Madusha Peiris

Madusha, why did you become an entrepreneur?

I didn’t think entrepreneurship was possible at all. I didn’t set out to have a business, but I always thought let’s try and turn our research into something that can actually be used to treat patients or treat a population of people who need help.

We made a surprising discovery that led to us finding out that a specific combination of nutrients will trigger the hormones that make you feel full.

We were very excited because this is an important pathway that goes wrong in obesity. Our discovery suggested that we could have a new product to help obese people lose weight.

The anti-obesity market is estimated to be worth $6B a year and expected to grow to up to $100B by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with more than a billion people obese.

Where we differ from current weight-loss products is that ours promotes release of the body’s own naturally occurring appetite reducing hormones by using targeted nutrient delivery to the colon, rather than drugs which are often synthetic hormones. This makes our approach safer and substantially cheaper than rival products, so it’s more easily available to those who need it.

We’re getting close to our product being available to buy – so stay tuned for more news on this.

What’s your advice for other academic entrepreneurs?

Think about how your research can answer or solve real-world problems and pursue your research with a constant view of translating findings into solutions. My company is built on a decade of scientific research.

There are many aspects of research that offer potential sources of commercialisation – all of which come from understanding the key pathways and processes of a given area of interest.

Often, these are unexpected findings, as was the case for us – so you need an open mind that does not dismiss unusual data.