Today we’d like to introduce you to Idicula Mathew.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Growing up and all throughout college, I was always the guy that would be pitching ideas for new products or businesses. However, as a student pursuing biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech, I never thought that my senior design project would give rise to a startup company. Although I was a biomedical engineering student, I spent quite a lot of my time in the Scheller Business School – notably, I was drawn to the new and prevalently growing entrepreneurial community within Tech and Atlanta at the time. I really learned a lot from simply being around people.
A few weeks after classes ended, I thought it was a good idea to enter our class project into a local business pitch competition. I think it was a 10-minute pitch followed by a Q&A that seemed to have lasted forever! It was surely an awakening call. It’s where I realized that pitching an idea is essentially worthless without proper execution.
From there, I had the opportunity to assemble a team of engineers and participated in a medical device accelerator program that allowed us to spend an entire summer doing customer discovery and prototype development. I spent most of my time out in front of real people – medical device and regulatory experts, large companies, and ultimately users of the product. This was the most crucial experience that made all the difference. By the end of it, our product had, in essence, redesigned itself – directly from all the feedback received from future customers. I think that’s the confidence that still is rooted within our company today, we were able to pinpoint a large problem in the market place and we are excited to be working towards a real solution.
Three years later, Hera Health Solutions has now designed and started scaled manufacturing of our flagship product, Eucontra, a combo device for the contraceptive market place. We have now raised multiple rounds of capital from leading healthcare VCs both in the US and internationally, finalized our first product’s validation testing, and are now looking forward to full device approval for global commercialization.
Along the way, Hera Health Solutions has attracted the attention of several nonprofits and global impact organizations as well. We were recently named one of the top global startups that are aligning our business principals with the UN SDG’s. We were invited to partake in a global UN hosted business event in Seoul, Korea to showcase, present, and look for avenues for further partnerships. Personally, I think that’s one of the aspects of our company that keeps me so motivated – I’m truly humbled by the opportunity I have to co-work towards solutions that could have a potential global positive impact.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Over the course of my journey thus far, I’ve had the amazing opportunity to meet with and work with entrepreneurs from all over the world. I can almost safely say that none of the people I’ve met so far would describe their entrepreneurial journey as “smooth”. And I think it’s because that is simply part of the job. Entrepreneurship is not meant to be smooth. Business landscapes, customer mindsets, technologies, and many other factors are constantly changing, and so evidently your business must be constantly adapting.
My journey with Hera Health Solutions is of course no different. We have had many forks in the roads along the way. From technology and design hurdles to trouble scaling initial manufacturing, to lack of capital issues which allowed me to even stereotypically experience couch surfing in the very early days of our company.
But I can honestly say that each hurdle we had to overcome, our company became stronger and more valuable. As CEO, I firmly believe that being adaptive and persistence is the key.
We’d love to hear more about your company.
Hera Health Solutions is a pharmaceutical device company specializing in the research, development, and commercialization of long-acting treatments through our proprietary biodegradable drug delivery implants.
Today, unfortunately offering quality and controlled medications over extended periods of time is troublesome and requires invasive procedures. Current solutions on the market make it necessary for expensive and complicated removal procedures. Now, just imagine that if these issues happen in the US what it’s like in other countries with limited access to healthcare.
Our proprietary biodegradable implants created by using existing generic drugs in combination with already FDA-approved structural materials will deliver trusted medication over extended periods of time. Hera Health Solutions’ innovative technology is the first of its kind to address the removal complications that occur from long-acting implants. The technology aims to offer a safe, effective, and flexible solution.
What were you like growing up?
I have sort of a classic immigrant/American dream childhood. My family is from the southern part of India, a state called Kerala. I also came from an entrepreneur family, having the opportunity to grow up in that environment allowed me to learn a lot about perseverance from my parents. Although as a child, I think my parents would definitely describe me as a handful. I was a rather active child – sometimes the activeness ending up with me coming home with notes from my teacher for being disruptive. I also really enjoyed sports. In high school and college, I was sort of known as a gym rat. Over the years, I’ve become really into fitness and still adhere to some strict workout schedules and routines.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.herahealthsolutions.com/
- Email: info@herahealthsolutions.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/herahealth
Image Credit:
Matt Bailey, Jarvis Hughes
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