In this episode of Disruption/Interruption, KJ sits down with Julian Circo, Co-Founder of Hyfe, a company revolutionizing respiratory health diagnostics through AI-powered cough monitoring. Julian shares his unconventional journey from humanitarian work in post-conflict zones to building the world's largest cough dataset—over 700 million samples. The conversation explores how Hyfe is transforming coughing from a subjective symptom into an objective, quantifiable biomarker, enabling better research, drug development, and patient care. Julian discusses the challenges of disrupting the conservative pharmaceutical industry, the surprising complexity of measuring coughs, and Hyfe's groundbreaking digital therapeutic for chronic cough sufferers.

Four Key Takeaways

1. [0:41] Coughing is Medicine's Most Common Yet Least Understood Symptom - Despite being the single most common symptom in medicine for over a century, medical science still cannot answer basic questions like "what is a normal amount of coughing for a healthy person?" Even top pulmonologists disagree significantly on this fundamental question.
2. [11:27] Building the World's Largest Cough Dataset Required Creative Problem-Solving - Hyfe collected over 700 million cough samples by launching a free consumer app during COVID-19 that monitored coughs in the background. This approach solved the critical challenge of gathering diverse, real-world data across different demographics, environments, and microphones—essential for training accurate AI models.
3. [21:52] Pharma's Resistance to Disruption is Actually Rational - The pharmaceutical industry's notorious resistance to innovation stems from legitimate needs: trials spanning months or years require consistent measurement methods to compare data over time. Hyfe succeeded by "leading with science" rather than pitching disruption, focusing on the measurable value they create.
4. [27:30] A Digital Therapeutic Offers Hope Where 15 Drug Trials Failed - Over the past 13 years, 15 pharmaceutical molecules for chronic cough treatment have failed clinical trials. Hyfe is developing a digital therapeutic based on behavioral cough suppression therapy—similar to physical therapy for joints—that has already shown 40% efficacy in preliminary research, offering hope to the one in ten Americans suffering from chronic cough.

Quote of the Show (4:28):
"People innovate as a way of life. It’s not a luxury. You have to find ways to communicate. You have to find ways to access goods. You have to find ways to make do…” – Julian Circo

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Ways to connect with Julian Circo:

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/icirco/
Company Website: https://www.hyfe.com/
Failed Chronic Cough Candidates: https://support.hyfe.com/hubfs/HTML/failed_antitussives_timeline.html
CoughPro: https://coughpro.com/

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