Faculty Feature: Dr. Jeremy Wiygul

For this newsletter’s Faculty Feature, Mar Arikatla (Club Event Leader) and Nick Bartelo (Club President) had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Jeremy Wiygul, a Pediatric Urologist at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Wiygul completed both his undergraduate and graduate degrees within Texas prior to completing his residency in Urology in Durham, NC at Duke University Medical Center. He then spent two years at Boston Medical Center as an Attending Urologist, followed by completing a Pediatrics fellowship at LIJ/Cohen Children’s Medical Center. Once his fellowship concluded, Dr. Wiygul spent five years as an Assistant Professor of Urology and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine, as well as an Attending Urologist at The Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center. Throughout his career, he received multiple patents for innovative technologies. He treats the full spectrum of pediatric urologic disorders, with a special interest in complex hypospadias repairs as well as bladder exstrophy, a rare congenital disorder. He founded Pelex Health in 2019, a digital health platform for pelvic health, moving diagnosis and treatment out of the clinic and into the home with the goal of simplifying the journey to wellness for the millions of American affected by urinary incontinence, pelvic pain, organ prolapse and more. The company has received integral patents for its next stages of growth in 2022. Dr. Wiygul is revolutionizing care for pelvic floor disorders, hoping to deliver better, more convenient care to patients in need across the country.

SVG: Why is it hard to access appropriate care for pelvic floor disorders (PFDs)? Is it because of a lack of awareness or accessibility?

Dr. Wiygul: It’s a combination of both. I’m a urologist who deals with people with pelvic floor disorders (PFDs) and I saw a gap in care for PFDs. That’s where the idea of Pelex came in.

Typically, first line therapy for PFDs is a form of physical therapy. Since it’s a recurring form of treatment, not a lot of people have the money, time or resources to go to a treatment facility multiple times over the course of weeks or months to seek out this care. That is exactly why Pelex is set on making this care accessible and non-invasive, making it less scary to the patient. We are both building a device and providing a telehealth/digital service at the same time. We’re one of the first companies to do that in the pelvic floor space.

SVG: Congratulations on receiving a patent last year for the Pelex device. How are the clinical trials for your device progressing?

Dr. Wiygul: This is going to be a big summer for us! We have developed our device to a point where we can deploy it into a clinical setting. And this summer we’re planning on making it available for patients to use. They will also be engaging with our digital/telehealth service, testing its efficacy in a digital health setting. We feel very positive about this because the prior data that exists in this field, when paired with biofeedback from our product, should improve outcomes for patients.

SVG: Can you tell us about your path into entrepreneurship?

Dr. Wiygul: The way that I think about problems isn't super conducive to academic papers. The problems that I look bother me, and a lot of times, they don't bother a lot of other people. So to get this out in the world, I've had to follow another path. 

When you go into something like medicine, it's challenging, but the pathway is clear. In entrepreneurship, there are no signposts. It's like standing on a mountain with someone and in the distance, there's another mountain. In between the two there's a big valley and a jungle in the middle of it. And the person turns to you and says, I'll give you $2 million if you can get to the top of that mountain in two years. Go figure it out. It requires a different way of thinking about solving problems.

SVG: What advice would you have for graduate students and postdocs who are interested in creating a company?

Dr. Wiygul: Figure out your weaknesses and find people that can help you. No one builds something on their own. For me, I had to find people who know how to develop business models and conduct customer discovery. Figure out who it is that you need on your team early on because more people pulling in the same direction makes the venture a lot easier.