Driving MedTech Innovation for a Healthier Future in SoCal

Dr. Grant Stevens

Hello and welcome back to the Technology of Beauty where I have the opportunity to interview the movers and shakers of the beauty business. And today is no except. Today we have Bill Carpool here in the studio. He's come up from Orange County and we're going to hear all about what he's doing in the beauty business and other areas also. Bill, thank you very much for joining us today.

Bill Carpou

Grant, thanks for having me. What a pleasure.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yeah, it's so great to have you. You work so closely with Allergan and the other aesthetics. People and so forth. But before we get into Octane and all that, first of all, where are you from Bill?

Bill Carpou

New York originally. So just out, just outside of the city in long Island.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And when did you leave?

Bill Carpou

See now I'm gonna date myself.

Dr. Grant Stevens

That's all right. You don't have to tell me. Where'd you go to college?

Bill Carpou

I went to college at Villa. So down in Philadelphia, so went from New York, spent some time in the Philadelphia area, and then moved out here to the west coast in 1998. So an east coast transplant. And came out here for two years to run a turnaround, and here I am 22 years later.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay. What kind of turnaround was it? What kind of industry were you in initially, before Octane?

Bill Carpou

Immediately before I was an operating partner at Blackstone. But what brought me out here was I was an executive at a company called Icon Office Solutions and office Equipment. Copiers, printers, completely unrelated to this. And to anything in the medical business. And so it was it was basically the end result of a lot of different acquisitions here in the southern California area, and ultimately, that organization has gotten sold to Ricoh and myself as well as the all the senior executives disembarked at that time. And then I got into private.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Down in Orange County, right?

Bill Carpou

Yes, but a lot of travel, and I actually so a lot of travel back to New York, a lot of travel throughout the country.

And then I ended up running a portfolio company for Blackstone in Detroit. So kept the residents in Orange County. But what was really living out of the Detroit area which was interesting in a very positive way.

Dr. Grant Stevens

That's good. And when did you form Octane?

Bill Carpou

Octane was actually formed before I got there, so I've been the CEO for six years now, since 2015, but the organization was formed in 2002.

And so last night we had our high tech awards and we announced that we're gonna celebrate our 20 year anniversary next year in 2022.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And I didn't realize that. So then you tick over and you're the ceo. And tell us a little bit about Octane. Many of our guests or excuse me, many of our viewers don't know anything about Octane. So take me through what Octane is and what their core philosophy is.

Bill Carpou

Yeah, so Octane's an interesting organization and it's somewhat complicated in terms of the structure and what we do and we position ourselves as having four core cornerstones from that standpoint. So the first is really the legacy.

It's what was formed in 2002, and we refer to it as Octane Connect. And it's really all about content. Content and thought leadership in the technology and medical technology industries. So aesthetics certainly happens to be one of them. Big footprint and ophthalmology. And generally we have distributed that content through in-person events.

Okay. And obviously 2020 changed all that and we moved to virtual platforms and, here we are now saying it's hybrid. What we really found was we went from this moment of saying, oh my God, we're not gonna do a live event in 2020 to finding, we're getting three and a half to four times the audience on virtual.

And so now we really view ourselves as more of a content provider with the ability to stream to a much larger audience and then have that content be available on demand.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So when you say content, are you talking B2B type content or is it you to physicians or who's your target audience? So what's the content?

Bill Carpou

Yeah, so it's it's not an easy question because we have a very wide and diverse range of interested parties. So it, it's certainly b2b, but then the physicians on the medical side become very key since they're the ones that are distributing the, the product and all that.

Using Allergan as an example, all Allergan is certainly. An interested partner and a strong partner of ours. But then so is the whole physician network. So what we found in ophthalmology and our aesthetics is getting the physicians there and exposing them to innovation because that's really what we're all about versus just a normal clinical type of event. So our content is more innovation driven.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you have a mixed audience actually.

Bill Carpou

Yeah. The the common aspect. And you, you might ask me, if you come to an event one day, you say who's your audience? And they're used to saying there's all clinicians out there or there's all physicians, or there's all investors.

And we're like it's all of those. So it's a mix and it's very diverse. And we frame our content to be able to satisfy. That very diverse nature of individuals that attend our events and consume our content.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Bill, first of all, I've been to the events and I love 'em.

And secondly, you've just described my audience. That's that technology of beauty. Yeah, same thing. It's the same audience. It's cutting edge technology and the content is geared not just physicians, in fact, to business, the industry to finance. And so it looks like a very similar audience. So your first pillar of four is content driven.

Bill Carpou

Yeah, content driven. Emphasis on innovation. And a lot of the smaller companies that are creating that innovation, bigger companies that are consuming it, and how you basically bring that to market. Whether it's on the technology side, a cyber company, or how you get it in the hands of a doctor to a patient, on the aesthetics or ophthalmology or, clinical side.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay. What's the second one?

Bill Carpou

So the second one is is our foundation, and there's two components to it. One is about community and the other is about our accelerator. And so you know, one focus is on community impact for Southern California. So there's a focus on women leaders. There's a focus on STEAM, which adds the A in STEM, or arts. And if I just went back to the women leaders, an interesting fact is that women comprise 52% of all startups, yet they only receive a slightly over 3% of the venture funding. So we looked at that and said, there's such a mismatch there. How do we help women entrepreneurs grow their companies and get access to funding. So that was the genesis of that particular initiative. And it's taken off and it's really helped in terms of mentoring, it's helped women pla be placed on boards, either public or private, and then we've got the STEAM initiative, and then we've got another one that's really interesting and it's supported by the Edwards Life Science Foundation.

And it's using our accelerator, which I'll comment on in a moment, to really help other nonprofits that are rooted deep into underserved communities across Southern California. And then the the fourth is identifying next generation leaders of the community. So taking really industry leaders that are known globally or certainly domestically, and saying how do we help those people transition?

And how do they become the successors of individuals that have been community leaders over. And so that's really community impact. The the jewel of this though has been our launchpad accelerator. And what we do is we deal with between 55 and 60 companies a year, use our accelerator. And our accelerator is offered to entrepreneurs pro bono.

So we yeah we don't take an equity stake. We don't charge a fee. It's supported by a grant from the SBDC, Small Business Development Center, which is a subset of the SBA. And the companies coming through are generally, if you look at it from an investment perspective, in that very late seed series A range.

So we're not the right place for someone if they say could you help me write a business plan? Could you help me see if there, if this if this is even a proof of concept? All those things need to be formed before a company comes to us, but we'll see 500 companies a year and then end up working with somewhere between 50 and 60.

So we do a really good job of diligence and those companies go through a 16 week program. Very heavily mentor driven and statistically they, 86% of them have raised capital within 12 months after going through the program. So in aggregate, we've helped companies raise a little bit over 3.3 billion since 2011.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Explain to the audience what an accelerator is.

Bill Carpou

So you've got incubation early stage, so I've got an idea. Can you help me craft it? Could you help me write a business plan? An accelerator now is gonna take that business plan, take that idea, and basically do exactly what it says is accelerated and move it forward more rapidly.

And really what we're doing is we're preparing that entrepreneur for their first round of institutional. So how they're gonna present themselves, how they're gonna prepare, how they're gonna present the opportunity in front of really sophisticated investors, much different than your friends and family around.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And do you help with the raise?

Bill Carpou

We help with the raise too, historically. And that, that, that's gonna get me into the third. Traditionally we basically were working and saying, okay, let us make introductions.

So now we've added this third pillar of Octane, which is Octane Capital. And so that's where our relationships with Strategic Venture. So it could be a Medtronic, it could be an Allergan, it could be a j and j or institutional venture. Any of the big firms Sequoia, any a Kleiner are all all of them.

We have a really good relationships with a private investor network, and it's where we actually. Two, soon to be three funds of our own. So once the company comes through the accelerator, we will make introductions and help represent that company to those investors for that raise. And that becomes more of a consulting and a platform that there are fees involved in that.

So everything up to that point has been pro bono. So that's the third tier? That's the third tier, that's the capital, and the fourth And The fourth is really now that you raise capital, how do you grow the company? So the fourth is actually a pure consulting platform that helps companies with operational and functional expertise.

So when these companies are still relatively young. The companies coming through our accelerator don't have any EBITDA and coming outta private equity. That was a real game changer for me in terms of perspective. Many of them, most of them don't have revenue yet. They, and if they're on the health side, they're, they're well into FDA approval, but they're not final yet.

We really need to create a map for these companies to grow revenue and grow it rapidly. So the basis of the consulting or growth platform is how do we get that company once the funds have been raised to commercialization and revenue that much faster. And so we could insert people that could help them from a financial perspective, from a sales and marketing perspective, from an actual going out and finding customers.

And that's generally done by external advisors that are part of the octane network. And what, what's interesting grant is we've followed a mantra to say the general entrepreneur left on their own, raised this capital, and then as soon as they finish they say, I gotta raise more capital.

And what we're trying to do is change that narrative. And say, build your business. Your least expensive form of capital will be revenue. You'll dilute your existing investors less, you'll keep more equity for yourself, and you'll build more value for the company on a subsequent exit. So you, do you coach these entrepreneurs?

Yeah, we do. So we provide some direct coaching, but then there's a lot of individuals that are part we've got about 250 advisors that are a part of the Octane Network. Some. Some are entrepreneurs that are between deals, they've sold their company, they're, they're thinking of another idea and they want to give back to the entrepreneurial com community.

Some are executives at at larger firms and just wanna spend some time with entrepreneurs. Some are semi-retired, some are retired, so you know, all of them. Basically, we marry them based on their specific talent with a company, and then the company takes it from there as to what that relationship will.

Is it gonna be pro bono a couple of times? Are they gonna pay fees? Are they gonna give up some equity to that advisor? But we're providing that entrepreneur with really diligently vetted advisors that we know are gonna be able to provide great results at the end.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you, your basis going back before you got involved back 20 years ago if you, wasn't it founded along the ophthalmology line, and I know it's technology was the medical part.

Bill Carpou

Ophthalmology, the ophthalmology is probably what we're best known for. So that, that did evolve a little bit. It was formulated pure device, across cardio neuro, ophthalmology, and then quickly ophthalmology elevated itself. And broke out from everything else.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So not pharma, not topicals, it was device.

Bill Carpou

And historically, historically it was device. Historically it was device only. And and you know what we found was there was an epicenter of innovation occurring here. And so while we think we had something to do with it over the years orange County and Southern California and specifically Orange County is the epicenter of global innovation for eyecare.

And in many respects it is for aesthetics also. And a lot of that has to do with the comp, with companies such as Allergan, where they as a company certainly provided support, but you find so many individuals ended up leaving the company and becoming entrepreneurs. And so that was almost something that was encouraged and built a lot of the entrepreneurial spirit around eye.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And how did it morph into or include aesthetics, and when?

Bill Carpou

So there was such great success with ophthalmology and we looked at moving from being a generalist. To really going into laser focused industries such as ophthalmology. And what we found was when we started to build that kind of content and that conference, we really got excitement from the strategics, from industry.

We got excitement from the investors and we had, and we got excitement from the physic. And the physicians wanted to attend. And what we were being told was we had a little bit of a different format. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn't clinician driven, it was innovation driven. So the, the doctors were coming and seeing things that were coming for the first time.

They saw a platform that they could ac actually help contribute. And that led to the development of Visionary Ventures, which is a a venture fund that we're a general partner in and was created in 2015.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And expand on the aesthetics inclusion.

Bill Carpou

So with the, yeah, with the success of the ophthalmology, we said, okay, what's the next logical step? This has worked really well, we've now attracted industry leaders. and so what's the next step? And it was just logical to move to aesthetics and certainly with, with an Allergan being grounded here and the support they provided it was really a partnership and has been a partnership to get the aesthetics focus kicked off, which has really just been three years now.

We'll have our third aesthetic event this coming January, meaning January of 2022, which will be live. And we did it for the first time in '20, '21 was virtual, and '20 just snuck in. It was January just before I was there. Just before Covid hit.

I know. And we were, it was amazing because that was the that was the inaugural. and that was the first year and that was probably where ophthalmology was after five years. So we took off. We took off. And you know what it was we were able to apply the lessons learned in ophthalmology and just wen were starting from strategy. Exactly. So the lessons learned, good, bad were we were able to turn key and and move right away. I often tease and say, The early days of ophthalmology, we were in the back of a restaurant with 40 people, and then it grew to.

Something bigger than that. And then finally it, it graduated into a world class type of a resort event. We were able to bypass all of that and just move right into, the Balboa Bay Club for aesthetics.

Dr. Grant Stevens

And that was in 20. And that's at the Balboa Bay Club?

Bill Carpou

Balboa Bay Resort.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Correct. That resort. I grew up down there and it was a Balboa Bay Club. My mother lives there incidentally, so I look forward to going this January. January, 2022, correct? What's the date?

Bill Carpou

Actually, the 20th and 21st.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay, so it's a two day event.

Bill Carpou

It's two days, so we're moving from one day to two days. A day in kind of three quarters. It ends at two o'clock on the second day. And, we're hosting events around that. There'll be ad boards there'll be private dinners. We always want to add a social element to this thing too.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Absolutely. Are you gonna have a gala event the night between the first two days?

Bill Carpou

We will have a nice cocktail reception. So a fun cocktail reception. But, talk about January. Out on the lawn of the Balboa Bay Club, seeing all the yachts and everything, it's not a bad place to be in January.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Maybe we should have a harbor cruise or something on a horn blower or one of those big yachts.

Bill Carpou

That's actually in the planning possibility stages at this point.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Great. I look forward to attending and hopefully so my colleagues will also, that like emerging technologies and in the aesthetic space.

Bill Carpou

Yeah. I think, We really want to drive more attendance and more availability. We were almost full house the first year, and now as we go to hybrid, there's really no reason for people not to participate in some fashion. We want to welcome as many people as the facility could attend.

We love the vibe. I often look at events and don't really measure the content on the pure quality of the content, although that's really important. But that's almost a given to me. It's the buzz. It's the discussions that are going on outside in the hallway at cocktail reception in between sessions and, it's the camaraderie of bringing everybody back together.

So those are the things that we really try and drive through the in person. But we want participation. And if somebody doesn't feel that they can make it to a wonderful Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach in January they're, they're welcome to attend and live stream it.

Or the content as we look at it now, is always available on demand, anytime somebody wants. We think we've got all bases covered on this.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I'm sure you have, the attendees determine the buzz and as you mentioned, it's more than just the content, it's the buzz. And it's senior colleagues in the interaction and the things that happen outside of the formal presentations, however, Who are your keynote speakers? I know there's many panels and there's presentations, but typically you have one or two keynote speakers. And who have you lined up if you can share that?

Bill Carpou

Yeah. Yeah, I can. So for next year in in 2022, Carrie Strom. Great president of Allergan Aesthetics will be one of the keynotes. And Bob Ratigan has accepted a role to to, to either lead a panel or do a keynote. We haven't figured out exactly what that'll be.

And, we've got one other spot that we're looking at right now. We feel that we've got good participation from that perspective and, I think we're far enough ahead of it now that we're gonna get some of the bigger institutional and strategic industry companies that maybe hadn't participated on a virtual event for the first time. We're looking to welcome organizations like Merz, like Galderma, things of that nature.

Dr. Grant Stevens

How about Revance?

Bill Carpou

Revance, absolutely, obviously Mark's Mark, someone we'd like to attract also. And I think I think there's a product on the horizon there that the timing could be pretty good for Revance.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Absolutely no question about it. So you personally, Bill, are relatively new to this aesthetic space. Which is good because you're fresh, you're not tainted. You've only been in the aesthetics business for, what, five years? Six or seven years, something like that. You have terrific experience in technology and finance and private equity and business.

Bill Carpou

Yeah. Really, if you look at it, it's even shorter than that. It's three since the first one. Yeah. It's three and it's incredible. It's amazing.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I'd be happy to help you along.

Bill Carpou

I think I need a mentor.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I've been I've been at this for over 40 years actually.

Bill Carpou

And it's, it's interesting the nuances, industry to industry, and we've, we've certain. We've we see differences between just device and pharma in the same company. And you look at something like an Edwards Life Science, they're a device company in cardio.

It's, it's pretty straightforward, then you go on the, I'd say the polar opposite would be a j and j that's in a multitude of industries. It could be a cardio, pharma, obviously aesthetics, ophthalmology, and you've got the pharma and device component. So you know a much more, a difficult or complex organization to navigate through.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Isn't that the truth? You take a startup originally like Zeltiq, and then you, it goes public and it's device, and Mark's running it and then it gets taken out by Allergan, the first Allergan, and then Actavis, and now AbbVie.

So it's pharma, and the rules change entirely. And I was working with Mark with Zeltiq and then working with the various people at all on that acquisition. And thereafter it, and the rules change totally. Compliance and all the lawyers and the layers of lawyers. It's just amazing to me to learn the new rules of the road device versus pharma.

And start versus corporation versus publicly traded. It just layer upon layer of change.

Bill Carpou

So I, I learn all this, at the end of the day, I've been, I guess you would look at me and say, Hey, I've been more operations driven on, on the revenue side. If I go back in my career, it was really sales.

It started as sales. I've run big businesses. But it's been more on the operational end and all of that. When I look at all these, I get to a level of the complexity and the technicality of the industry, but keep it at the aspect to say, Hey, we really want to drive innovation.

We want to help these companies operationally invest, we. Treat investors the right way, but build the companies. And so it's really all about building innovation. And you know your point, what's amazing is to see these entrepreneurs go from nothing to a company that's now commercialized or very close to it, get acquired.

And what they do with that, whether they stay with it, whether they. Spiral it and go do something else. But the interesting piece is we've seen companies do IPOs recently and the change in the CEO from a compliance perspective and a regulation standpoint of all of a sudden being a public company CEO versus the founder and CEO of a private company's unbelievable. And some just don't like it. And it's a world of difference.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yeah. I'm more of a startup guy. Full confessions. But hey, you've been through different industries. You're new to aesthetics, but there's so many parallels with the other industries. If you were looking at a crystal ball and just in aesthetics now, and I know this isn't your long suit, but I'm curious, given your naivete in a sense of this, in this industry, I'd love to hear what you think the future holds.

Like when you sit there and you think you've been around aesthetics for three to five years, what do you think the future holds for aesthetics in technology, in terms of emerging technology? So three to five years.

Bill Carpou

I see it, I see the whole innovation aspect accelerating quickly. Whether it's across all of medicine, across all of medicine, but really inside of aesthetics also.

Okay. And I think one of the things I see is the patient profile too. And to me the naivety maybe was the fact that it basically, you. To a dermatologist because you thought you saw something, you wanted them to check you out or whatever. And you got Botox when you were a certain age or filler or, yeah.

Anything I, that's obviously one brand, but any of those brands, any of those fillers you got that now. And I know I'm not saying anything that, that people don't really understand but I want your perspective on this but this is fresh for me, but this is really being pushed down way lower.

When you start seeing people that are millennials in their mid thirties, utilizing these types of products, and then you go even beyond that, I'm talking to people now that are in their mid twenties that are routinely going into their dermatologist for some type of a treatment.

So in my mind, what this is it's just it's expand. The entire market and taking it from maybe older generational, that you were reacting to something, to being more preventative. And that's just what it feels like to me.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So industry likes to use the word prejuvenation as opposed to rejuvenation.

So historically growing up, people would start showing signs of aging and they'd see their aesthetic provider, derm, facial plastics, so forth, have filler modulators, lasers, and so forth in the pursuit of "juvenation," if you will, to look better, to look younger. And as you mentioned with the millennials, they started availing themselves to fillers and modulators much earlier.

And now even the pre millennials now are coming in to my offices and other offices that, that all over the country with the pursuit of not looking old. So it's the rejuvenation generation. I don't wanna look like mom and dad ever. I don't wanna see my first wrinkle. It's not about treating a wrinkle, it's, I don't want to have a wrinkle.

Bill Carpou

It's, it's almost prevent, preventative, right? And I think that's intriguing. I think that's really interesting, in terms of how that's opened up the market to a much greater extent. I, it's funny cause when I was growing up and I was.

In my youth, I was very athletic and I'd end up, unfortunately at the orthopedics office every once in a while. Sure. And I'd always wonder why was there an old person there? Because I'd always figure you, you only go to the orthopedic when you're, when you break something athletically.

And now I'm understanding that now you're wearing out. That there's reasons that there's reasons as you age. You go to the orthopedic surgeon. But to me it's really that preventative aspect. Yeah, I think I, I think the market's opened itself up.

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you see growth in the aesthetics market.

Bill Carpou

I see growth and I think AI and things like that are really gonna help drive it. We're starting to do a lot of work in AI right now. We're not sure exactly what the outcome of that is going to be. We've got an initiative that we're announcing very shortly referred to as Health SoCal ai, and it's actually pulling together La, San Diego and Orange County.

For a healthcare AI initiative. And it'll have two paths, grant, and one of them will be just creating more companies that, that are using and creating ai, create more funding for them, opportunities for investors, and really at the same time, building. Re replicating what's what we've done in ophthalmology and what's occurring in aesthetics is create Southern California as a global hub for AI innovation.

And those are things that Octane's prepared to do and we do well. The second path on that really though is to deal with health. Equities or health in inequities to deal with precision medicine and population health, and how do we utilize AI that actually gives somebody a health plan for life?

So I could see that almost fitting into aesthetics to say that rejuvenation is, Hey, this is what your plan should be so you don't get wrinkles at the end. And you could take it a step and say, from an oncology perspective, can AI help drive somebody and say, these are the steps that you need to take to prevent these types of cancers over time?

Sure. We look at the AI initiative and say it'll drive a healthier population. And while it's focused to company and company creation and capital and all of that, it's actually something that can impact all the residents of Southern California across the board.

I know aspirationally some of the doctors that are helping us put this together and they're AI focused doctors at chalk or uci, they're looking at this and saying, purely aspirational, we'd like to create and make Southern California be the healthiest region in the world. Now that's an aspiration that could take 20 years to get there. But I but I do think there's gonna be a role for ai in, in aesthetics, in giving people that kind of roadmap of of care, personal.

Dr. Grant Stevens

I would entirely agree. Now, bill, thank you for sharing all this about Octane. But now for the viewers, how would they get ahold of you or Octane, or more importantly, register for the meeting in January? What can they do right now? They're watching and listening. Give them a roadmap.

Bill Carpou

Here's what to do. Go on our website, octaneoc.org. And you'll see our website. You could go to the impact report, which gives you really a rundown on what Octane's accomplishments have been in the past year.

It's probably an eight minute digital read, but inside of that you look at you look at the events and pull it down, go to ATS, Aesthetics Technology Summit, or the same thing. You could just you could just go to ats.com and access it that way.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay, that was a as in apple, T as in Tom, and S as in sam, ats.com.

If you wanna learn more about the upcoming meeting in January, and I want to thank you Bill, for sharing your time with us, for coming up from Orange County. I appreciate it. We've learned a lot about you and about Octane and look forward to working with you as we go forward and you stay in the beauty business, the aesthetics.

Bill Carpou

Yeah, I'd love to. And grant, thank you for everything you've done. Thank you for your support and we'll work together on ATS for 2022.

Dr. Grant Stevens

Fantastic. Appreciate it. I'd like to thank all of you once again for joining us here at the Technology of Beauty, where I have the opportunity to interview the movers and shakers of the beauty business.

And we have a new mover and shaker right here. Bill, thank you very much and thank you for Octane and all you do for us. Look forward to hearing more from you in the future. Bye-bye everybody. Thank you. Stay safe, stay well. See you soon.