Pharma Sessions
Pharma Sessions
How SkinPass Went From Bedside Insight to Retail Scale with Dr. Christopher Otiko
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I started this project in 2009. This is 2026. The patent was finally issued in November of 2025. So it took me almost 16 years to get the patent. It really should not have taken that long because I did not have the right calibration partners next to me. So once I got the right partners with me, it went actually pretty fast. It actually took about 18 months when I got the right partners. I had an original, very, very smart guy that helped design the patent, but he was very difficult to work with. Then we had our first patent attorney actually try to steal the patent. I ended up in a $40 million lawsuit with him. He tried to sue me for it. I won that. It's just been rough. But my key is if you once you have the right partners next to you, once you have the right business people next to you, then you can go a long way.
SPEAKER_00Dr. Otiko's work began at the bedside treating complex wounds, burns, and infections, where he saw firsthand the limitations of the traditional drug delivery. That clinical insight led to the creation of Viaderma's patented skin pass, topical delivery platform, which is now being applied across wound care, dermatology, sexual wellness, general medicine, and beyond. So today we're going to spend a lot of time exploring Dr. Otiko's entrepreneurial journey and what it takes to create a platform from an idea. So with that, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jonathan.
SPEAKER_00All right. So I'm on the East Coast. You're on the West Coast. It's about 11:30 my time, 8:30 your time, as is traditional start with our little icebreaker. What have you had to eat so far today?
SPEAKER_01Nothing. I'm on a fasting diet. I don't get my first meal till around noon.
SPEAKER_00Okay. All right. Well, let's see how you do energy-wise. No caffeine or anything?
SPEAKER_01No. I grew up in England. I drink tea once in a while. You're money in the evening. No coffee.
SPEAKER_00I'm a tea drinker throughout the day, but I do need that first cup to kind of get the engines going. So you started your career as a working podiatrist, right? In wound care and frontline patient treatment. What clinical frustrations or unmet needs first push you to start thinking a bit more entrepreneurially about how drugs are delivered through the skin?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. It's kind of strange how things work out. Before I went to medical school, I got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in biochemistry. During my master's degree, my thesis was related to trying to develop a drug, a new form of drug to treat diabetes. So I was always interested in diabetes. I went to medical school, became a podiatrist. I specialized in the treatment and prevention of diabetic foot wounds because during my master's thesis, I found out that people that have diabetic foot wounds, if they don't get treated anytime, it leads to an amputation. And I'm like, oh my God, that's terrible. So I said, you know what? Let me try to figure out a way to prevent that. Unfortunately, back in the late 90s when I was doing my training, there wasn't that really good medication to treat it. I ended up doing a lot of amputations, Jonathan. It was way too many. And I think after I reached 500, I just stopped counting. Sometimes you do like a 10 a day, and sometimes there'll be as little as a tiny, you know, the small toe, sometimes it'd be the hat, the leg. And it was depressing. I remember the very first time I did it was in an amputation. I was scrubbing in the surgeon, a big macho tough guy, I think is an ex-basketball player. The patient was like the 70-year-old guy, diabetic wound, wouldn't heal. We had to take off his leg. And I remember after doing it's they sword off the leg, they handed it to me to put into the red bag. And after the surgery, the surgeon said, Isn't that cool? And I'm like, No, that was not cool at all. That's that wasn't cool at all. Because Jonathan, the thing is, you're giving somebody, you're saving their life, but unfortunately, you're only giving them maybe about five years, and that quality of life is terrible, right? After I finished my training, I said, I just cannot do another amputation. I almost quit the profession. I went back to my master's degree program, some really smart PhD guys, and I said, Look, you've got to help me figure out a way to create a drug that could prevent diabetic wounds from leading to an amputation. And the result was eventually skin past technology.
SPEAKER_00So your journey for this product really started with like this is a problem. Um, and we need to find an answer to the problem. Did you have a direction in mind when you started exploring that? Or were you really taking a very broad look at potential ways to address the problem?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I did have a direction in mind. If you look at the human body, you've got the head at the top of the body, right? And the foot at the bottom. So if unfortunately, if somebody develops a wound on their foot or an infection and you give them an antibiotic, by the time it gets down to the foot, you're lucky to get maybe 5% efficacy. And if you're giving them IM injection and IB inject IB, maybe 10, 15%. So the best place to put a medication if somebody has an infection or a wound on their foot is on the foot. The problem is the skin acts as a really strong barrier to prevent anything from getting in. So that was the start of the problem, Jonathan. I had to create a drug or technology that could pass the skin. Does that make sense? We could get medication through the skin deep down where the wound was.
SPEAKER_00It makes a tremendous amount of sense. And I think it's interesting, is I've been talking to people, some through work, some through the podcast, this idea of kind of applying medicine in a hyper in a much more localized manner is not unique to dermatology, right? Like I was actually talking to somebody earlier this week who's taking a somewhat similar approach in cancer traffic delivering the chemo directly to the tumors rather than through the whole body. So are you seeing this as an clearly you are seeing this, you're creating this as an emerging trend in medicine.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, especially with antibiotics, too much medication is a bad thing. And then you've got antibiotic resistance. So you want to focus and get that medication right to the side of action. So once we figured out what the problem was, I was able to get a lot of really smart people around me. And it was actually a biomechanical engineer that said, This is not a medical problem, it's an engineering problem. I'm like, what do you mean? And he said, You've got to get something from one side to another. So you've got to create a bridge. So what we had to do was create a bridge. The bridge was the trans thermal delivery system that's made of FDA approved inactive ingredients. So that was the beauty behind this thing. We didn't have to create a new ingredient. We just basically chose ingredients that are already out there that can help to penetrate the skin faster. And we mixed them all together, found out the ones that work in the best formula, and they have the synergistic effect, and we made the pattern from that. And now, once you've got that platform that can deliver anything into the skin, you can basically add whatever you want. So we added tetracycline, an old antibiotic, and then we added vitamin C and vitamin D, which are essential for wound repair, and we've created this miracle drug. It's absolutely incredible.
SPEAKER_00So I want to come back to that because I think that that's really fascinating. But if we could just my perspective on this as somebody who's I have started a couple much smaller businesses, right, in my time, but they're much simpler. Like I always work in tech and it's very hey, so people are doing this and it's taking them four steps, and we could probably do it in one, right? And and that's a much simpler problem than what you're trying to solve. So if we can go back to what you had said at the beginning, which is you recognize this problem and you went to a board, it seems like or a team of trusted experts. It seems like you've taken a collaborative approach throughout, including board of directors and advisory boards to guide. Do you view this as, hey, there's certain mentors that have most shaped my approach, or what do you think is the role of collaboration in innovation?
SPEAKER_01It's huge. It's a big one. You have to have the right people next to you, Jonathan. I started this project in 2009. This is 2026. The patent was finally issued in November of 2025. So it took me almost 16 years to get the patent. It really should not have taken that long because I did not have the right calibration partners next to me. So once I got the right partners with me, it went actually pretty fast. It actually took about 18 months when I got the right partners. I had an original, very, very smart guy that helped design the patent, but he was very difficult to work with. Then we had our first patent attorney actually try to steal the patent. I ended up in a $40 million lawsuit with him. I he tried to sue me for it. I won that. It's just been rough. But my key is if you once you have the right partners next to you, once you have the right business people next to you, then you can go a long way.
SPEAKER_00If you're somebody listening, right, who's got maybe an idea that they're trying to do and they're looking to recreate the last 18 months of your journey, not the first 14.5 years of your journey, right? Like, what are you looking for? What are your recommendations for people that might be in that early stages of considering something like this?
SPEAKER_01Sure. I would suggest they go and find a mentor who's done this before. Find a mentor who's done it before, even if they have to pay that mentor for their time. Find somebody who's done this before, who believes in them, either take them under their wing and show them the right direction, or tell give them, tell them to go to somebody else that can give that advice. Okay. And I didn't have that.
SPEAKER_00I just am so hung up on this like 16-year journey because I think it's so impressive that you actually made it through, right? This I'm sure there were many times in that where it's like, hey, I'm pursuing this thing and we're nine years in, and I'm not two steps forward, two steps back, or one step back, or however you look at it. How did you mentally maintain yourself through that period and maintain the motivation and the energy that it takes to get something to market?
SPEAKER_01That's a great question. There was a couple of times, honestly, I wanted to quit. I started it in 2009. At that time, I'd just gone through a divorce, I lost everything. That's how I started it. I was fed up with, you know, doing the amputations and things like that. And I'm like, I've got to figure out a way to prevent this. So because I had time on my hands, I said, you know what? I'm gonna take a break from regular medicine scene patients. Let me focus on the pharmaceutical stuff. I got married again, my wife got pregnant, and in January, it was Christmas Eve 2013, I was done. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't do it. And my wife and I'd only married about 18 months. She said, Listen, you've been doing doing this for four years, don't quit. We loaded up a three-year-old daughter, it was from my stepdaughter, and um we drove six hours to my business partner in Arizona on Christmas Eve. I told him I had a heart-to-heart chat with him. I said, This is not working, we've got to change things, or I'm out. We convinced him to do things my way, jumped back in the car, stopped at a Ross, bought some Christmas present, and came back home in time for Christmas Day. That's when I got one of the really key points. I almost quit. I almost quit. I kept him working, working, working. I met a couple of investors, they helped me out. And then what happened? Because I'm a physician, I'll still see my patients. Does that make sense? So financially I was able to support myself. And then once we got the drug registered and registered with the FDA, what happened next was I started as a company to basically test the product. Does that make sense? And that wound care company, it just blew up. It got really, really big. So I got sidetracked for six years running another company, but it was proof of concept. Then I left that company in 2024, and I said, okay, now I've got proof of concept. The drug works, we've tested it out on thousands of patients. We've healed incredible wounds, we've saved lives. Now I can focus, get the pattern, and take it to the next level. So that's kind of what happened. So, in a way, it's my fault that it lasted. It took so long, but I'm a big believer in things happened for the right reason.
SPEAKER_00And here we are. Sometimes there's no other way to go through it than to just go through it, right? And it's you're not following a proven, there's no roadmap, right? You're following this. They don't teach it in business school or or anywhere else. I somebody else said this that ventures fail when either you run out of money or you run out of energy. And it can definitely be very lonely where you look around and you're like, okay, if I were to stop working on this today, the company is essentially dead and nobody will really care. But nobody else knows about this or cares except for me. But you have to just keep going anyway.
SPEAKER_01Yep. The thing is, a fear was a big motivator. It's interesting what you just said, because at one point I said, if I just stopped right now, what would happen? But my fear was somebody else would pick it up and it'd be it's super successful. And I would never ever forgive myself or quit it. So that's what kept me in the game.
SPEAKER_00You know what's so funny you say this? So my wife right now is in the process of opening up a retail store. It's it's very different. It's yarn, it's fibers, it's wool and stuff like that. And there were a couple things that she sort of did with to take it from something she's been thinking about for a while to something she's doing. And one of them was to tell people about it. One to get them excited, but also like, okay, well, if I quit, then that'll be really embarrassing. It's like you're kind of creating some motivation that that way. But then also when thinking about it, because it is a commitment of time, of money, of you're not doing something else, you're doing this. And it's how would you feel if somebody else opened up this thing that you're trying to open up and you didn't do it? And I think that's when it becomes really clear is like, oh my God, if that would just be gutting, you sort of have to do it. Yep. Exactly what happened to me. If you've been enjoying the conversations here on Pharma Sessions, you should know they're made possible by the team at XSunt. XSunt helps life sciences companies turn complex data into clear, actionable insight. For years, Excent has made complicated data sets simple to help commercial, medical, and operations teams map what's happening, predict what's next, and make stronger decisions faster. And now there's an added AI layer that makes everything work so much better. I was actually pretty jaded about some of the AI approaches I'd seen, but when XSunt showed me theirs, I actually left my job to come work for them. It's really awesome. So if you want to understand your market, your customers, or your performance with more clarity than ever, check out XSunt.com. That's XSUNT.com. All right, let's jump back into the episode. So many pharma companies this can bring back struggle with this idea of like translating innovation from the lab into scalable products. And so you found this innovative path to get FDA listed commercialization. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced? And how did you think about this to try to ultimately get FDA clearance on the product?
SPEAKER_01That's a very interesting question because the FDA clearance part was not that difficult. Once we figured out the right ingredients to mix and once we've stabilized the product and we tested it on early patients where we saw good results, we realized we had a commercialized, commercial product here. So then what we did was go through what's called the FDA monograph pathway. So the FDA monograph pathway is designed to fast track new drugs to the marketplace. But even though it's a new drug, it's made of ingredients that have already been FDA approved for years. Okay. So for example, bitostem, our first drug, the active ingredient is tetracycline. Tetracycline has been approved since 1952. So we're not creating a new active molecule. Now the inactive ingredients, which is what consists of the pattern, once again, they are FDA-approved inactive ingredients. So we're not creating a new molecule. We're just mixing together stuff that's already out there. So once you do that, you don't have to go through the phase zero, one, two, three, four clinical trials. You don't have to spend millions of dollars. To be honest with you, it costs about $1,500 and it takes about a month to register a new product. Right. I know this is a secret. I'm giving away what how we did it. But if you don't have the um technology to create that, then you don't have a product. Then once you've got the product, then you can test it on your patients. So once I got the registration, which and the medication laws approved for market in November 2016. So once it's approved for market, then you can use it, sell it to people, or test it on people. And that's that's then that's what we started doing. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00And so you're finding this path, and but at the same time, you're worried about commercialization, right? And you have partnerships with major retailers like Walmart, Walgreen, CBS, etc. How do you approach doing all of this, right? Like if you're at Pfizer, you have teams of people that are managing each element of what you're describing. How did you practically go about handling all of these multiple streams simultaneously?
SPEAKER_01So that's where it goes back to finding the right people. You have to have the right people and the right business partners. So there's companies out there that have already done this before. They've already had the partnerships of the big retail stores like Walmart Walk, Green CBS. They already had that. So then what I need to do then is find those people, tell them about this product, get them excited about this product, then they can just basically plug it into their network. So that's how we're able to do that. So I'm not creating the wheel, they're already out there. I just got to find the right companies that already have those, the distribution network in place.
SPEAKER_00That's really interesting. So you're looking for partners internal and external, and trying to get as far advanced as you can. From a business side, I'm just curious, right? Because it sounds like your main push is distribution. And you are all those partners, of course, take a piece of the margin and all that. Is that your biggest goal, or how do you weigh those things? The accessibility and the availability of it versus ultimately the profitability of the business.
SPEAKER_01That is the biggest goal. I want the medication to be distributed to everybody. It's pretty inexpensive when you consider what it can do. I want it to be distributed to everybody to save as many wounds, to save as many lives as possible. So I understand that when you have a distribution channel pretty much already made, they're going to chip into your profitability. So that's but that's part of the PLs, that's part of the profit, profit or loss statement. You just got to make sure that you make you your cost of the product is at least maybe three or four times less than what you're selling it for. And if you have that profit margin, you should be okay.
SPEAKER_00And part of that, what that allows you to do, because it sounds very mission-driven almost, right? And you've donated products to conflict zones to help those in need. Just walk me through the mindset and what that means when you see people truly, truly in desperate situations using your product to get better.
SPEAKER_01It's the best feeling in the world. That's why I became a doctor. I became a doctor to help people, to say, to improve lives and you know, ultimately to save some lives. We've donated so much medication. I've saved so many lives. I've I've lost, I can't even count. And it's a good feeling because that's uh ultimately what I love to do. I love to help people and save lives. You mentioned that about conflict zones. We've donated product to fighters on the Ukrainian front, you know, it's saving lives over there. It's making when you see these videos or and the testimonials of people that your medication has changed their lives or saved their lives, there's no better feeling than that. If you can treat people, help people, the money's gonna come.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's amazing. So, okay, so what is next, right? Like you are now, you said you had the 16-year journey to launch. That's in the past now, that's in the rear view mirror. What's what's coming next?
SPEAKER_01Next is really, really exciting. We've got so many good things this year. This year is gonna be absolutely incredible. As you mentioned, we are about to be launched in about four, probably like 5,000 retail stores across the country. That's probably gonna happen in the in Q2 of this year, including some of the big box stores we mentioned. We've got a good online campaign going. We're hiring some key executives, people who have experience in the pharmaceutical business that can take us to the next step. We've got some significant funding coming in. I've got meetings with some high-ranking government officials who now know about our company. They're very excited. So this is gonna be a really, really good year. I was born in Nigeria and um the Nigerian government found out about this. They request me to come back to the country and make a presentation. So all the branches of the Nigerian military, the uh Nigerian uh health department, they want the product. And we've just signed a contract with a company that's gonna take us all across Africa. We're finally gonna be there, you know, finally gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00What a journey. Do you feel like the hard part is behind you or ahead of you?
SPEAKER_01I think it's behind me, finally. I think it's behind me. Yeah. I survived. And 60, it shouldn't have taken 16 years, but there's a reason for that, you know, and so I'm not gonna everything happens for a reason. I think the hard part's behind me now, Jonathan.
SPEAKER_00All right. So if you could give one piece of advice to clinicians who maybe are seeing a problem day in, day out, they believe either they have a better solution or that there can be a better solution. What would you tell them about turning that insight into an actual drugs on patients, drugs in patients, viable biotech company?
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's a great question. I would tell them if you honestly believe that you potentially have a product, find the right people. Find a mentor who's done this before. Don't do it yourself. Um, try and find a mentor who's done it before. They can lead you in the pathway. So you won't waste six. It won't take 60 years like it did with me. And then once you find that right person and they'll kind of guide you what to do. And then if it's a good product, it's gonna work. If you honestly believe there's something that can help quality of lives and save people's lives, go for it.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. All right, let's end with just a couple of fun questions because why not? So you had mentioned you haven't had any food yet. It sounds like you've got very specific routines. What's your non-negotiable habits that you hang on to to ensure you're performing your best?
SPEAKER_01I work out daily. So I'm a morning person. I wake up, try to wake up at five o'clock in the morning, and I gotta hit the gym because I know that if I don't, I'm not gonna do it because I get it gets so busy, stuff happens, the day happens, and then I'm not gonna do it. So if I go to the gym first thing in the morning, my mind is clear, nobody's calling me, no bad meanings yet, no disasters happening, I'm good to go. So I have to do that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm typically the same way, although today I just signed up for a new over 30 basketball league and it starts at 8:15 tonight, which I'm is a terrible time for me to go, but where I live, there's not a lot of options. We'll see how that goes because that's the opposite.
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_00All right. So, and now you're expanding to Nigeria, you mentioned you're expanding to the Philippines. When you travel to these countries, is there anything you try to experience or do or eat to get a feel for the local culture?
SPEAKER_01I love traveling. I've almost been to almost 100 countries now. The last count, I think it was 93 countries. So I love eating, meeting new people, languages. I love food, even though I eat well, eat clean, but I like trying different things. Okay. I like meeting new people, the cultures, the languages. So I love to travel. I really do. To be honest with you, I even like the flights because on a flight, nobody's gonna be calling you. You turn off your phone, and guilty pleasure, you can just watch movies, I sleep. So I actually enjoy those long flights.
SPEAKER_00That's great. All right, and then we'll add with final question. I'm not sure what you're reading or have read, but is you have any recommendations either nonfiction or fiction that you think would be inspiring or that an innovator should read, regardless of industry?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. The book that changed my life was Think and Grow Rich. That book is literally the only book you need to read for as a business person. I read it in 1998, I was uh 30 at the time, and I was like, why didn't I read this when I was 20? I didn't I never heard of it. I read it six or seven times, I bought it, I've given it to so many people, Think and Grow Rich. Then the other classics like the power of causative thinking, magic of thinking big, those kind of books. But he Think and Grow Rich is basically all you need.
SPEAKER_00So that's Dale Carnegie, right? Yeah, that's a Napoleon Hill. I listened to a podcast not too long ago about that and just kind of like about his life. And he actually seemed like a decent person. Like if I feel like so many of these people that write these books, when you when you look at them, you're like, ooh, this is a a little a little suspect. But he actually seemed like a decent person, which is nice. Let's end it there. But Chris, thank you so much. Congratulations on all your success. I'm wishing you nothing but the best. And uh yeah, thank you for joining me.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00And that's a wrap on today's episode of Pharma Sessions with me, Jonathan Kaske. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to hit follow or subscribe and share it with someone else in the pharma world who might need to hear it. For more on pharma trends, career growth, and business strategies, connect with me, Jonathan Kaske, on LinkedIn. Until next time, thanks for listening.