Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Nicoletta Pedrana
So, good morning.
As you just heard, I am back from the United States
and they basically called me to tell you a story,
which is my personal story, but can also become the story of many.
Let's take it easy and start a while ago, when I was 13.
Unfortunately, at that age, my aunt, who for me was a grandmother,
had a stroke,
my mother, very bravely, decided to take her home.
This lady could no longer speak nor move.
All the family, in a sense, converged around this event,
and for seven years we've been supporting this aunt.
Let's just say that maybe, in those seven years,
the idea of being a doctor grew on me.
I don't know, maybe I always had it in, maybe it dawned in that period,
and then I started,
I entered the Faculty of Medicine and I started to study Medicine.
While I was studying Medicine, I wanted to put my feet on the ground,
so I decided to volunteer with the Red Cross,
one of the many associations that allow you to do so,
and I started to go with the ambulance across the city of Modena,
trying to practice what I learned at the University.
Then, finally, I graduated.
In this picture is also Valerio, a dear friend of mine
and he's too no longer a doctor.
Maybe there was something wrong, with that course in Medicine...
But he made a much higher choice than mine.
Well, I decide to study resuscitation anesthesia:
the ambulance, the emergency, flowed in my veins
and so I decide to specialize in anesthesia,
and I certainly realize that there is a problem:
brain damage, basically, although many years had passed,
still left many patients severely impaired in their neuronal functions,
despite the existence of therapies
that were developed over the years and are still very effective:
just think about the "stroke unit",
where they reopen the brain’s clogged vessels.
At this point, let's pause my story for a short medical interlude.
What's our problem?
Consider this: every seven seconds,
somewhere in the world a person suffers from acute brain damage.
They are, so to speak, the consequence
of stroke, heart failure and head trauma.
It is one of the major problems in emergency medicine,
because the problem with the brain is that every loss is irreversible,
we are still not able to regenerate it.
So the point is, we need to intervene as soon as possible
to slow down this inexorable loss of neurons,
and that's where we’re a bit clumpsy.
Just think that in Europe and the United States,
and also in Japan,
which shares with us a little of our own risk factors,
there are five million patients
suffering every year from acute brain damage.
It is the first cause of permanent disability
and over 50 years, the second cause of death.
Everybody thinks about other diseases, but no: unfortunately, it is brain damage.
And mind you, the costs are staggering:
$ 330 billion every year,
this is an estimate of the World Health Organization,
to take care of these patients.
Americans are better at this,
as they keep a detailed record of the expenses generated by a patient.
The first hospitalization alone, for a patient with brain damage,
costs on average $15,000.
And if this patient survives,
yearly costs are estimated to be $20,000
among examinations, treatment, but also lack of ability to work,
because there are young people,
or maybe people who are 60, who were working and no longer will.
Other studies say
that if you live with a person suffering from brain damage,
or otherwise disabled,
one of his family members must lose his job,
or significantly reduce his job,
to take care of thim.
So you understand, this is a global problem,
one that puts at stake the survival of health systems.
All right, let's close this little parenthesis
and get back to history.
It's 2012,
I finished my specialization and instantly had a dream job:
research grant with the University, in the field of resuscitation.
Perfectly set up.
I was supposed to start on May 21th; on May 20th, the earthquake struck.
So probably the world did not end in 2012, but surely it has changed for me.
Then, as it wasn’t enough, it also strikes on the 29th,
with very serious damage,
especially in the northern part of the province of Modena,
which is where Mirandola is.
I was back then at the Policlinico di Modena.
Obviously Modena was also affected,
the Policlinico too underwent internal restructuring,
and my job prospects suddenly became less secure.
So at this point, uncertain as I was,
I focused on new ideas.
After all, I was my own customer, wasn’t I?
I was a doctor,
I had an experience with ambulance,
and I had asked myself, while in an ambulance :
"Why is there nothing to help brain damage patients,
on their way from the ambulance to the hospital?"
And, so I begin to think about this idea,
which is the one that then led me to run my startup.
So, this is a bit of a story, no?
So, I was a doctor and I was looking for a solution to this problem,
I was working with this type of patients.
So I say,
why not bring a well known strategy of brain protection,
namely hypothermia - which reduces body temperature -
to slow down the death of neurons outside the hospital?
It was already done in hospital, I did not invent it nor discover it.
I don't want to steal other people’s merits.
I just said: "let's try to bring it out of the hospital".
And then, I start working on this solution and also filed a patent application,
because a friend of my father, who was a university professor, told me:
"If you're really convinced of this idea, why don't you file a patent application?"
I said: " Why not?"
And so I did.
Meanwhile, I still had my job at the University
and I was looking for funds for my research,
that I was conducting
with some brilliant, young neuroscientists of the University of Modena.
While looking for these funds, I meet a “mysterious stranger”,
that is, a gentleman I went to to ask, precisely, for funds for research
that tells me: "Actually your idea, aside of the patent-related research,
could have a business potential".
"Would you like to present it to an investment fund?", he insists.
I did not even know what an investment fund was,
but I said, again: "Why not, what can go wrong?".
He says: "look, it will be very difficult."
I did my presentation.
Two frightening months of silence later,
I had almost forgot about it -
a phone call arrived:
"Mr.Giuliani, we liked your idea.
Would you like to come and present it to us?"
And I showcased it.
They said: "yes, your idea is very interesting -
but you are alone.
One man shows do not work,
so we offer you a chance;
a so-called "acceleration course",
where we will introduce you to people who have different skills from yours
and will help you build a feasible project around your idea".
And so, I started this acceleration program.
Meanwhile I had found another job in the hospital,
I had come to work in Reggio, which has a beautiful hospital.
But the acceleration program was very, very intensive,
and so I made a choice.
I said: "In life, one should have no regrets".
So I said, if I have to do this thing, this entrepreneurial project,
let's do it by dedicating ourselves 100%.
So I decide to quit my job, and dedicate myself to my program.
And I started Neuron Guard, which is my startup,
mine with my partner Mary who is the next piece of the puzzle,
because during this acceleration program
I met many people who helped me, and especially Mary.
Mary gor a degree in BE at Bocconi University,
a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Strategy from Bocconi,
she managed rehabilitation centres,
she was more focused on what came next, after this issue of brain damage.
Plus, of course, she has economic skills I lack.
And with Mary we jumped in the void: we decide to do our own startup.
It's the idea of a cooling collar that, by cooling the neck,
cools the blood that goes to the brain, and therefore, cools the brain.
And our key message is that of onsite early treatment,
because the sooner we take action, the more we can limit brain damage.
From there on, with the help of Modena-based Democenter incubator,
we found a location in a container
left there in Mirandola, after the earthquake,
so the earthquake came back, whether it wanted it or not,
and that is our head office -
painted in green, because it was a laboratory analysis,
when the hospital had problems.
We also went to the United States,
after the accelerations program, and now.
But what I like to say is, my Silicon Valley is Modena,
because I found in Modena
a fabric of entrepreneurs, institutions
that supported me
and gave me what, perhaps, I would not have found elsewhere:
a willingness and a readiness to act
that have allowed me, as a doctor,
to make this leap towards entrepreneurship.
And I wrap up with what is now the motto of Neuron Guard:
"Time is Brain. Freeze it!"
(Applause)