Fresh from Brinc’s Virtual Demo Day, BEntrepreneur presents a series of exclusive interviews with some exciting startup founders. Today, we talk to Yi-Chih Cheng, founder of Uppermed. 

1. Please tell us more about Uppermed and what inspired you to create the business?

UpperMed was founded by two engineers–myself and Max. We have worked together for over three years in the medical device and IoT area. The idea for this business was inspired by a discussion with Dr.Martin, the senior consultant of nephrology in the National University Hospital (Singapore). Dr. Martin told us that dialysis patients are not looking for a solution to get rid of dialysis. Instead, they have to learn how to live with it in the remaining years of their lives. Our vision is to “ improve dialysis patients’ quality of life”, showing that we value the patients and their relatives the most.

Yi-Chih Cheng, Founder & CEO of Uppermed

UpperMed aims to be a digital health company. Around the world, over 1 million people, approximately 40% of all dialysis patients, are found to be depressed. This shows how low the quality of lives can be for them. Through our patented technology, we have developed a portable device which allow peritoneal dialysis patients a more feasible way to complete the dialysis at any place.

Tzu-Yang Lin, Co-founder and CTO

2. What were the challenges of moving Uppermed forward especially in light of the COVID crisis?

We take the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to raise the consciousness of home dialysis. In this pandemic, dialysis patients are a high-risk population if infected. Different from the current mainstream dialysis method, peritoneal dialysis allows patients to do dialysis at home without coming to hospitals three times per week. Home-based treatment needs the monitoring system to ensure the quality of remote care, and UpperMed can help with that.

Yan-you Lee, Head of Electrical Engineering

3) How are patients, doctors, and health organizations responding to Uppermed? And what do the investors have to say?

We have interviewed over 40 peritoneal dialysis patients, 10 nephrology doctors, and 20 nurses from different countries. In each population, UpperMed can bring unique value to them such that we are confident to achieve the win-win situation for all parties. Our two investors are also glad to work on this emergent market with us, we are grateful for their trust in us.

4) How do you plan to scale Uppermed?

Our plan is to expand our business in Asia first. UpperMed provides the total solution to reduce for these patients the barriers from starting peritoneal dialysis, especially for those from developing countries. After that, we will proceed to the US and provide our platform solution to those people who are far away from clinics or hospitals.

5) What advice can you give to aspiring entrepreneurs/ startups?

To develop the new business, it’s important to find the proper ecosystem to obtain the resource and meet friends. And this takes time. For those people who are interested in starting their business, but have not started yet, do spend some time expanding your connections.

To all entrepreneurs, in the darkest environment, our value can be dazzling.