Founders Spotlight – DiaTech Diabetic Technologies Inc.

July 24, 2019

Andre Fowlkes

Tallahassee Takeover in Memphis: Founder’s Spotlight with DiaTech Diabetic Technologies Inc.

JC, John, Nick, and Luis, the four cofounders of DiaTech Diabetic Technologies Inc., came together during their undergraduate years at Florida State University. At the age of nine, CEO John Wilcox was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. His personal connection to diabetes encouraged him to look for innovative ways to modernize and progress diabetes technology. As his research into perfecting insulin delivery grew, so did the team.

Introduced by a mutual advisor, the four Seminoles together imagined and engineered SmartFusion, a sensor based device for insulin pumps that monitors, diagnoses, and predicts irregularities and problems in insulin delivery. SmartFusion helps resolve common injection problems such as leakage, blockage, and dislodgement, and will help reduce the almost $430 million in loss from failed injections.

Recently we sat down with John Wilcox, CEO, JC Gray, CSO, and Nick Cooper, COO. We had a lengthy discussion about how the four of them came together, the rise of innovation in the Southeast, their new life in Memphis, and on their time with Start Co.

Luis, DiaTech’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer) is a remote team member, currently working full time for Johnson and Johnson in the cardiac division. Not only is his professional experience an asset to the team, all three members categorized him as a productive, active, and vocal member of the team, involved in every step of operations. His co-founders could not speak more highly of him.

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Liza: Please tell me about yourselves. How did y’all get to this point?

JC: I was born in Tallahassee, Florida. That’s where I’ve grown up and lived until a couple of months ago when I moved to Memphis. I started Community College at 18 and spent the first three years just figuring out what I wanted to do. I went from wanting to edit, write, and go to film school to actually becoming more interested in a STEM career. My expressiveness comes from a desire to inquire more about things and I realized that really lends itself well to being a scientist. So I started to pursue biomedical engineering. It wasn’t until after graduating in 2017 that a mutual advisor, Caesar Rodriguez, told me three students were working on something I would find interesting. I joined on, learned about the team and mission and that’s been the origin of me coming into DiaTech. Two years later, here we are.

Nick: I was born and raised in Tampa, FL. I lived in Tampa for most of my life until I went to Tallahassee for FSU. We all went to FSU. I knew going out of high school I wanted to be a biomedical engineer. I thought that it made the best sense because I’d have the most influence on patients by creating medical devices. I started doing more research on synthetic biology in my senior year with Caesar Rodriguez. Being a part of this team, I realized the benefit that I and the rest of the team can provide to diabetes technology. We started gaining traction, winning competitions, and receiving grant funding, so that eventually led us to think “people want this and see the worth in what we’re doing.”

John: I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was nine and since then I’ve had a fascination with medical technology, therapeutics, patient care, and medicine. Growing up through adolescence, high school, and college, I revolved around the field of diabetes. After my freshman year, I started my own research project and it was related to issues that I was seeing in the clinic, as well as experiencing on my own and from previous background research that involved solving the issue of malfunctioning insulin pump injection sites. I too worked for Caesar Rodriguez, where I met my co-founders. In the Spring of 2018, we competed in the InNOLEvation challenge at FSU. We placed in the competition, but to accept the prize money we had to formally create a company. It’s been a year since that date and it’s been awesome so far.

Liza: How was DiaTech introduced to Start Co. and Zeroto510?

John: We were initially introduced by a group called the Entangled Group, they have an incubator with a technology education program that is based in certain Universities across the country. We were one of the more prominent entrepreneurial ventures to come out of FSU at the time, so they visited Tallahassee and we had a good conversation with them over lunch about all the resources that existed. They specifically mentioned two programs in Tennessee, one being Zeroto510. And it was a really good match; we had just figured out where we wanted to go as a company, we needed funding, and we also needed curriculum and organization. Chris [West] is from Thomasville, FL, 30 minutes north of Tallahassee and was really excited to see a startup coming out of the panhandle, which is pretty dry of innovation, especially medical device.

Liza: What has surprised you about Start Co and/or Zeroto510?

JC: What surprised me was just how interconnected it was. It’s a one stop shop for getting mentorship in everything you need.

Nick: The ability to interact with high profile people during office hours.

John: Accountability. Pushing the needles towards progress and success.

Liza: If there’s one thing that someone who has never been to Memphis should know about the city… what would that be?

JC: Memphis is an old city. When there’s a certain historical backing to communities, there’s a richness that comes with it. Looking at how much investment is happening today in Memphis, I think really highlights that if you’re looking for a culture, community, or opportunity it’s here. The United States is so much more vast than those geographically limited and dense places. The U.S. is more that that and the Southeast is staking its claim as being different and just as viable.

Nick: I didn’t know too much about where Memphis is located and I think the location in Memphis, being next to multiple states, and also in relation to the West and East coasts, it’s geographical location has helped it and will help it even further.

John: The thing I respect the most about Memphis is the interconnectivity between community members. If you’re very proactive, respectful, and seizing all the opportunity you can the right way, people recognize that and propagate you throughout the community. The first three weeks of the program we came and were immediately meeting people within the medical device community, solely based off the fact that we’re a part of Start Co. It’s just like “Oh you’re with Eric or Andre or Ryan or Chris,” that’s enough for us to give you our time and attention.

Liza: It’s the day after Demo Day, where are you and what are you doing?

John: We’re going to be in the office, navigating all our contacts, setting up follow ups. We’ll be at Start Co. the next day.

Nick: I’m sure we’ll take time to unwind but it’s a transition period. You quickly break to reflect on the last one hundred days and move onto the next one hundred days.

JC: We are going to make a trip back home to Tallahassee to debrief; to look back on what Memphis was like and then talk about next steps.

Liza: Is there anyone at Start Co. or Zeroto510 you’d like to highlight for their efforts contributing to your business and personal development this summer?

JC: Both Chris and Danielle are our go-to for putting our feet to the fire and making ourselves ask hard questions. They’re great program leaders, huge shout-out to them.

Nick: I’ve had a lot more personal conversations Ryan, especially since he went through Start Co.’s program himself. He’s very easy to talk to and gives a good rundown. In general, Start Co. is very welcoming and the staff wants us to succeed and we see that. They’re a resource and they’re friends. We want to thank everybody for that.

John: It’s hard to pick. But personally, someone who has really pushed us and I ask to continue to push us is Eric. He asks a lot of hard questions and gives hard answers to our questions. But it’s so necessary because we’re not here to have someone be relaxed about what we’re doing. We need someone to give that tough love and I’m very appreciative of him for giving us that.