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The Digital Executive
Steve Muth on Turning Tragedy into Innovation: The Journey Behind ZEM Life's Life-Saving Smartwatch | Ep 1059
00:15:12
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Steve Muth. Steve Muth is the co founder of Zem Life Device. He was the father of Zachary Ernest Muth, from which the company name derives part. Prior to the start of Zem Life, he spent 17 years in the business development, fundraising, finance, hardware and software worlds. This background has given him the wisdom, experience and skills to launch the Zem Life product and company to help save the lives of others. His career has included incredible accomplishments including raising over 1 billion in completed offerings for UPS, Unisys and Continental Airlines and the financing of Frontier Airlines, Good Times Restaurants and other well known companies. Mr. Muth has also worked for the Royal bank of Scotland in the regional sales of banking network with hardware and software. For the last three years he has helped people through devastation as the Executive Director of the board for Palms 23 Foundation. Well, good afternoon Steve. Welcome to the show.
- [01:13]
B
Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm really proud to be on a show like yours.
- [01:18]
A
Well, thank you so much. You're too kind, sir. I appreciate that. I appreciate you making the time too. You're hailing out of Denver currently, I'm about one time zone away in Kansas City. So love that city over there. Steve, we're going to jump right into your first question. Can you share the story behind Zem Life and how your personal journey with your son Zachary inspired the creation of this life saving device?
- [01:41]
B
Absolutely. First, to give you a little background. Zachary was my only child. He was my best friend, he was a partner of mine. I had full custody of him since he was about 6 years old. So I grew up spending quite a bit of time and taking care of him and he was basically my world. Having said that, what happened the night of February 1, 2021? I was upset at him and he was at his home with his friends and he went to sleep and never woke up. Subsequently, it was devastating for me. Found out that Zachary was given a pill that had Fentanyl in it and passed away while he was sleeping. Couple things to note, there were a few friends that passed away from fentanyl, Fentanyl that he knew at CU Colorado University, which is one of many universities that have huge problem with that drug. So we were aware of it and they were always on the lookout for that at parties or whatever. Being a college kid, that's the main catalyst. And when that happened, my life changed dramatically. I no longer felt that I had a purpose. And till a number of strange and Crazy events took place where I developed a technology alongside Dr. Joanna Sawyer to save lives and that we feel could help out people that might have concern of fentanyl. And that's basically what started Zim Life. The it was losing my only child to fentanyl and having now the only desire to save life and stop that pain and devastation from happening to other people. So that's truly our desire with Zem Life and why we created it.
- [03:59]
A
Thank you, Steve. I very sorry for your loss. I know people that have been impacted in the same way. It's certainly an epidemic here and I hope we can get to the bottom of. But as you know, every story here on the podcast, someone is out to solve a problem or they experience a tragic event like yours that led them to turn around and try to bring a solution to a problem or make the world a better place. So I appreciate what you're doing and I know this is going to save countless lives in the future. Steve, the Zem Life device is described as a wearable auto injector for emergencies like overdoses. Can you walk us through how the device works and what makes it different from other emergency response solutions?
- [04:38]
B
Absolutely. First, knowing my son, he would not have worn anything that was bulky and ugly or that had a stigma of some sort of medical device, even if they had concern or fear of fentanyl at these parties or his friends going out to these parties. So the first priority and what makes them different is we believe we're creating something that is used every day for a daily use product. So Zim Life is first a very high quality smartwatch that is attractive for men and women. So it first alleviates any stigma of any kind of medical device or problem with that. The other thing that Zim Life is, besides giving the ability to be a full smartwatch, Zen Life has the capability to snap in micro cartridges. And it's the cartridge that is the decision of the wear to install. Our goal is, and we've determined that there's over a hundred different cartridges that we can create that will automatically distribute medication. But in this situation it would be Narcan cartridge. So the college kids could snap in the Narcan cartridge and what happens is the watch which reads your vitals on a 247 basis. So again, that was the goal, to have something attractive and useful so people constantly keep it on their wrist. And while the watch is reading your vitals, it is notified by the cartridge, the type of medication that is in there and with the code what to look for in the vitals and when the watch hits those parameters that the cartridge automatically injects the life saving Narcan and medication to save that person's life. So that's truly what ZemLife is. It's a smartwatch that incorporates and holds your specific needed medication of concern with an automatic delivery system if you're in need of saving your life. And we found that with these hundred other complications, heart attack, we're in development of a heart attack cartridge, which would be like nitroglycerin. And then there's people that might have anaphylactic shock or they're highly allergic to bee stings or peanuts. You would snap in the epinephrine cartridge. And there's just so many situations that we found that literally with a little medication given at the right moment in time can be life saving. And what's even crazy, we even found out in our world today, which is planned to have a decreasing population by the year 2063, the watch could potentially increased life. Where people have fertility issues and they need certain hormones injected at the right moment, they would snap in that particular cartridge. So the potential life saving capability and the life creating capability is enormous. But that's what ZemLife is. It's a smartwatch that's attractive, that's hopeful to be used first for something that is used daily. That's attractive that people desire to wear first for that daily tool and then second, of course, to be life saving if they run into an emergency need. That's what Zen life is. To elaborate just a little bit more on that, in today's world, everything is becoming automated. You drive a car, we have a car that, you know, drives us without our hands and our feet. Why not automatically saving your life? And that's our belief at Zem Life that truly medication in the medical world is going to grow exponentially with AI and medical automation. Because it's our belief that the person that wears our watch could potentially get a more accurate diagnosis. Because that watch knows who you are instead of dropping with a fentanyl overdose in the middle of a, you know, an emergency room. Because those doctors don't know who you are. And they need to make their investigation go by typical guidelines. Instead, the watch uses your specific chemical makeup and algorithm to inject.
- [10:03]
A
Thank you, Steve. I appreciate that. There's a lot that goes into that. But what I think is pretty cool is there's no stigma here, right? It's a small, stylish smartwatch that anybody can wear and they've got different microcartridges, obviously for college kids, Narcan makes the most sense, but when the vitals hit those certain parameters, it'll automatically inject that appropriate medication, which is going to be life saving. And I think that's amazing. I love the fact that you're bringing in technology again, again to better help the world, but also save lives with automatic delivery systems. And it's only going to get better. I think there's unlimited possibilities here. So thank you. Steve, in building Zim Life, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced, whether in product development, technology, or navigating healthcare regulations?
- [10:46]
B
Good question. The first complication we ran into was dealing with the fda. What we found is that they really have two different sections. They have the drug section and the device section. And with us specifically, we're pretty much a new technology, it's a new industry. It is comprised of both the device and the drug. So we had to learn how to navigate to the FDA and get things approved on that basis. That's one issue. The other issue is, of course, which ails a lot of different small companies, is time and money. We're in the process of doing a couple public offerings. One we plan on very soon, within the next couple of months, and then our goal is to do something very substantial within about a year and a half from now. So that's been quite a bit of work and learning experiences going through that. Even though I have a financial knowledge, I've never been an actual issuer other than that we found that with our technology, most of the technology is already readily available out in the marketplace, so that helps quite a bit. But it's putting it all together to communicate with each other. It's been complicated.
- [12:18]
A
Thank you. I appreciate you sharing some of the challenges there and kind of starting in backwards orders. I like to say here, the technology, you're right. I think a lot of the technology is the one thing that's available now to help you get to the end goal or accelerate your R and D process. Because R and D can be tough, especially if you're building it from the ground up. So that technology is helpful. But gosh, that's kudos to you for getting something approved. The fda, both a device and a drug at the same time. It's hard enough just to get one of those approved. So, again, appreciate all that you went through to get this done. Steve, looking ahead, what are your goals for Zim life in the next few years, and how do you hope the device will change the way society responds to overdose emergencies?
- [12:59]
B
Good question. Well, the very first goal is saving lives. So the day we hear of a person saving their life through one of our devices, we're going to have a big party. We'll even invite you and all your viewers, so stay tuned. But other than that, our hope is to have seven of our cartridges out within the next couple of years. And the seven cartridges we would really like to have out into the market would be a military cartridge, which could help save our military personnel, an animal cartridge that could help save rare animals lives or various animals that are dying off. Then, of course, the Narcan is our flagship. That first, a heart attack cartridge and a fertility cartridge, an anaphylectic shock cartridge and a diabetic cartridge. So that's our big goal, is to get seven different cartridges out to complete a couple public offerings that we plan on doing. Other than that, see that the market is starting to wear medical devices like Zim to save their life, to automatically distribute their medication needed, you know, when they need it. So that's pretty much it.
- [14:26]
A
Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that would be just an amazing milestone. You said, waiting to celebrate a life saved with your device, and I can't wait to see that on the news. That's just amazing, truly. And of course, looking ahead into the future, you mentioned those seven cartridges. Obviously, Narcan was the genesis, the priority here, but you got military animals, cardiac arrests, anaphylactic shock, that sort of thing. I think that's going to be also well received and again, saving a lot of lives here. Steve, it was certainly a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
- [14:59]
B
That sounds great. Thank you so much, Brian. I truly appreciate it.
- [15:03]
A
Bye for now.