bit and , uh, you are paving the way for newer companies to enter the region, which is really the spirit of the show. So thank you again. Have a great afternoon.

Daniel Uribe: 40:45

No , I'm super grateful. Julio, thank you very much to you, to your audience, it's been a pleasure and thank you for listening to all what is happening and we're just a , a contributor here. But thank you, thank you for the opportunity.