The Story of Casana: Building the Future of Home Health Monitoring

Sometimes the most impactful innovations come from unexpected places. For Austin McChord, the journey from cybersecurity to healthcare began with an intriguing idea: a toilet seat that could monitor vital signs.

After taking Datto public and joining General Catalyst as a venture capitalist, Austin wasn’t looking to run another company. But a chance connection with Jeff Lydon, CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, changed everything. “Jeff really wanted to get involved in something in the senior care space,” Austin explains in a recent episode of Category Visionaries. “And I actually knew of Nick’s project, which was a toilet seat that could get your blood pressure.”

The concept resonated with Austin’s experience at Datto. “These products work best when forgotten about,” he notes. “Datto was offering, you would set it up, deploy it, and then it just runs in the background. And the same is true with this seat… you install it on a toilet, and then you can just forget that it’s there and it will do its job.”

This “set it and forget it” approach to health monitoring addresses a crucial need in healthcare. Traditional vital sign monitoring requires active participation, leading to inconsistent data. Casana’s solution transforms a daily routine into a passive monitoring system.

The timing proved fortuitous. “COVID is really what made a lot of this possible,” Austin reveals. “All of a sudden, people became so much more comfortable doing health stuff at home, and doctors became so much more comfortable thinking about readings and data that people generate at home.”

But building in medtech presents unique challenges. The team had to navigate complex regulatory requirements, including surprising tests. “We had to do biocompatibility testing, where they literally have to tape parts of the toilet seat to the side of a living animal for a period of time,” Austin shares, illustrating the rigorous nature of FDA approval processes.

Currently, Casana has FDA clearance for heart rate and blood oxygenation monitoring, with blood pressure measurement pending approval. The technology works by “looking at blood flow through your arteries, and we’re measuring the electrical signals from your heart, as well as actually feeling your heart pump with very sensitive weight sensors in the seat.”

The company’s innovative approach has attracted significant investment, though Austin notes that medtech operates differently from software: “We raised this money on $0 in revenue, and that’s not uncommon.” He compares this to Moderna’s journey, noting they were “around for over a decade before selling” their first product.

Looking ahead, Austin’s vision for Casana is both ambitious and deeply human. “This product, unlike almost anything else you could work on, we’ll directly save people’s lives when it’s in the market,” he states. In three to five years, he envisions “hundreds of thousands of seats in the world, and they’re saving lives every month, every week, every day.”

For Austin, this mission makes the regulatory challenges and extended timelines worthwhile. It’s a testament to how unconventional thinking and persistence can transform an unexpected idea into a potentially life-saving innovation.