Dr.Demas is an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience, delivering results and launching products in diagnostics, point of care assays, nanotechnology, wearable devices, biomedical optics, physiological, physio metric and molecular sensing, next-generation sequencing, analytical tooling etc. She comes with a proven record of delivering results by leading, building and managing cross functional teams, operations, process optimization, championing good practices, and managing projects from conception to launch, including overall P&L responsibility. A multidisciplinary learner with the ability to manage ambiguity and operate in complex, dynamic environments, she is the CEO of Tesseract Health, which is part of the 4Catalyzer accelerator, with over $700 Million in funding, 300 scientists and engineers. Tesseract is building a portable, affordable device for monitoring and preventing disease. Vicky also holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore National Labs. She speaks on a spate of topics in an interview. Excerpts:

Conception of Tesseract

Tesseract Health is aiming at developing prediction models that leverage the intersection of multiple retinal imaging modalities with expert annotations to create comprehensive and non-invasive health assessments. A specialist can interpret an image of the back of the eye to detect disease early when it can be cured or better managed. “Unfortunately, patients are obstructed by inconvenient, unaffordable care, and providers are forced to rely on expensive specialized tools and workflows. At Tesseract our goal is to democratize healthcare leveraging the information content in the eye” says Vicky.

Healthcare industry – challenges galore

This entrepreneur suggests that people embrace healthcare tools and products from companies that enable flexibility and accessibility to the patients. “Companies like Tesseract that are creating more touch points with patients (the healthcare customers) to facilitate capturing and interpreting high quality healthcare data to facilitate remote personalized health care.”

Tesseract’s solutions

Tesseract is building fully automated, intuitive, portable and high-performing retinal imagers that are also powered by advanced automated (AI algorithms) disease detection to provide a wealth of health data captured from the eye. Our AI algorithms are trained/learn the differences on thousands of images of “healthy” (non-disease) eyes vs images from eyes of patients of disease at different stages/types.

Leadership traits

This empathetic, open, approachable, transparent, driven, resolute and tireless professional says that she is a human first and always is a work in progress. “Staying open, listening, admitting mistakes, learning from my mistakes and the mistakes of others. Always assume best intent (and ask others to do the same). I love working on projects and issues that I care about. Hence, I can give it my full energy and love.” She is also passionate about making products that remove barriers between quality care and the people who need it: keeping the patient needs at the center. This has been the guiding light in her career. “I have been working on building tools that help doctors help patients.”

Dr. Demas also believes in making some great data-driven decisions and in building great teams. “Hiring amazing people, and working to support them, helping them grow, building on their strengths and helping them close their gaps, remove obstacles for them. Making sure each member has something to teach me and the rest of the team. Building great culture and team dynamics, a culture that celebrates the ideas and contributions of the team, making sure each person feels heard and valued. Giving feedback and treating others with clarity and empathy.”

The success mantra

“I have been in the startup world for a long time, so I might be a little oversimplifying. I think keeping in mind that if you don’t fail you don’t succeed, or at least you can’t avoid risk if you want to do something highly impactful would be a good motivator.” Says Dr. Demas that it takes practice to also understand that failure is relative – you go through a failure but then you recover, you bounce up and you learn from the failure, and you are so much better afterwards.

“Solving important problems, addressing unmet needs is an obvious start, but people (the team) come first. It’s easy to not pay attention to building and growing your team members when you must move at lightning speed.  Finally, no one person is more important than the team and mission. Stay open. Follow your heart. Trust your instincts” she signs off.