S3 EP 37: Flipping the Script on the Nutraceutical Industry with MD Bio CEO Brendan Mullen

Podcast Introduction and Guest Welcome 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to the Eat Pray Faith podcast. [music] I'm Dr. Tracy and today I have a very special guest and I I feel I've become a [music] good friend. I think I talk to you time, Brandon, all the time. >> Yes, we have. >> But uh [music] today we're going to be talking about flipping the script in the neutrautical industry. And we're actually going to talk about a few topics. First, we're going to talk about the observational trial that we ran together with MD Bio, your brand, and how successful that was. I was kind of incredibly impressed with the outcome of your formulas with my clients. >> And then you have a new business that you're going to be talking about at the end of this podcast. So guys, stay tuned because you're not going to want to miss that, especially the wives with husbands with sleep apnea. So please hang on. So Brendan, it's so nice to meet you. Uh I would like you just to give a introduction of yourself and your brand MD bio for our audience, a little bit of background and how did you come to you know being an owner of a brand and trying to change the health industry.

>> Yeah, thanks Tracy. I really appreciate coming on this podcast and speaking to your listeners uh and your following. We, you know, my my background it's it's a it's a convoluted starting in finance and and ending up in consumer health along the journey going through consumer products and and government contracting and all all around but but really honing this concept of of building companies and and it was building companies along the way. I've been a serial entrepreneur for the past roughly 15 years and so building companies in technology, building companies in consumer products again and uh eventually coming into the health and wellness space when I moved I'm originally from Chicago moved to the west coast where it's you can't go anywhere without um the latest trend

MD Bio Origin and Clinical Trial Mission 1:51

coming at you from health and wellness and so uh started picking up clients and from a consulting perspective that way and ending up in the in the cannabis space and really the medicinal cannabis space and seeing what that herb or that plant was actually doing for oncology patients was doing for for some severely uh some severely um uh sick uh individuals and patients. And it it was pretty mind-blowing to see that. Um and as I was transitioning kind of out of some of those those brands or really into that off that space, I met four incredible doctors out of UCLA. Uh and they're the four founders the four real founders of MD Bio. I'm the CEO and have been for 6 years. Uh kind of helping build the vision and create that and and kind of come to life what their what this grand goal was. And and their goal, which was roughly 10 years ago, was when they looked in their their practices again, they see a lot of oncology patients, but they also see just chronically ill patients. Was what supplementation, what neutrutical out there? Because holistic medicine, they wanted to bring that into the UCLA system. They they knew they're they're four Persian doctors and they grew up if they had inflammation it was tumeric that they would take right that their grandmother would make them a tea with tumeric and so they they had that background originally but then were trained in the highest of western medicine right so you you get this really nice dichotomy and so I I love that story I loved I loved who they who they are they're incredible humans but they said look these work but where's the data behind them working because we want to bring them in and So they brought all these supplement companies in and a lot of the data that the supplement companies were talking to them about was sales and marketing data.

This many people reby our product, right? This many people this is how many units we sell per month. Well, that doesn't talk about the efficacy of the product, right? That just says you've got great branding and marketing and you've got a fantastic sales team, right? So their their goal is how do we create pharmaceutical alternatives? How do we get people off of Zulpadime, ambient, Lunesta, um from a sleep perspective? How do we get people off SSRIs um through a holistic way? Um how to do that? If you're going to create a farm alternative, you have to run big pharma studies on natural products. And that was the big vision that that I met them when when it was an idea and then we we that came to life. So over over roughly we've been do I've been doing it for six years but the first three years was building the technology to to bring in large swats of a patient a big patient population to then test them to then uh try different formulations. We created all of our own formulations in pain, sleep and anxiety. And we chose pain, sleep, and anxiety because those are really the three in our opinion and in their opinion the three biggest um the three biggest issues that the general population suffer from. Because if you can if someone can sleep better, if they have less pain, if they have less anxiety, right? You you there's a lot of tertiary, secondary uh ailments and issues that come from that, right? And so if you could go treat that and help help alleviate those symptoms and those those conditions, you you've done the best work. So we we we went for sleep pain and anxiety. We tested lots of different formulations. The majority of them were were worthless, right? The majority we would bring people in and they just weren't effective. And finally, we tested two formulations on each each different indication, sleep pain and anxiety that were really effective for these chronically ill patients. People who had been on uh ambient for a decade, we were able to create protocols for them to finally get off and it was completely life-changing.

That was fantastic. Right. So, we ran these observational trials in house, kind of what we did with you, Tracy, and we'll go over those those results, but that's that was the the nexus of the business is is is testing. It's triing. It's data. It's transparency. It's all the things that we wanted that they wanted in a supplement business that they wanted from, you know, they didn't want to build a supplement business. They wanted to just work with one, right? And when they couldn't find one, it was, well, let's build one, right?

And so that so that's that was and and from there we ran the largest uh clinical trials in US history on on pain, sleep, and anxiety. Over uh just over 4,000 people we've tested uh in double blind randomized clinical trials. So I can go deep in that, but that's the kind of the the story of how we you know where we've we've come from. >> Now I didn't know the history of that with MD Bio and that you have your founders are actually physicians. I was, you know, stalking the website and whatnot and I did see them, but I didn't realize the relevance of who they were. So, it's fascinating because when I met you, you know, one of the things that I said on my video when I was telling people like, "Hey, I just met this brand. We want to do an observational trial." And really, it was to bring validity to the alternative health industry where we're telling people like, "Hey, supplements matter. They count." >> Yeah.

>> First, they have to be quality, right? we have to make sure that what we're taking is actually in the bottle. Uh that it's pure, that it's, you know, there's there's studies with efficacy on it. And you were willing to do all the work. You were like, hey, if you send us your people, we will put them through this trial, we'll give them the product and we'll take the data and we'll bring it back to you. And I was I was kind of blown away because I was like, wow, people people actually did feel better, you know, and a lot of people the majority Yeah. The people that completed the study had massive improvement like significant reduction in pain, significant improvement in sleep, significant improvement in their mood. So I was really impressed and I was really fortunate that you know to be able to do that with you. So really awesome. We we love I mean that's the transparency aspect that that we that we wanted to create from the ethos of the brand right is if we work with a with a pract a wonderful practitioner like yourself Tracy and again everything is modeled off of if you go into this brand is modeled off of if you go into your favorite doctor's office and and what is what are the traits of your favorite doctor right they're empathetic they're knowledgeable right and they're tenacious to figuring out what the what the root cause of your issues are right they listen and they don't push you out the door. That's that's who luckily who our doctors are. And so we grab that ethos and put that in the business. And so so why that's so important is because that last part of that that tenacity of figuring out what is most effective for the patient, everyone is personalized, right? Again, when we run these big studies, and you said the majority had had a positive effect to it, but that's still 58%. Right. In yours, it was higher. um in yours 80% on the sleep side were improved, right? But again, that's a 10-day study and and when we do the big clinicals that are that's the real, you know, concrete bulletproof scientific data, it ends up being 58%.

So, if if one great product can do 58%, well, what about the other 42% of the population, right? They they won't see the effect of this product. And so, how do we find another blend that's effective for them? How do we find the next medication? Cuz when you go into that office with that doctor, what do they do? They give you a medication and they don't say, "See you later. >> Uh, good luck." Right. They say it works. Here's Yeah, exactly. They say, "Here's the treat. Here's the dosing mechanism. Here's how many I think you should take and call me in two weeks. Call my office and let's talk about it.

Is it effective or not? And if it's not effective, let's find the next medication that will be effective for them." So that we we we parallel a lot of that within the business. And so offering these little studies for for you and your your your cohort or your patients, it's actually the same thing you would do if you were if you're doing out pharmaceuticals in your office. And what I mean by that is is if if you're an MD and you have if you have pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical rep comes to you and they have bulletproof data, right? Um that's what the whole FDA approval and and what you go through. You still don't just give it to all of your patients at once. You start by a couple patients. You say this month, you know, someone has, say it's a high blood pressure medication, I'll give it to a couple people and see how that works. A couple, right? And then next month, if that's working, then I'll I'll do a couple more and then let's see which cohorts most effective for. Now, you're kind of doing your own little your own little trials. Every practitioner does their own little trials. And what we said is let let's take the guesswork out of it. We'll just do it for you, right? We'll run these

Observational Trial Results and Practitioner Feedback 10:21

studies for you very quickly, very efficiently so that you can get the data back and and I can give you the data on your your cohort. So again, just mimicking that that doctor office that you wish you your your office probably your clinic is like this, right? But but the majority of Americans don't have doctors that are that uh invested in their health. >> Yeah. Or in outcomes, right? Some some practitioners, >> they just are given the meds. And I always say that the psychiatric and women's health are probably the two most I don't want to say abused, but I'll say it um abused areas of medicine because neither one of them really do a lot of testing before they dose out the pharmaceuticals and they're just hoping for a great result. You know, that can also be said that there's not a lot of research behind what we do. And so, it's because the FDA doesn't really want to look at neutrauticals as drugs. They're not classifi they're actually classified as food, just so people are aware. >> So, there are no FDA trials over all of the neutrautical blends and brands. And especially for a brand, you may use raw ingredients that have some studies on them. that when you put those into a comprehensive formula in order for you to prove efficacy for you to prove not a lot of brands are willing to invest the time in a clinical trial. So the observational was a really good idea because it allowed people to try it to give real time feedback. Like you said it was a smaller segment. It wasn't like the big one that you guys did, but >> yeah, >> for those people that it helped, you changed the lives of in in my particular case, 60some% of the clientele that participated. That's a huge deal. And as a practitioner, it gave me confidence in your product. So for people listening today, the point of this podcast is really to give you some avenues where you can get products that actually have validity behind them, that we together vetted in real time in an observational trial. Uh, and we have real results that we're going to talk about today. And then I would like to go through each product with you just to give us why it works, right? What are the raw ingredients within there that you have found in synergy have worked the best for people and and what you've picked. >> So, let's just kind of run through the data. Um, so just to let everybody know, I think this happened way back in July.

>> Uh, yep. you know, when the sun was shining and people actually felt good, but a lot of people didn't. And I think we had around, I don't know, 70 people that actually clicked the link and opted in to this observational trial that we were doing. And we offered three categories. Um, the MD sleep, the MD calm, and the MD is it MD pain? Correct. >> MD relief is the pain one, correct? >> Yeah. And so what happened was they would opt in and then Brendan's team came in with questionnaires, you know, where's your pain level now? Uh they received a 10day supply of whichever product they picked. So if they had mood, anxiety, or if they couldn't sleep or if they had pain, they received that particular product. And then Brendan's team would actually stay in touch with these people and gather data throughout a period of time. And what was the actual period of time where data was collected because I know there was a few people that started late and >> yeah it end it we try and keep it in a in a nice closed window. Uh but a lot of times there's stragglers coming in and we don't want to not not bring them in and enroll them. Uh so so it ends up being about 30 days that that the whole study takes from from all I think you mentioned it it's you had roughly 75 I think 60% of them ended up completing on average on all three studies. So it takes about it takes about 30 days to get people through all of those you know that study and it is and just to note on the on the study uh design is 10 days is short right 10 days is very short actually to to run a quick study on our on our big clinicals we ran 30-day studies um but 10 days is enough as we know from our clinicals is enough for um the first drop in in symptoms which usually take about 3 days on average on natural products and then it's another 7 days of dosing, titration, titration, getting the right personalization for each consumer so that by the end of the 10th day, we want day seven, 8, 9, and 10 to find the best effect for them, >> right? And and the the number one response we always get from these trials that we run, and we run a lot of these trials, is why isn't it longer, right?

And it's I I was just seeing results. Yeah, I'm just seeing results. Well, that's you know, we're running a business as well. So we want to show you how effective this can be and then and then you know you have the option to come in. So sorry I just want to add that on the on the structure. >> That's great. And I know your team worked with people to adjust dosages which was awesome. So it worked. I'm actually going to bring the study up that you gave me the completed PDF and I'm going to ask just to walk through it for people just so you're aware. We are going to segment out this part of the video and post it so everyone can see it. Uh, but if you want to see the whole study, uh, I'm happy to post the link in the bio. So, this was the MD Sleep Botanical and I'm just going to let you run through these numbers if you don't mind and what you did with the study. >> Yeah. So, again on the study design just to give you guys the full the full breadth of it. So, I I mentioned um we we drop ship the product to them. Uh, we get them going and they they have two options that they can use. So, and we we ask them to do whichever one is most comfortable, but we allow them to one is a subjective. So, every day we ask them to answer just very quickly 20 second questionnaire, which is really five questions, right? On sleep quality, on wakeups, on how they're feeling, right?

Um or they can and they can connect their biometric data. So if they have a wearable, if they're wearing an Apple Watch, a Fitbit, a Garmin, any of them, an Aura Ring, we actually we actually wi with their consent and if they if they connect it to us, we can get their biometric data and show them how much more REM sleep, how much more deep sleep, right? And we can go off of their baseline because when we get that information, we can see before they've taken the the product and then after. So this data that we're receiving is incredibly rich that we we have um and and you see here on this uh uh 43% average reduction. So if you look on the bottom left um or it's just down a little bit uh the average baseline symptom was 8.1 out of 10. So out of 10 on average your your patients that wanted to improve their sleep were an eight roughly an 8.1 out of 10 which that's severe symptoms right that that's that's lots of wakeups that's barely that's uh sleep duration is is very low um within 10 days getting them down 50 43 points to a to a 4.7 on average again that's a nice drop in 10 days right so if you if you can extrapolate that data and continue down off of 30 days and then 60 days. You can kind of see and our clinicals show that too is the longer you're on our products, the better you're doing, right? That's the difference I have to tell you when we talk about flipping the script on on neutrauticals. That's the difference between an effective product and an ineffective product. An ineffective product, you'll still see a big drop. That's the placebo effect. So if you believe in the brand, if you believe in the packaging, if you believe in what you bought into, right, your brain is going to drop uh and your symptoms are going to just are going to vanish for the first couple days, right? And depending on your belief system, it'll stay for a while. And so that's why when people say, "Oh, I tried this and it was effective and then it wasn't effective."

Well, that's your brain actually. That's the placebo effect happening. An effective product keeps those therapeutic results going and then also gets better over time, right? Right. So that's that's kind of the the difference there. But yeah, uh uh 59% completed uh 34 people enrolled or or patients enrolled in this one and 20 completed. Uh and then 80% of participants uh saw symptoms improved in some some capacity. Right. >> Right. So 20 people completed the MD sleep. They took it for all 10 days and 16 out of the 20 people improved. Correct. That's great stats. So, if someone is struggling with sleep right now, there's actual data right here that says, you know, you could have a 43% increase in the quality of your sleep according to this overall >> in in 10 days, which is great, right?

>> In 10 days, right? And and to me that's the beautiful thing of this is is in 10 days if you can and and again the data is not here for this but just an example is if if you wake up six times a night because you're someone who wakes up a lot and that goes down to three that's life-changing right you're not you're not tossing and turning as much that changes that changes everything for you. So so these are these are this a really good snapshot of the beginning of of

MD Sleep Study Outcomes and Product Discussion 19:30

what the therapeutic effect can be on MD sleep. >> Yeah. And some of the testimonials that were on here, my sleep, you know, it's my sleep seemed to gradually improve each night. Another person said as a night shift nurse, so that's usually a big deal for people at work nights, right? She realized that she noticed a difference in her sleep quality when she was able to sleep and duration. And you know, an easy one. I loved how it helped me. So >> this is across the board improvements, you know, and almost for the people that completed 20 of them, 16 out of 20 had improvements. So that's pretty awesome. >> You know, Tracy, we work with a lot of um we work with a lot of uh we work with a lot of CEOs and people who travel a lot, right? And people who travel a lot are moving between time zones, right?

And and for them having something that actually puts them to sleep or they or they're we we actually work with a lot of people who travel internationally a lot and they need to fall asleep on that plane and they need to go to sleep and not feel the side effects of I need to take an ambient when I wake up I'm groggy and I need to be in that meeting tomorrow. Right. And so those are the things that that are fantastic on a natural product is if it can actually get you to sleep you won't get the side effects the next day which is which is what what we see here. >> Absolutely. You can eat all the kale you want, work out every day, 100% organic, but if you're not sleeping, you're not going to feel good. So, we're going to move to the next one. This was the MD calm. So, this was for mood, anxiety. Uh, so I'll let you go over these study results. >> Yeah, this was a fantastic result.

Smaller smaller cohort, right? So, so a lot more uh so the power of the study is lower, but again this mimics a little bit more of our bigger scale trial where we had uh we had roughly 2,000 people in our clinicals. So again, this study is a small snapshot of a bigger one that we've ever run. Uh so 10 people um 10 people finished a 48% uh average reduction in symptoms. So almost 50% of your symptoms are gone right after 10 days. That's that's fantastic. And every single person that completed uh saw symptoms improved.

>> Yeah. 100% symptoms improved. So this was a good one. And you know 70% of the people said I would totally use this product again. So this was kind of an easier because it was like hey everybody felt better. So we felt good about this one. And I'll tell you, let me let me tell you a little bit how we how we made this product, too. Is the design aspect of this product isn't to be, you know, there's a lot of calm products out there that is an alternative to a glass of wine, right, at night, is an alternative to a windown at the end of the night.

We've actually built that MD calm to be taken in the morning so that it so you don't spike cortisol throughout the day. It it's non-drowsy, so it's not going to put you to sleep. Now, if you take it at night, it'll probably help you go to sleep. It does help you go to sleep. It's clinically proven to help you go to sleep better, but that's because you've gone through the whole day, right? And your circadium rhythm, you're at the end of it. So, it is designed, this product is designed to be taken and almost everyone takes it in the morning or in the in the early afternoon again to stop those spikes in anxiety, to stop those spikes in cortisol levels. Um, >> very interesting. So, we're actually gonna I'm going to make you break down all the ingredients in all these products. All right. So MD relief. This was for pain. So I'll let you go through the results snapshot. >> Yeah, this one this one's double the size of the other study. This was more like the sleep study. About 60% uh completed for again that 42 average reduction of uh of symptom severity. So you know your pain actually started a little bit higher on average than 8.4 out of 10. I mean that's that's severe chronic pain. And 8.4 four if you think if your doctor says where are you out of 10 and they say eight that's a severely uh chronic issue and that's a that's a big pain issue. So if you drop by 422 points in just 10 days that that changes your life. Uh and again 90% uh of of participants saw their symptoms improve which was fantastic.

>> Yeah they dropped from 8.4 out of 10 to 4.9 out of 10. So half right. And I mean that's huge. Um, and I actually was talking to one of the people that went through the study, and she's still a client of mine. There were people that are in my care that went through the study and people that aren't. And she is still on this product, and she still loves it, and she said it has helped her tremendously. So, again, this was the MD relief that we're talking about for pain. >> Pain's the hardest one to dial in from a personal perspective. I think pain is the most personal of all of the of the of the indications. And this one, this is really where our health improvement program or our tracking program. So we we we do this with everyone that every bottle we sell. So with every bottle we sell of our products, you actually go through your own mini study. You scan a QR code on the top and and so for 30 days, >> we we run pretty much our own studies on every single consumer that we that buys the product if they opt in to do it. And again, that's all the the wearable data comes into play here. the subjective data comes in, the questionnaires that come into play. And again, that's for our team as well to understand are you getting better or not? Is this effective for you or not? And what we found when we do this at scale with our customers is that it it's the pain one that we that we engage with the most because the the patients again is so personalized, right? And the severity comes and goes in different levels and so it requires more of a a heavy hand from us. So we reach out to our customers. Uh we we track that data. We see that data and if you aren't getting better, if you are if you are flatlining, we actually proactively reach out to you. We help you dose, titrate, think of us as your digital health coach along the way. And we actually do this through text messages or and phone calls. Uh and if it's not effective, again, we have multiple blends that that can be effective. And and when I and before we go into like the ingredient side, I just want to put an example here because this example comes up all the time is someone comes in for a sleep product, right? And and this this actually probably happened in your study as well. They sign up for the sleep product, they buy it or they get it for free in the study and they start going through and it's not it's not that effective for them, right? And so we we call them up after a couple days, 4 days, which is usually our protocol, if they're not getting better, and we say, "Hey, let's let's figure out dosing, titration, maybe some lifestyle changes that might be that might help with this." And after about 10 days, again, in the longer study, if that's not effective, we do a a product swap. And on on sleep, the the biggest product swap we do is between sleep and anxiety. Why? Because those two are so so interconnected with each other, right? Someone thinks they have a sleep issue, but really they have an anxiety cortisol level. And the single question we ask them is when you go to sleep, when you're laying in bed, is it your brain racing or are you are is your brain clear and your body just can't relax and go to bed? And and if you can't stay asleep? If you can't stay asleep, that's sleep, that's a sleep problem. If your mind is clear, but your body just can't fall asleep, that's a sleep problem, right? But if your mind is just racing and you can't get it to stop, that's an anxiety problem. That's a stress problem, right? And so that's why our our uh um MD calm product, our stress product is actually clinically proven to help uh uh sleep >> because again, it stops that brain. It stops the cortisol levels. It stops the racing brain and that puts you to sleep, >> right? And it's important to ask those questions. When I talk about sleep, I'm like, do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? You know, yeah, you go to sleep, do you wake up to use the bathroom? Do you sleep through the night? So, it does make a difference.

So, I love that you guys have thought that through. So, let's just get into the products a little bit, just kind of high level. You said the sleep formula was kind of put together differently. So, why don't you give us a little bit of insight on that? Um, what are the key ingredients and why do you feel they work so well in synergy? >> Yeah, I mean, we have two different blends on the on the products, right? And so, we've got a a full spectrum hemp blend, and I I'll go into a little bit of detail of why we did that, and we have a non-hemp blend, just a botanical blend as well. both in both both in studies are are incredibly effective. One not more than the other. Um it's again it's a personalized it's personal, right? Uh and so some we we do find that we swap a lot. Some people will start with the hemp blend. It's not that effective. We give them botanical and it is and it goes back to 58% of people right on this product will find it effective. What about the other 42?

You've got to have something else for them. So what we put in the the hemp product, the first blend is is fullsp spectrum hemp and then we put in GABA, althanine, uh valyan and hops. And so different modalities within the body, right? Different different pathways, I guess, within the body that we're trying to uh trying to push with you or trying to treat and and um and help out and

MD Calm and MD Relief Study Results 28:27

strengthen. The full spectrum hemp is a homeostasis, right? If you if you know your your patients know about hemp, the whole concept is the endockinabonoid system, which is that like little tiny we consider it um instead of pulling one big lever, it's pushing a lot of little buttons, right? It's keeping all of the little things working on the cellular level and in the systems level. So that's again, you know, your your all of the sleeping functions as well. It supports that. The hops, the hops and the valyan uh is more of a a physical, right? Hops is a good example. Hops is in beer. There's a reason why after you have a beer, you get sleepy. Part of it's the alcohol, but also part of it is the hops in it. Uh there's a really funny anecdote is in manufacturing, uh when people are manufacturing a hop supplement, they can only do it for so long and they fall asleep at the table because it is so effective, right?

Um >> I want that job. Can I have that job? Yeah, that's why I apply. >> Yeah. a lot of there's a lot of coffee being drank at that job uh to stay awake. Um and then and then GABA, you know, GABA is something that we naturally produce in our bodies and so that's strengthening that. Um and it's it's clinic proven that uh Valyrian uh GABA and altheanine together are more effective in combination than they are apart. Right? So so when I when we think of our our hemp blend, it's it's a very core product. It's a blend again. Um, and in no way do we consider ourselves a hemp company or even a cannabis company like that. That is to us hemp is just as effective. Fullsp spectrum hemp is just as effective as the GABA. We we we don't weight it anymore. And in fact, in our clinicals, this is actually what blew us away from a science perspective is we assumed when we first crafted these these products that the fullsp spectrum hemp would be the the most therapeutic ingredient. So, one of our products had more uh hemp, less botanicals. The other one had more botanicals, less hemp. The one with more more hemp wasn't better than a placebo pill. It didn't beat placebo. The other one was was what we have today on the market, which is very effective and was clinically proven. So, what we liked about that, >> you found the one with the more botanicals was more effective. >> Exactly. Which then enlightened us to then create the botanical only product. Right.

>> Right. Interesting. Yeah. >> Because we found that it was the botanicals that was the the driving the therapeutic factor and and our results are actually published in a peer-reviewed uh science journal called nutrients. And it's that concept that that was published. This concept of the botanicals is actually the the the driving factor which >> throws on its head an entire industry of hemp and CBD and CBC and all of those. It kind of it adds to that story. So, we're happy to add to that story without, you know, poo pooing any of what's come before it.

>> And I think that's what happened in our industry, too, right? When CBD hit the market, even if it was just, you know, full spectrum hemp, everybody wanted it. And it was the magic pill for everything. >> It was everywhere. >> And while it has its massive benefits, you know, things aren't meant to be taken alone. I mean, even the entire earth works in synergy from one plant to another. So to think that we could just take one thing, you know, it would work for a while like you said, maybe the placebo effect, maybe you did have a deficiency in the endockinabonoid system, but once that was filled, that might have not been the root cause of whatever issue you were having was that particular deficiency. So that's kind of how I explained it to my people cuz everybody and their grandfather wanted hemp. Now you can find it in gas stations. So again, we're going back to the quality. Make sure you get it from a trusted source like your practitioner. That's really important because they're going to select quality brands such as yours uh to distribute and have available for their patients. So, >> and and and look, we we we think about this and I don't want to get too deep in this because it can get so scientific on this side, but I I think what what really excites us when we learn about this is, you know, there there's also this concept between isolates, right, and full spectrum. So you can get a CBD isolate and that's that's what that's what was the craze was the isolate side. But when we were talking to really he's the the world the foremost uh researcher in all plant medicine. His name is Dr.

DD Mary out of the Institute of Technneon in Israel in Tel Aviv and he he has the the most rich data on all hemp and cannabis in the in the in the world that at his fingertips and what he found was he was able to subset populations put everyone through the same massive trials 10,000 20,000 people in these trials but give them slightly different uh chains of phytoinabonoids. Some had CBD in them, some had CBC in them. But what he found was the most therapeutic phytoinabonoid usually isn't the majors that we know. It's the ones that we actually don't know. So his his theory is full spectrum and this is in all plant medicine is actually more effective always than an isolate can be because there's so many more chemicals and we just don't know how the human body picks all of that up. It's just impossible to know how 180 phytochemicals react to every single symptom in the body. So >> we go back to we're not going to really get the studies on it as much as we would like. So you know I agree I like the full spectrum more than the isolate. And you know just for the reasons you were saying the endockinabonoid system as small and intricate as it is it's kind of like the tree of life of the body. So it has many different you know canabonoid receptor sites and we don't know which one you have a deficiency in.

So making sure you fulfill them all is good. >> Correct. >> So your botanical little bit different with the MD sleep. Tell us a little bit that. >> So that we we took the primaries which the primaries again if you take out the the full spectrum hemp is is the GABA the alenine. We boosted those up obviously. Um the hops and valyan we boosted those up as well. But then we added just some more botanicals that we know are effective individually uh through clinical trials. not that we ran but but others have run on the on uh on each ingredient. So, lemon balm extract and um we had passion flour, chamomile, 5HTP. So, again, we're just boosting up this the botanical side of the product.

And again, based on our research, it's showing us that the botanical is the side to boost up, right? And and so that's that's what we did on on that product is take all the the powerhouse ingredients that we had in the first blend and just just help uh um help with a few other ones, right? To to and the other side is we built a complex and and so what our what our formulators did really eloquently is they tried to mimic the biotarpen in >> Yeah, I saw >> in hemp, right? So there there's this this concept which is kind of vague to think about but it's called a lock and a key system right for hemp the turppen uh are the they help unlock right and allow your receptors to take in the endockinabonoids that's what tarpen uh allow that to do. So, we took that same concept and said, let's build out a tarpine complex that mimics the endockinabonoid system that mimics what's in a hemp plant and put that into our our um our our product, but it has nothing to do with hemp, right? There's no hemp in there. There's nothing um from that from that plant.

>> So, they have a choice. It's awesome. >> You have a choice. >> Yeah. Well, that's a it's really a unique formula and I love how you kind of were saying like it's not at an at night formula. You can take it through the day so that your body has the right circadian rhythms, you know, responding. So, >> and and that's the that's the calm product. The calm product you for sure can take during the day. The sleep product, don't take it during the day. >> Don't take it during the day. Don't offer. >> Exactly. That is a drowsy. We are trying to put you to sleep. All right. >> Yeah.

>> You're going to send me a bottle of that for my husband. Right. Yeah. >> Of course. [laughter] >> Well, let's do the um the MD pain, the MD relief product. Yeah, >> was looking through and there was some of the I mean obviously turmeric and you know again you did the biotarpine complex again probably for a different pathway but you're still utilizing that in the botanical but what is the I don't even know how to say this one ingredient. How do you pronounce the Jerry? >> Go ahead. >> You go ahead and try that one. We just call it GG oil. >> Oh, okay. So you don't know either.

That's okay. As long as neither one of us pronounce >> it's uh it's there's there's probably 15 letters in that word. Uh I I'll >> Yeah, we'll >> let that go. It's it's it's it's the shortand is GG oil or GG gold. Um, and that's a brand that's a branded product or a branded ingredient because they've run largecale uh uh clinicals on that

Ingredient Breakdown and Formulation Strategy 37:30

raw ingredient >> and prove that um in their own in their own uh clinicals that they were able to decrease uh general pain. And so what we want to do is say look here let's boost all this up with a with a single ingredient that has its own clinicals and and again boost uh boost everything else we're doing with the white willow bark that everyone knows of right the turmeric that everyone knows of and really bring in another ingredient that's that's well documented newer it's definitely a newer ingredient but it's it's it's at this point becoming well documented to be effective for for general pain. >> So that's why we added that that ingredient in there. Um and then of course we we built complexes on top of that. So a full relief complex as you can see with with poppy uh poppy seed extract. Um so >> yeah and the GG gold I mean it it does more than just I mean replenishes CoQ10 K12 skele muscle proteins >> looks like a natural pain reliever such as the white willow extract um and works like aspirin to reduce inflammation. So, I can't tell you how many people still are taking aspirin and I'm like, you know, but it's a it's an amazing combination. And then >> I'll tell you the the the the the primary person that uses this product that we see very effectively. There there's actually a lot of women's health that uses endometriosis. We we we see anecdotally a lot of women that have endometriosis try our product. I was at a conference uh last year and this practitioner, she she she said, "This is a fantastic company, but I have to go." um I'm in pain and hopefully I'll be able to come back tomorrow to the conference. We said, well, just try our product, right? And she's tried everything, comes back 20 minutes later and says, I'm staying because I took your product and my endometriosis pain has has alleviated, which was fantastic. Um but we we see that time and again, but the um rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis patients, right, we actually see that a lot. So even my parents are on this for arthritis. Our doctor's parents are on this for arthritis and aches and joint pain. So there there's a lot of um older population that has that chronic pain are using this this uh this product very effectively. >> Wow.

Well, very awesome. I love it. And then and by the way, if anyone sees these products, the packaging is beautiful. So those are little things. I like how they look on my shelf. All right, let's talk about the the final product. Um, your MD calm and what ingredients you have in there. Right now, we're talking about the botanicals, but assuming, you know, we can go back and talk about the hemp product too for people that want that, but >> like it has some, you know, pretty well-known >> Yeah. >> calming nutrients, magnesium, ashwagandha, rishi mushrooms, and then there's a calm complex and also the biotarpine complex. So, why don't you go through this formulation and let us know what the magic is here? >> Yeah. Look, I I think before going to like the raw ingredients, what I want to say is the the studies that we ran, it's not that you'll look at our our our ingredients, say, "Oh my god, what this is a new ingredient I've never seen before." Maybe the GG Gold, but but almost everything is is, you know, [laughter] >> Exactly. everything else is kind of known especially to to you know the functional space that they you know people look at this product and they say I've t I take magnesium every day right um or I take ashwagandha every day so this so but it's it's again it's in the study of we tried a lot of formulations with all of these and it's the blend ratios so what makes an a blend effective and non-effective is just ratios and how you build those ratios out right because again all the ones that failed had the same ingredient list, right? But the ratios were wrong. So that's the kind of scientific work that has to be done on a blend. Um that again becomes costly and timely and we invested time, money and effort into that but but doesn't get done very often. Uh so yeah, so the rishi mushroom, the mint, the lavender, the magnesium, the ashwagandha. Um those are kind of the primaries that we run with on the sleep side. >> Yeah.

>> Or sorry, the the the calm side. >> On the calm side. And then how do you recommend? Let's just go back through the formulas. What about the MD relief? How do you recommend that product is taken? And then just go down the list. >> We we usually say almost on all of our products, we say start with two, two to three depending on severity, symptoms. We're actually coming out with something really exciting here in the next uh four weeks, which is predictive modeling. uh as as a company that has probably some of the most rich data in the entire supplement space on on outcome data and demographic data, we've been able to create uh help tech allow us to predict what's effective for you.

So Tracy, you know, in a couple weeks, I don't know if I'm uh >> ready to talk about it yet. >> Yeah. But but we're we >> don't say it. You know, my people, they're going to be calling your office. [laughter] But it's it's it's the whole concept here again is is take the guesswork out of it because we have the data to support that. So how many you should take, right? Which blend you should take and when they'll become effective for you, when you'll see optimal optimal changes in your therapeutic levels that can be predicted based on the large scale data we've run. Again, when you run the largest in history on pain, sleep, and anxiety. If you take that data and you analyze it in a very smart way, uh you can create these predictive models for people. again, never seen before in the supplement space, but neither has the size of these trials, right? Never neither has seen the investment done in each one of these blends. So, we're doing some really cool things from a data perspective that will just help every consumer personalize this journey. And again, I go back to the doctor's office. Your favorite doctor is going to personalize the journey for you, right? And that's what we want to do. We want to personalize that at scale and and hopefully be able to successfully show other companies how to do personalization at scale on a consumer therapeutic product. >> Well, this is going to be amazing because that takes a lot of guesswork out of everything. And you know, that's one of the things that people will say is they want to make sure that what they're purchasing is going to be effective and then they're always come back to well, how much do I take and how long do I take it? So, if you have that predictive modeling that takes a lot of guesswork and puts confidence into your product. So this is big stuff. I don't know if people listening are really grasping like how impactful this is, what you have done with your trials and all of the things that you're coming out with, but as a practitioner, it gives me confidence in your product. As a consumer, this should really give them confidence in your product that you have actually taken the extra time, financial investment, and put this out there so that consumers can feel that what they're getting from you is safe and effective. Like it's probably the first time that we can actually use those two words together and actually >> yeah [laughter] it it there's the concept of radical transparency.

>> Yeah. >> Right. Rad radical transparency is let me show you this data and you we just we just showed your data. Right. And in no way do we say 100% of people found this effective. In no way do we say 100% of people uh it went from an eight to a one. Right? Because that's not real real life. That's not real world. Right? anyone who who says that that's marketing claims and whatever this is real science, right? And so I love learning from our failures, but I love kind of educating also on it's going to take time. And so that's part of the predictive model that I love too is take our product versus maybe any other is if I can tell you in seven days you're going to start seeing a 60% drop in your symptoms and by day 35 you'll see optimal and if I'm right that the trust there is is so strong opposed to I've taken this for 3 days I don't see anything changing so I'm going to throw the whole bottle away. that's kind of the industry we're in, right? And so to be able to give a give a um road map, a therapeutic road map off the off the jump, I think that's that's where the impactful piece comes for us. >> Yep. Love it. Well, we're going to give people listening the opportunity to go through this again. And please apologize to your team because the last time we did this there was a lot of people. Um, >> yeah. >> So, there's going to be a link in the show notes where you as a consumer, if you have pain, any type of anxiety, and or sleep issues, can opt in to a 10day product give to you and into this observational trial that's going to be completely run by Brendan's team over at MD Bio. So, please expect to participate uh to answer the questions that they send out to you. It's really important that they get data so that they can help

Sleep Corner Telehealth Platform Launch 46:30

you and just to have an open mind over this whole thing. So, I appreciate that. And so, that's our offer out of this podcast today. But, there's one more thing that we promised everybody that you're going to share with us. And I'm kind of really excited that you know, you're kind of uh out there doing this. I have people in mind already to send to you, including my own family members. So, give us a little insight of what's coming. >> Yeah. So, so when we we've we've distilled all of this down into to sleep, right? And sleep, as we we've kind of talked a little bit on this podcast so far, is it's so complex. And to solve to really solve sleep, even if you've got a clinically proven safe farm alternative supplement, uh again, only 58% of people see it effective. But you you could take even if it is effective for you, it doesn't solve the whole problem with sleep, right? We we look at sleep at MD Bio three different big buckets. There's sleep quality, there's insomnia, and then there's airway health. And if you don't solve all three, you're really not solving someone's sleep problem. Right? So again, even if this is effective for me, but I snore, I stop breathing, which is sleep apnea, right? Your body's going to you're you're you're not breathing. So your body's waking you up throughout the night, right? And so, so this could be working effectively very well for you, but your body's waking up for from an airway health perspective. And so that's what we we designed. And so we built a whole tea health platform now. And it's called uh sleep corner. And so sleep corner is really a sleep clinic in a box. And what comes with this is uh two consultations with a board-certified sleep physician. There's a to put some stats here. It's it's kind of crazy. The reason why sleep hasn't really been solved is from a from a western medical perspective, there's 90 million adult Americans who suffer from insomnia or a sleep disorder. >> There's only 7,500 licensed sleep physicians in the United States. >> Wow.

>> So that ratio >> them >> exact you'll never be able to solve it. Right. So what we decided is like look what what can solve this is awareness and tellahalth. So you don't and and making the making the whole process uh uh boiling it down from what can take six months to go through a sleep study, seeing the specialist, seeing your GP eventually if uh um if you want to go get a oral appliance to solve your sleep apnea, you then have to go to a dentist. You have to walk yourself through all of these. And so you can imagine why 90% of people fall off, right? But with a sleep sleep corner, which is a sleep clinic in a box, it's all done from your home.

It's all done within 10 days. and it's it's solved for uh uh pennies on the dollar of what what that would cost. So between deductibles, co-pays, seeing seeing uh um specialists, it can cost thousands of dollars even if you have insurance to go through that. So for our test, it's 219 and it's tellahalth. So we ship you a box. Uh in that box comes a two consultations with a board-certified sleep physician. You get your pre-conult which is your uh meeting the physician making sure that you are a good candidate. Um again if your husband, your bed partner, your wife snores, uh is tired throughout the day, that's a very good indication that they might have sleep apnea, right? So that's a very baseline easy way to to tell. And then in there also comes a home sleep test. So you you go you see our doctor, they prescribe you the sleep test which you already have in hand. You then take it. It's a one night test with our partners over at Zo uh with the Watch Pad 1. It's a simple device that looks like a watch. There's a pulse ox that gets put on your finger and a little node on that you just put on your chest to to detect movement of your body. With that one night test, we can diagnose you with sleep apnnea. So, it's a medical diagnosis and screening tool. You then get a postconultation with that same physician to walk you through the results to tell you exactly what happened that night, whether you have sleep apnea or not, how severe that sleep apnea is, and then what your treatment modality is or your treatment options. So for for sleep apnea, there's there's four cleared, but there's really three we offer. One is an implant. We don't offer the Inspire implant, but we do offer a CPAP, which everyone knows. Um, it's kind of the traditional partially. CPAP is the reason why people don't solve sleep apnea because everyone doesn't want to sleep with a hose on their mouth, right? But what most people don't know is that oral appliances. There's something called a mandibular advancement uh device, MAD. It's an oral appliance that pushes your bottom chin forward and opens your airway. >> That's [clears throat] FDA approved to to solve sleep apnea as well. That's a much uh less invasive thing for someone to wear. You can take it on the go. Uh the third is of 2024 because uh uh BMI and weight and sleep apnea are directly correlated, right?

The the higher BMI, the more likely you you have sleep apnea. So GLPS are also FDA cleared for as a treatment for sleep apnnea. So we also provide that. So our physician will give you the options. We then provide those as well as because you're a you're a poor sleeper, you can also opt into supplementation and everything we talked about for the first 50 minutes of this podcast, which is personalize on sleep quality, insomnia, which is what we do at MD Bio really well and have done for 5 years. So, this adds that last component so that we can holistically solve sleep completely again within 10 days opposed to months and months and again for 219 opposed to, you know, thousands of dollars seeing all of these specialists. So everything is included in that 219.

>> Correct. Outside of the treatment because we we don't know what your treatment might be. Like all of the diagnosis, the the testing, seeing the physicians, walking through the personalization, that's all 219. >> Incredible. You just put those poor 7,500 doctors out of business. Good job. [laughter] >> A lot of actually a lot of them >> tell a lot of them actually sell sleep corner now. >> Oh, good. >> Because for them getting through this is the hardest part, >> right? and then the treatment modalities they work on with the patient. So we we we work hand in hand with them pulmonologists.

>> Well, that's amazing. Congratulations. I love kind of where this all migrated to. You really are flipping the script on the neutrutical industry. Like you just didn't stay with the brand. You went with the study. You went with validity. you proved out everything that you're saying and now you're extending it into a teleaalth service to solve probably the major issue of our society. You know, probably next to undiagnosed or or mistreated, right, with the wrong medication, mood disorders, >> you know, sleep, anxiety, pain, top three that most people either have claims on their insurance for or on medications for. So, thanks so much for everything you're doing for our side, which we love. Uh, any final words you want to leave with our consumers who are listening? >> I think that's it. I I think that the one piece is just it can it can feel I think what we we know when we talk to our customers is treatments feel scary going through this is you've tried everything. You've done everything. That's that's the number one thing. I mean, one in three people have a sleep sleep issue, right? So, everyone knows someone, if not yourself, that has a sleep issue. And it's just been such a broken system along the way. And so, all we're trying to do is simplify that, make it very easy to say, look, this product is is effective and safe and works, and this is how you go get a diagnosis, and we can we can finally

Closing Remarks and Listener Call to Action 54:00

solve sleep in a very easy way. So, um, that's our message. That's what we try to do, and and that's what we've invested a lot of money and time into doing is to make just a better patient experience and a simple, you know, simple fast track. >> Love it. So, this the links to everything we talked about today are going to be in the show notes. Make sure that you go opt in if you want to do the 10day trial. If you know somebody, if you're like me and you're beating your husband through the night, [laughter] saying you're not breathing, wake up. They need sleep corner. [laughter] So, you've gained a new patient today, Brendan. [music] Thank you for your time. Thank you everyone for us here at this podcast. And if you found it beneficial, don't forget to subscribe, give us a like, and [music] make sure you send it to somebody who it can benefit. God bless.

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