Interview with Andrew Thompson, Chief Executive Officer, Proteus Biomedical 

What makes Proteus so special?

There are three things about Proteus Biomedical to make it a very special company: our people, our culture and our vision. We have a really unique team of folks that combine expertise in semi-conductor engineering, MEMS and planar processing together with all the traditional disciplines in medical devices and pharmaceutical development. We emphasize and have very clear values around quality, teamwork and leadership. We’re all about empowering people to really make a difference and it really shows in terms of the way these people work together. The third thing about our company is our vision. We’re a pioneer in the field we call intelligent medicine. What we do is to embed computers and sensors into proven therapeutic products, drugs and devices.  Essentially Internet in your cell phone so that we can build powerful therapeutic systems that deliver a lot of value.

What country best facilitates starting a tech company?

I think the United States is a very powerful place to start a technology company. In particular, we’re based in Silicon Valley. We’re in Redwood City, California. It’s a  phenomenal place to start and grow a technology based medical business. There are all the things I think you need to do that. Great people, large amounts of capital available to invest and, most importantly, great weather so we can go outside after working and have a good time.

What makes an innovator?

There are some very distinctive characteristics that make for an effective innovator and I think in particular it’s not just the ability to see a big vision or a big idea. It’s the ability to to be practical about how you take steps towards realizing that vision right away. At Proteus, it’s all about how we take one step or two steps every day towards realizing a very big vision.

How does Proteus contribute to improving the state of the art?

Proteus is pioneering intelligent medicine and what we mean by that is embedding computers and sensors inside drugs and devices so that they can link to data and communications architectures. That means that your drug can communicate via the Internet with your phone and so you know information about the therapy that you are taking and how you’ve responded to that particular therapy. An analogy here for what we’re trying to do would be your car. Over the last twenty or thirty years, the embedding of computers and sensors inside vehicles has completely transformed what they do. It’s made them much safer, much more personal and much better value. It means that your car rarely breaks down. And if it was going to break down, you’d know about it in advance and be able to go see a mechanic. We see that type of system as being the future of health care where people are making use of therapy, also linked to data and communications architecture so they can know how well they’re doing and can know if they may have a problem and they can know if they need to see a doctor well before they have a really serious problem where  they need to go into the emergency room . So it’s a very big idea, but it’s a very simple idea. It’s something that has happened in other parts of the world in health care, in music, in entertainment and in financial services and we think intelligent medicine is a very, very big idea that will really transform healthcare.