Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Healthy Enterprise Podcast. Thank you for joining me again today. If you've been here before, I appreciate you coming back. And if it's your first time, I hope you enjoy, this episode.
Heath Fletcher:I'm gonna be speaking with Anna Forsythe. She's the founder and CEO of Oncoscope AI, a groundbreaking platform that brings together real time oncology treatment data, clinical guidelines, research, and regulatory approvals all in one place. Anna is a clinically trained doctor of pharmacy with a master's in health economics. She's also an entrepreneur, having founded two previous companies in the past. She's also an educator, a published researcher, and a passionate advocate for using data and technology to transform cancer care.
Heath Fletcher:Let's hear more about Anna and Oncoscope AI. Hi, Anna. How are you? Thank you for joining me today for this episode. I'm looking forward to having our chat.
Heath Fletcher:So, yeah, welcome.
Anna Forsythe:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Heath Fletcher:You're very welcome. So why don't you start with doing a little bit of introduction for yourself and the company and to our listeners and just kinda we'll take the conversation from there.
Anna Forsythe:Thank you. So I'm Anna Forsythe. I'm a founder and CEO of Oncoscope AI. My background is in clinical evidence generation and market access, so bringing drugs to the market. And I've spent over twenty five years of my life, trying to bring innovative therapies to patients faster.
Anna Forsythe:My company is called Oncoscope AI. It's a platform that delivers continuously updated AI powered clinical evidence to oncologists, to nurses, and to basically any health care professionals who need real time insights to support their practice or their decisions on how to treat patients or their strategic decisions on what are they gonna do next with their drugs. That's it.
Heath Fletcher:And what brought you to this point? Like, was there something you were doing in your career prior to that that where you said, okay. There's a need for this.
Anna Forsythe:Well, I am a health care economist, actually. So after spending twenty five years in pharma in different positions in clinical research and development and moving to health economic and reimbursement, what happened is I started my own company. That was 2016. It was called Purple Squirrel Economics. And in that company, we developed evidence that is needed for pharmaceutical companies to go through their research and development.
Anna Forsythe:Every time they need to make a decision, they need to base that decision on a reliable set of evidence. You know? What is there gonna be a comparative to their drug, for example? But you choose that. They have to justify every decision they make they make based on, you know, evidence from the research.
Anna Forsythe:And every time they do a submissions to an FDA or in Europe to an EMA, every time they do a a submission to, let's say, reimbursement company in The United States, like Blue Cross Shield, or a government of a country to decide they need as a basis of it to have a systematic review of the evidence. So what my company did is we did these reviews constantly, and you have to constantly update them. And and then we did also analysis, different statistical and health economic analysis, you know, like cost benefit type of analysis or, you know, so forth. So I have that, and I sold that company in 2020. And I was supposed to retire, but then I realized, things.
Anna Forsythe:One is I have too much energy, and I can't just stop. And two is that doctors also need that type of support, not just pharma. Doctors are overwhelmed. There's so much evidence coming down every day. There's articles published.
Anna Forsythe:There are approvals from regulatory authorities. There's guidelines updates, although they're kind of behind. They're lagging behind. But there's all that. And then when there's a conference, there could be 2,000 abstracts in one day.
Anna Forsythe:No. You don't one has time. And then you're supposed to see patients.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:More and more and more patients, and there there's a lot of pressure on the doctors. Yeah. They do want of course, when they have a patient in front of them, they want to prescribe whatever is the best and the newest. And in some areas, especially oncology, if there's something new that that that can extend life of that patient or improve the quality of life for the patient, they of course, they want to use that new intervention. And the issue with that is every week, there's something new.
Anna Forsythe:Every day, sometimes, there's something new.
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm.
Anna Forsythe:And they simply do not have time to even read the guideline when the guideline is updated. So I thought, why there is such a thing as Expedia for us to travel and when there is no Expedia for oncology? And what if I create that? Because, ultimately, I know how to gather evidence. I know how to summarize the evidence.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:And I've been there, and I've done that for a different populate for a different customer base.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:But I thought I'd do it for doctors, and that's where I am.
Heath Fletcher:So when you were doing Purple, was it all manual data processing?
Anna Forsythe:Yes. That was pre AI dinosaur area era, you know, of the world. You know? We did it all manually. It's very time consuming.
Anna Forsythe:Yeah. Because there are to do a research, you have to find follow guidelines on how to do a research. You know? Everything we are in a guideline driven environment there, be a regulatory driven. So we have to we have to write a protocol.
Anna Forsythe:We have to say this is what we're gonna do. These are the questions we're gonna ask. This is how we're going to do it, and this is where we're gonna search. So you have to document everything. And every step you do, you have to document because someone needs to be able to follow that protocol and reproduce that.
Anna Forsythe:Exactly. Right. And so not only are you responsible to provide the studies that you selected at the end and summarize them. But you are responsible to provide the studies that you rejected and explain why
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:It didn't include some
Heath Fletcher:What supported your evidence?
Anna Forsythe:What's not supported? Right? Transparent. Right. And at the end, it has to be reliable.
Anna Forsythe:And there are methods for that. They're called Cochrane methods. You know? And we follow those methods. And so I have done that in the past all manually.
Anna Forsythe:But what I did do is I was very frustrated that sometimes simple stamps steps, kinda stupid steps that
Heath Fletcher:Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:I would say any high school kid should be able to do. And we, PhDs, highly paid and educated people, spend not even hours, days, sometimes weeks doing, like reformatting tables or putting all the references together. And then you found out that, you know, the regulatory body says, oh, but you looked for these three drugs. But, actually, we don't want all three. We just want these two.
Anna Forsythe:And Oh my god. That's another weeks of reformatting to take something out to, you know, do a small change. Yeah. Because these are long documents. At the end, it's we're in the document business.
Anna Forsythe:Right? So I created a platform. It was called live SLR. The truth is it was not live, okay, at all. Okay?
Anna Forsythe:Had nothing live, but it was cool to call it live because you conducted something, you uploaded into the platform, and that becomes a database. You can manipulate that database and create these highly templated reports on demand with a click of the button. You would say, oh, I want this, this, this, this. Make me a report, and the report gets printed out. So it was like magic, that piece.
Anna Forsythe:So things that took weeks and then mistakes when you do that. When humans do things, there's mistake. That was and it was a very successful product, and that's you know, I sold my company based on that, and it was used by multiple pharma companies in many, many countries' submissions. Because, you know, as if you are Pfizer or Merck or J and J, you submit in something in Germany than in France
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm.
Anna Forsythe:Than in Italy. And they may be slightly different requirements. Right. So something that took them then, I'm I'm sorry to say that, thousands and thousands of dollars and weeks every time. Right now, was like, oh, one, two, three, five clicks, click a button.
Anna Forsythe:Report ready for Italy. Click, click, click, report. So they saved money, time, and, you know, stress. And they loved it, and that's what I sold. And what I realized is now we have AI.
Anna Forsythe:Right. So my main dilemma was, well, can I also automate the front of that? Right. That collection of the data? Can I and and I use the word a word automate versus it's not necessary AI because some steps AI is better, but some steps, you could just write a program?
Heath Fletcher:Right. And It's just automation.
Anna Forsythe:Right. Automation. Right? You need I know AI sounds really sexy, and we think we should do AI for everything. But, AI does have its issues.
Heath Fletcher:Well, yeah, because AI does raise flags too for some people. Like, because it because it's so new and and maybe not proven yet, like, does great things, but it does it it makes people nervous.
Anna Forsythe:And, you know, AI the hardest thing for AI is consistency. Yeah. Because every time you ask the same question, you could try it. You ask Chet. If he's saying exact question, you get a slightly different answer.
Anna Forsythe:Yeah. That's not acceptable in my in the world of precision oncology. No. And in in the world that is templated. And, also, AI is not doing really well with numbers, believe it or not.
Anna Forsythe:It likes to invent them or scramble them.
Heath Fletcher:Oh, no kidding.
Anna Forsythe:It likes to do this kinda and also AI, I guess, I I feel it's like a human being who doesn't like to disappoint you. So when there's no data or there's something is not quite adequate, it makes things up. And that's okay if you're planning, like, a three year old birthday party.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:I don't think that's okay when you're choosing therapies
Heath Fletcher:for patients. Cancer patients. Yeah. Particularly. Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:Yeah. So, that's why I yes. AI is in the name of my company because there are many steps. The way I see it, if you can standardize something, you can automate it. But if you're not sure how to explain to your grandma what exactly you're doing in that step and the if there is a decision depending on this or that and and you have to say, well, I have to think about that and consider it, then you're not ready to automate that step.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:Then you still need the human.
Anna Forsythe:Yes. You do still so we do have a team of humans, but the key to that is is now these humans work 100 times faster.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:Not not because I am I am a slave. Right? But because they can't, because they don't have to do
Heath Fletcher:All those repetitive repetitive tasks.
Anna Forsythe:The little silly steps they don't have to do. Right. They only have to do the steps where actually the human decision is required, and it's in front of them. And it says, we think it's this number. Is it or is this?
Anna Forsythe:And I got it from here. Right. So then it's a it's a multi second decision versus I need to go and actually do that. The Researching. Right.
Anna Forsythe:It could be it's a very small team, and it works much faster, and then they can accomplish a lot more than a large team doing everything manually.
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm. That's pretty fascinating. And so how's how has it been, what's the response to this?
Anna Forsythe:The response is actually really great and kind of overwhelming. We do give it for free to doctors.
Heath Fletcher:Oh.
Anna Forsythe:So I don't know if I've mentioned that part.
Heath Fletcher:No. You haven't yet.
Anna Forsythe:It's it's free. I have decided that doctors need something for free. Because the truth is doctors are a bit stuck in their ways.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:And if I wanna change the ways they do it, they are more willing to try something when they could try try it for free. And I'm not I'm not doing it temporary for free. I'm doing it for free. That was the
Heath Fletcher:next question. Is this a limited time only kinda thing?
Anna Forsythe:No. I the the truth is we released a first version, and we call it essential. Mhmm. And it is actually what's needed for a physician who is treating multiple cancers and just need to keep up. And it's just really as simple as Expedia for oncology.
Anna Forsythe:You know? Do three to five clicks, and you find all the references and the data you need. And, yes, it's free, and it will stay free. Yeah. Well, that's amazing.
Anna Forsythe:And I just talked to one physician this morning, and he just he loved it. He he was just and it's a physician after physician. We have over thousand people signed up in the last two weeks.
Heath Fletcher:Oh my gosh. Wow. Physicians. Doctors.
Anna Forsythe:Physics. Yeah. Yeah.
Heath Fletcher:Oh, interesting. Right.
Anna Forsythe:Not all. I do wanna say that we do have some people who are nurses.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:They're physician assistants, but they're they're health care professionals treating patients.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:Those are the people that sign up. But, overwhelmingly, these are physicians. There's a lot of young, fellows who are just about to finish their fellow. Somehow, is our niche. They are fellow now, but next month, they're starting their practice.
Anna Forsythe:Right. They're worried. How are they gonna get to know? They just did their rotation in breast and rotation in lung cancer and and they think they know it all, but they're realizing how much it is.
Heath Fletcher:How much they have to know. Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:And and they're gonna have to keep up, and they're gonna have to also pass their licensing and recertification exams all the time. And that that's what I hear that a tool like this would be quite helpful to them to to do that. So that's, it's an amazing response. But on the other hand, then I heard from more academic type of doctors who do a lot of research, who are involved in training other doctors, who, do research projects and write papers. And and they gave us quite a bit of, comments on what they would like to see.
Anna Forsythe:They would
Heath Fletcher:like feedback or improvements. Right. Right. Right.
Anna Forsythe:So because they may they may have a luxury of not looking at it one patient at a time.
Heath Fletcher:Right. Of course.
Anna Forsythe:They make the luxury to ask themselves a scientific question.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:What is happening with this one mutation, for example, in a gene, and they wanna know the science of everything about that mutation or what is happening with a particular class of drugs, for example. Right? So they may wanna know about a small subgroup of patients, you know, what is happening, you know, the breast cancer patients with brain mutation with brain metastasis, for example. You know? Yes.
Anna Forsythe:So they need they need to be able to search in a more flexible way, and they also want to be able to sometimes go deeper, you know, slice the data differently. So we're creating a version for them, and it would be called Edge in their own. Right? On the
Heath Fletcher:Edge. The cutting
Anna Forsythe:edge. Yes. We're releasing, I'm hoping to release next next month. So August, this is gonna be released. That is not free.
Anna Forsythe:No. Sorry. No. It's not a lot of money. It's well, it depends on who who looks at it, but it's the same price they're paying right now for UpToDate.
Anna Forsythe:You know, there a lot of them are subscribed to this UpToDate. Right. So it's let's say it's affordable, and I checked with several doctors, and I say, would you pay this amount? And they're like, oh, absolutely. I'm paying more for this and this and that.
Anna Forsythe:So, they have they can use the essential for free. They can continue doing it. But if they're more into a research, if they're gonna produce papers, if they wanna reference, if they wanna report
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:They said, hey. I'd like to report from that because I'm gonna make my slides from that. Well, not life and death anymore. This is not, like, for this one too. So yeah.
Anna Forsythe:So that's
Heath Fletcher:sense. I think that's very reasonable. Yeah. Absolutely. And then does it go is there another layer after that?
Anna Forsythe:No. At at this point, that's it
Heath Fletcher:for now.
Anna Forsythe:I'm only 12 people. I can think one thing that
Heath Fletcher:well you've got yeah. You've got all so all that you've got all this data going out. Where is the data coming in from?
Anna Forsythe:So what we do is we conduct, what I explained, systematic review of the literature. So where is the literature? We are utilizing a publicly available database, which is PubMed. PubMed is a search engine that publicly available that searches Medline and several other resources. It is it is free, and it is publicly available because, truthfully, we cannot break laws if we're giving something for free.
Anna Forsythe:Right? So Of course. And, also, we are so we're searching abstracts in PubMed. And then in addition to that, there's another source. It's called clinicaltrials.gov.
Anna Forsythe:That's where all the clinical trials are registered, and there's a lot of details there. And if you link a record of a publication of a trial with a record of registration of that trial, then you get a lot more insights of that trial. Because when you register a trial, you have to put a lot about patient's criteria. And so we extract information from both of these resources.
Heath Fletcher:Oh, very interesting.
Anna Forsythe:Okay. And other resources, FDA approvals and the labels. And by the way, in August, we're hoping to add EMA, European Oh, wow. Labels and approvals because we received the requests. And we kind of re respond to requests, kind of working on that right now, making sure people are happy.
Anna Forsythe:And the, so the papers, and also we review multiple guidelines. Currently, all USA, around 20 different guidelines. But, you know, American Society of Clinical Oncology is just one of them. But multiple guidelines because depending on the disease, there may be several guidelines that are relevant to the physicians. And then we summarize all of that into a very easy easy so we do not write papers on that.
Anna Forsythe:We do not do editorials. We just put data tables and, you know, this very highly standardized, and we have to do that because otherwise, AI cannot do that. Right. Right? You have to highly standardize.
Anna Forsythe:So that's pretty much it. Oh, I forgot conferences. So, there are because nowadays, it's often that major data is presented at a conference, and then an intervention may be approved by the FDA or even introduced into the guideline before it's published in a major journal.
Heath Fletcher:You
Anna Forsythe:know, sometimes New England Journal of Medicine takes three years to get your
Heath Fletcher:Wow.
Anna Forsythe:Manuscript in. In the meantime, patient could have been using that. Right?
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:So we do do review, and that's kind of bad days for us because, this year, we were we only had two cancers right now, lung and breast, and we are launching prostate. And when ASCO, American Society of Clinical Oncology, released the abstracts, we had almost 2,000 abstracts to go through.
Heath Fletcher:Wow.
Anna Forsythe:And and, so everybody was on board. Yeah. Nobody slept. Everybody. There was no weekend, no vacations, no anything like that.
Anna Forsythe:So we kind of all because, yes, AI, it takes AI. Guess how long to do 2,000? Fifteen minutes. Review and extract. The issue is we can't trust AI.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:Because on review right now, we're really good. AI gave gives us point 2% error. Point two, which means point two, and that's, false negative. That means we may miss point two. So we are very careful because we review on four different criteria independently.
Anna Forsythe:And if we see that AI you know, if something is rejected just based on one criteria, we we review all those papers. You know? But extraction, we extract 32 variables from each paper. We create a standardized database. Right?
Anna Forsythe:So and AI is better with some, and it's not as good with others. So we the good news is we know which ones AI is usually good and which ones it's not. So so we know what but we do review, but it takes it doesn't take that long to review much less time than actually manually cut copy and paste. And all the issues with manual copying and pasting Right. Or rewriting are completely eliminated with with this case.
Anna Forsythe:So we have a very clean database, which is great because at the end, if somebody wants to do analysis, it's probably the cleanest database they've seen.
Heath Fletcher:So from a business perspective so right now, the edge is your really your main revenue model. Right?
Anna Forsythe:Yes.
Heath Fletcher:And and so how how how is that working? You know, I you're at
Anna Forsythe:I haven't started yet. Right now, right now, it's an altruistic organization where I'm losing money every day.
Heath Fletcher:Are you a nonprofit organization?
Anna Forsythe:No. No? No. Because I didn't register as a nonprofit because I plan to profit. Okay?
Anna Forsythe:First from, you know, the the sold, you know, the edge. Right? But then in addition to that, I hope I will be able to gather, advertising revenues
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm.
Anna Forsythe:You know, which is mostly the model of things that are free.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:It's it's not I didn't invent that. It's not really very innovative. But the truth is, as I mentioned, we have a thousand doctors just over the last few days. Right? So I am gathering when they log in, they they full they fill a form.
Anna Forsythe:And so I know exactly what they are treating and where they are in which institution. And then I know what they're clicking on.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:So in addition to the good stuff I'm doing for the doctors to treat their patients, I'm also I guess, I am gathering data.
Heath Fletcher:Sure.
Anna Forsythe:I haven't looked at it yet. I haven't really even started processing this because I hope to get to multi thousand doctor database
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:At the end. That is why I've mentioned to you, yes, we have nurses and we have and we know who is a nurse versus who is a doctor.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:You know? So we are gathering that database of physicians and, hopefully, pharmaceutical companies would be quite interested in in, you know, having these eyes of these doctors, that we know them by specialty. We know specifically those that are interested in breast cancer, those that are interested in lung cancer. And considering we plan to launch all the cancers, I believe that the advertising revenue could be quite significant.
Heath Fletcher:And Yeah. That could be yeah. Really could be a really great potential too. What about some sort of, like, you know, donation if you find this service valuable? You know?
Heath Fletcher:Donate donate to the to our organization to, to keep this, growing.
Anna Forsythe:Have not yet thought of that.
Heath Fletcher:You know? I mean, if a doctor really liked it and the doctor's like, I do not want to see this go away. I'll give you a thousand bucks. Or you know?
Anna Forsythe:Oh, okay. Find me that doc. Okay? The the the truth is, you know, I I'm an immigrant, and I know maybe you would wanna cut that from that whole thing altogether. But on a personal level, I came to this country with $2 in my pocket.
Anna Forsythe:I'm not exaggerating. They were literally $2 in my pocket. In my first year in The United States, I worked for $4 an hour, and I did everything. Everything. And I saved on food.
Anna Forsythe:I know what it is to save on food. Mhmm. I am extraordinary lucky. I met unbelievable people on my path who helped me sometimes with little things, but they were incredibly important things for me. A meal, you know Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:A hug, a to
Heath Fletcher:A hand up.
Anna Forsythe:Help you figure out American scholarship system. You know? You know, with Dean in the pharmacy school who I said, I can't go. I I don't have that kind of money to pay. And he sat me down, and he said, okay.
Anna Forsythe:Let's look at the scholarships, Anna. You know? And I was a good student because I had no choice Mhmm. Not to be a good student. And when I sold my company, prior company, I have never in my life expected to make that amount of money.
Anna Forsythe:So the first thing I started doing with my retirement is thinking what can I do to make the world better? Right. Because now that I don't need that, and my children don't need that. They're fine. Okay?
Anna Forsythe:Right. They graduated colleges. Both of them were done with that. Okay? They're on their own.
Heath Fletcher:Right.
Anna Forsythe:So can't I help people? And then I've realized I have a certain knowledge, and I actually have the means. That's not happening very often that a person has the idea and the knowledge and the means. I am, again, extraordinary. I do consider myself very, very, very lucky.
Anna Forsythe:And and my husband doesn't he he's excited that we are doing that. Okay?
Heath Fletcher:Amazing.
Anna Forsythe:I freak out periodically saying, okay. How much more money is this? And then he's like, that's okay, Anna. You will make it back. You know?
Anna Forsythe:I'm not in this business to make money. I'm in this business to continue impacting the world. And so, yeah, for some reason, number one question I get is, so how are you gonna make money? I need to make enough to grow this to 68 cancers. You know?
Anna Forsythe:According to NCCN, there are six according to Leukemia Lymphoma Society, who I spoke recently with, they are 150 something. So I have a long way to go, and I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it one cancer at a time. And I hope that between the, you know, the non non free version and and the advertising revenue, I'm gonna make it work, okay, based on my calculation.
Heath Fletcher:Sure.
Anna Forsythe:K? I should be fine. It it is not coming this year, and I'm okay with that. Right now, I am listening to my first users.
Heath Fletcher:Mhmm.
Anna Forsythe:And I'm trying to be very, very agile to make sure that I do a lot of changes to what I've already launched, and that's why I haven't launched more cancers. I had prostate ready to launch in March Mhmm. And then I said, no. Okay. I I'm on beta version of the of breast and lung.
Anna Forsythe:I am getting comments. Let me get the improved version. Let me know exactly what the doctors are looking. And, you know, each cancer is different. So I am working with expert doctors in each one cancer, you know, at a time.
Anna Forsythe:And it does take us time to what we call set up a cancer, you know, to because we have to run it back, you know, to all the search. Right? Yeah. Keep it up to date is not it's half an hour a day. Right.
Heath Fletcher:No. You called it altruistic, and I think it's wonderful. You're right. And not maybe not enough of that happens, I guess. I guess maybe that's why people do start nonprofit organizations because they're doing something altruistic, and it's not intended to to to profit.
Heath Fletcher:But, I think what you're doing is phenomenal, and and many would say that you're you know, the to to be eight to be in the position to do that, and deliver that to the world and to, you know, have this vision of, making the world a better place, you will you will you will reap the rewards in so many ways, you know, and that that you know, what you put out is you'll get back, you know, double fold, you know, as as some would say. But to do things without those expectations, I think, is pretty is pretty amazing. So I think what you're doing is yeah. It's very impressive and inspiring, really. I think a lot of people will be inspired to hear what you're what you're doing with this.
Heath Fletcher:And there's probably a lot you know, I think, you know, there's probably a corporate model too, you know, for large organizations
Anna Forsythe:Yes.
Heath Fletcher:Pharma companies. I think there are ways to
Anna Forsythe:I mean, there are other things that I didn't even tap into. Sure. You go users that were payers, for example. Yeah. And they would like to use it to review the request for more prioritization.
Anna Forsythe:I I I haven't started this yet because because the truth is I really wanted to get us to, having a good tool and being able to launch a cancer by cancer, and then I could try to figure it out. Mhmm. I recently presented to a whole hospital. And and then so we are, we may gain you know, go into a discussion with them. Right now, they're testing it.
Anna Forsythe:They because a lot of people from the same hospitalist are trying it out. And they said if it works, then they're gonna present it to their management to see if this could be become a a free tool and and whether there's a a financial model in in that making it a, you know, slightly customized tool for a specific institution Mhmm. You know, there there may be possibilities.
Heath Fletcher:Yeah. Yeah. Lots of opportunities around that.
Anna Forsythe:Talking to patient organizations. I just talked to one this morning. We we're gonna try to I'm not ready for that because I just can't get enough time in a day, but I would like to do something, a patient version. Mhmm. Because that's definitely
Heath Fletcher:That's interesting. Yeah. Very much so. And is that how you is that how you're spreading the word right now as I you're doing a lot of speaking engagements, meeting for at a lot of conferences and groups. And is that what you find gets your best way to get this out?
Anna Forsythe:Yeah. I find that I mean, the conferences are extremely expensive. Believe it or not, my most expense goes into not a development, but going to conferences if I get a boost. And so that that is it is kinda sad that the the price I have to pay is the same price the pharmaceutical company has to pay because it's just the same price. Yeah.
Anna Forsythe:It is no discount for being altruistic. You know? You get zero discount for that. Okay? You get a smaller booth.
Anna Forsythe:Okay? So Smaller booth.
Heath Fletcher:Same price, smaller booth. Wow.
Anna Forsythe:Yeah. It's it's the same, but it is very helpful because a lot of people just stop by. They get to know that. So, usually, those are really, really helpful. You know, I'm I'm trying to I'm gonna try to do more podcasts, you know, those things.
Anna Forsythe:And, there's been articles about me in some newspapers or magazines. And so, yeah, the it it is spreading. Right now, we're okay. We can handle all the requests, and this hasn't been an issue. And I've I've just hired, two people and interviewing in a third one, and that is on my research team so that we can put more cancers through.
Anna Forsythe:Right. So that's main main thing. Can we there's two challenges. Can we put more cancers? Can we launch more cancers faster?
Anna Forsythe:And then how I can get more advertising for the same money? Right. You know? That's these are my two challenges right now.
Heath Fletcher:Well, I think there are probably similar challenges to every business, actually. How do I get more money into advertising and how do I get more staff? You know, capacity and and, and marketing are the two top things that most businesses
Anna Forsythe:will we figured out some a tool that seems to be really helpful to physicians. And I think it's gonna be major, it is a it's something major that we achieved.
Heath Fletcher:How are you finding this so in your previous roles, you you they were your own companies. How how different is this one as founder and CEO? How is how is this one different than your previous companies that you've operated
Anna Forsythe:For yourself? Right. In a previous company, I also I have one partner here, and I had one partner in the previous company. So that way, it's similar, and it was my comp they were my companies. In both cases, I was the majority partner.
Anna Forsythe:Right? But, the previous company was a service company, And it was a service to a very niche small area within a pharmaceutical company. I mean, economic outcomes research is usually a small department within the whole pharma budget. So the truth is our growth was quite organic. We hired we worked ourselves.
Anna Forsythe:I always believe in you just work yourself. Right? So I work all the time. I work seven days a week, and I don't mind that at all. Right?
Anna Forsythe:But we worked, both of us, and when we felt there was really too much work, we really cannot handle, we would hire. We always hired one person at a time. And then before we knew it, we were 40 people. How did this happen? I have no idea.
Heath Fletcher:How did this happen?
Anna Forsythe:But with this company, what is a bit scary for me is is that first half of my company are programming and AI. And the truth is I'm not an I'm not only not an expert. I would consider myself worse than not expert. That I am technically challenged. Okay?
Anna Forsythe:Look at us. We it took us almost an hour to figure out the podcast. And I was helpless. Right? I I'm just not good at that.
Anna Forsythe:Okay? This is not my thing. Right? I but I I I am the person who envisions things, and then I say, wow. We need this, and I now can think how that can work.
Anna Forsythe:But thank god I met amazing people who can translate that into technical, how it could be done. I understand the science of it, the data of it. And, the biggest difference is this is like a direct to consumer business. Right? So this is one doctor at a time, one patient at a time.
Anna Forsythe:The other one was companies. So it's big projects. I didn't need that many projects. Here, I have thousands of I'm I'm not kidding. I have 10,000 people on my list, and I like to do one on one.
Anna Forsythe:So I started with, oh, I'm gonna write an email for that one. I'm gonna write an email for that one. And then I realized, Anna, I cannot write more than 200 No. You can't. Today.
Anna Forsythe:I and that is a lot, and then I am dead. And I I just cannot do that. You know? So I need to really I need to really prioritize, and it's not my strength, you know, to to say what am I not going to do, you know, because I do wanna talk. I wanna talk to patients.
Anna Forsythe:I wanna talk I wanna take talk to, you know, guideline organizations and do things. And I have 10,000 ideas. So sometimes I need to sit down and say, okay. This is the business plan. You're gonna concentrate on this.
Anna Forsythe:And I have a hard time not doing all the things that I would like to do. You know? So that's kind of unfortunate for me right now. Right?
Heath Fletcher:I don't think you're alone in that. I think a lot of founders you know, there's a lot of I've talked with a lot of founders and CEOs, and founders are tend to be the visionaries. And the visionaries have a lot of things. They're always vision they're always visionarying all over the place. They've got a vision for this, a vision for that.
Heath Fletcher:There's the short term vision. There's a long term vision. You know? And and I think they they actually have there's so much happening. When they when then when they're also the CEO, you're also carrying the burden of operating a company.
Heath Fletcher:Right? And so do you find that at some point, maybe you would separate those two and be the founder and the visionary and then find someone else to be the to do all the CEO stuff? So you could stay in that leadership place, but allow someone else to kinda take over all that day to day stuff.
Anna Forsythe:I'm sure this is gonna happen. I have an amazing team of young people, and and they are this is my favorite part, by the way, of business that I had and a business now. I love working with with young, talented people, and I'm not being aged here, but I'm just saying they they're like sponges that people really want and and teach and kind of be part of them, but help them with their career. To me, that is so satisfying. This is such an amazing feeling, and, they are growing with me and with this company.
Anna Forsythe:And, you know, I have people that were at my previous company, and then they have grown and now they're you know, they got the Korean pharma or someplace else, and they really they're they're senior director, executive director level right now, VP. And they started on a internal level with me, you know, kind of. And that is an amazing feeling. So I am 100% sure that I have people on my team even now that I I am training them, and I'm already saying, oh, yo. You gotta be a COO.
Anna Forsythe:Okay? So be prepared for that. You know? For that, you also should know more of a business, should be exposed to that. I don't mind when people wanna be exposed and learn beyond their initial job description, that's amazing.
Anna Forsythe:That's just great. Finding these kind of people who want to take on more and grow with the company, This is the best part about startup. Really, really the best. You know? Exciting.
Heath Fletcher:Amazing. You have an you're you are inspiring. You are have so much energy. It doesn't surprise me that you can't stop every day. And this whole idea is just really exciting.
Heath Fletcher:So I'm I'm really glad we got a chance to talk today, and you've got more to say. And I think you got more ideas in the head, . And so, hopefully, we'll talk again one of these days, and I'm looking forward to hear, how, the edge rolls out because that's a big step for your company. And, do you have any sort of final words, things you wanna mention that we haven't talked about, whether it's an inspirational quote for an up and coming executives? Or
Anna Forsythe:Well, I I would say that, you know, I I'm gonna directly to my business, and I'm sorry to bring my pet peeve in the in the last inspirational thing. As we embrace AI and innovation and speed, we should remember that rigor and transparency are very important. And without trust, there is no innovation. So I just hope that all the AI gurus right now that that get these very, very fancy models and, you know, very flashy front ends, and we all get very excited that that those of us who are close to health care and and for whom these decisions have to be precise, that those of us would remember that what we've learned in our, you know, universities when we did the research that fast is great, but it also has to be reliable and it has to be robust. So tech tech can speed things up, but without humans and without rigor, it's gonna be nothing.
Heath Fletcher:Great words to end on. Thank you so much for your time today with me, Anna. I really appreciate that, and I wish you the best of luck. And if people wanna reach out or find more information, where can they go?
Anna Forsythe:We have a website. It's on oncoscope-ai.com. Hopefully, you can put it somehow in there.
Heath Fletcher:Put it in the notes below for sure.
Anna Forsythe:All that, and I'm on LinkedIn. I'm Anna Forsythe, and happy to talk.
Heath Fletcher:Excellent.
Anna Forsythe:Thank you.
Heath Fletcher:Thank you for joining me today. Very inspiring. People who are that excited and passionate about something, I don't know. They really kinda get you they get you feeling pretty excited. It's it's pretty amazing.
Heath Fletcher:You know, that's one of the first platforms to really unify real time treatment data and clinical guidelines and research and regulatory approvals all in one place. Powerful. Powerful. Free tool for oncology professionals worldwide. So that's a game changer on how cancer care data is shared, accessed, and applied, and it really is like the Expedia for oncology.
Heath Fletcher:She has adopted AI and automation and and very distinctly identified what she uses them for. She uses both, but AI and automation both have essential roles in helping her make this global impact in cancer care. So very inspiring. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you're inspired as well.
Heath Fletcher:So please share this episode. Definitely subscribe and come back for more more forward thinking conversations like that. So I appreciate you listening, and stay healthy, and we'll talk again soon.