Can a wristband help someone change how they drink?
David Gandini is a technology entrepreneur and the chairman of SOBR, a company that detects alcohol through the skin with a wristband and a stationary device. In this conversation from July 2025, I spoke with him about how that technology works, who uses it, and why he believes monitoring should build trust rather than catch people.
We also talked about the Sinclair Method and about the employers who turned the technology down. It was a look at alcohol from a technology entrepreneur’s angle.
How did a telecom entrepreneur end up working on alcohol?
At 0:15, David described a career that began in telecommunications, with a fiber optic network, then a company that helped long distance carriers connect calls faster, and later a gift card processing business.
He later began raising money for technology companies, and SOBR was one of them. He saw a chance to make a social difference and moved from raising money for the company to serving as its chairman. Yet, he was candid that replacing a breathalyzer, a device that seems simple and has been in use for decades, turned out to be much harder than anyone expected.
How can a monitor build trust instead of catching people?
From 4:52, David told a story from his own neighborhood in Colorado, where a resident drove off badly intoxicated and crashed into a large rock on a median. In his view, being in this field has shown him how tragic alcohol is for individuals and for whole families.
He said the company began too enamored with its own hardware. Over time, its message changed. It is no longer a device that says “we caught you.” In his words, it is now “your sponsor on your wrist,” a way for a spouse, a clinician, or another trusted person to know quickly if something has gone wrong and to reach out.
Interestingly, he noted that some people who wear the band do not want to stop drinking at all. They want to see when the band shows they have started, so they can stop. In his words, they are trying to control it.
Where does the Sinclair Method fit in?
At 8:30, I brought up the growing community of people who cut back on drinking gradually with naltrexone. At 9:09, I explained how it differs from the older drug David asked about. Disulfiram, sold as Antabuse, works by making a person sick if they drink, and I said that approach does not work all that well. Naltrexone is an opioid blocker that also reduces the compulsion to keep drinking.
I described how the person takes a tablet about an hour before drinking, and how, little by little, the drinking becomes less rewarding. This is what the method calls pharmacological extinction, and it can take months or even years. At 10:37, I also mentioned the actress Claudia Christian, who became the best known advocate for the method after her TED talk.
At 36:50, I came back to the idea. People using the Sinclair Method usually keep a diary of their drinks. So, a band that recorded drinking automatically could show their progress the way a connected bathroom scale does.
How does detecting alcohol through the skin work?
At 13:30, David explained that the device does not measure blood alcohol levels. Instead, a transdermal sensor sits in a small chamber against the wrist or fingertip and looks for ethanol. According to David, it recognizes drinking early, and the result goes to whoever the person has chosen, such as a spouse or a clinician.
He was clear, at 32:46, that transdermal detection itself is not new. Ankle monitors used in the criminal justice system rely on the same principle. In his view, what sets his company apart is its sensor, the software that filters out false positives, and the reporting behind it.
What happens if someone takes the band off?
At 17:53, I asked the obvious question. What stops a person from taking the band off, having a drink, and putting it back on an hour later? David answered that the system flags when the band is removed or charging, and that the band stores its data until it is worn again.
Still, he kept returning to one point. The band is not meant to be punitive or mandated, and people can choose not to use the location features. In his experience, most wearers use it because they want to change their own behavior.
Who else wants this kind of monitoring?
At 19:12, I suggested that families might want it, for example parents whose grown child has moved to another state after treatment. David said some families already buy bands for children heading to college. He acknowledged that this has positives and negatives, and that it depends on the trust between parents and children.
He also described uses abroad. In New Zealand and Australia, he said, some doctors and lawyers who have had problems with alcohol must be monitored to keep practicing. He mentioned testing with a trucking company in Italy and a planned launch at an airport in India.
Why did employers and school districts say no?
From 25:35, David described the company’s early focus on fleets and factories. The pilot programs went well, he said, yet many business owners would not test their employees because they feared losing workers. He was most surprised by school districts, where he learned during contract talks that bus drivers could legally drive with some alcohol in their system.
Unfortunately, as I said at 27:33, decisions driven mainly by money have spread into many industries, including hospitals. In fact, David pointed to an oil and gas customer, at 28:38, whose focus on safety has kept it with the company for years. He said it had seen fewer accidents and a better workplace culture.
Where could the data lead?
From 35:19, he described his next step: combining questionnaires about a person’s history with band data, and using machine learning to see which approaches work best for which people. However, he said the company needs many more users before that data means anything.
Who is David Gandini?
David Gandini is a serial technology entrepreneur from Michigan who studied telecommunications at Michigan State. He has built and sold companies in fiber networks, call connection technology, and card processing, and he raised money for technology companies before becoming chairman of SOBR, the alcohol detection company he discusses in this episode.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
In David’s view, monitoring works best when the person wearing the device chooses it and trusts the people who see the data. Used that way, it can give that person, and the people close to them, a clearer picture of what is actually happening from day to day.
How do I approach this today?
My thinking has kept developing since this conversation was recorded. Today my practice is built on one idea that runs through all of it: when the body has adapted to a substance, the safest way off is usually gradual, with the smallest steps the person’s nervous system can tolerate. Physical dependence is not addiction.
For alcohol dependence I use the Sinclair Method. The person takes naltrexone about an hour before drinking, and over time the drinking itself becomes less rewarding, so the urge fades gradually instead of being fought every day. It does not require stopping on day one, and it does not rely on willpower or meetings.
Like a slow taper, it lets the brain change at its own pace. For many people that makes it a more humane path than a sudden stop, which can also be medically dangerous for someone whose body depends on alcohol.
Call 911 or go to an emergency department if there is a seizure, confusion or hallucinations, or thoughts of self-harm. For thoughts of suicide or any mental health crisis, you can also call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (40 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] David Gandini, welcome to the podcast.
David Gandini [00:03] Thank you very much. Nice to meet you, Dr. Mark.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:05] Nice to meet you. So you’re a serial tech entrepreneur. Tell us a little bit about some of the projects you’ve worked with in the past.
David Gandini [00:15] Sure. I started my first company when I was about 25 years old. And I graduated from Michigan State with a telecom degree in the early mid 80s with the explosion of telecommunication, especially around fiber, which is a new technology from copper. I had a number of companies between, say, early 80s through the late 90s. And I did things like we had a fiber optic network that we built with a number of guys in Detroit, where I’m from, Michigan. And we ended up with a 35-40 city network, And we sold that business to Phil Anschutz here in Denver, which became Qwest. And that company excelled for many, many years. They had some issues, I think, financially with some of the management. But that was our first really big deal. The second deal that I did was around a technology called SS7, which back in the day, it took about 20 to 25 seconds for a phone call to connect with talking about the MCIs, the sprints. In the early 90s, there were about 550 long-distance companies. So we created a similar product to that SS7 technology. And what it allowed for is these long-distance companies to more quickly connect calls. So it went from 21 seconds to three or four seconds. And that company that I had was called Pace Network. And we ended up probably servicing about 50% of those long-distance companies. We ended up selling that company to a company called ICG, which was in the local fiber business at that time, replacing the Bell networks. We went from there. We created another company, which was then totally outside of telecom, which was end up being credit card processing. And I just get into these. I don’t know how I get to where I get to. But we ended up processing about 50 million Visa Amex gift cards for companies that had locations in grocery stores and discount. We were buying these credit cards and gift cards. So we built that business over like a 12-year period. And that business was sold. And so, I mean, we tell an entrepreneur, what I do is I do certain things for a period of time. And I get the company to either does it make it, if it makes it great. And I kind of stepped aside and moved forward. So I ended up, I took about six months off and said, what do I want? This is kind of predates what we’re doing here now. So what do I want to do this time? And I decided I want to raise money since I raised about 250 million for companies prior to this company. So I found an individual with a company called First Capital and I started to raise money for different technology companies and Sober was one of them. I wasn’t called sober at that point in time and started raising money and got involved and said, boy, this looks like something would be social. I can make a difference socially because I’m not getting any younger so I can make an impact. And I went from raising money to taking over as the chairman of the company and brought in. And there was a handful of guys at that point, but I replaced those guys, brought in new guys, new management team, and started to develop the technology. That was like five years ago. And I’ll tell you, doctor, this has been a tough one. This has been really difficult. Trying to replace a breathalyzer, which seems really simple, that’s been in the market for six or seven decades with new hardware and new software, it was much harder than any of us expected. But things are progressing. So, yeah, I’ve done about six companies, three successful. And, you know, onward and upward we go. So that’s where I’m at. That’s a little bit about who I am.
Dr. Mark Leeds [04:13] Well, yeah, that’s that’s incredible. And alcohol, alcohol is a major problem in our society. I feel like, you know, maybe they were doing the right thing when they made it illegal. And maybe we need to try that again someday, because it’s really terrible. And even if you don’t drink, you know, if you could be on the road and, you know, a truck driver could be drunk and run right into a family or several families and, you know, you know, destroy people’s lives, even if they don’t drink at all. So Sober, which I think is SOBR, is the company. How are you guys helping to combat this major alcohol problem that we’re having out there?
David Gandini [04:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So, doctor, just real quickly talk about, you know, even if you don’t drink. So I’m a president of an HOA in a small neighborhood here in Colorado. And we just had a situation last Friday where somebody left their home, like, completely inebriated. They came out through the neighborhood and they went across a median. They hit this big rock. It was a horrible, horrible situation. But what if a family was walking their dog or somebody was walking their dog? What if the individual went across a median and hit somebody head on? I mean, what I’ve learned about being in this space, just how tragic alcohol is for both individuals and families. So talking back to your question, what we I think what we were doing is because we had technologists around. We were standing, as I call, standing around the barrel with the burnt with the flame. We got so I think we were so enamored with our technology that we had this new hardware, new software. What we learned over the last we’ve been in the behavioral health space for about 18 months. Here’s what here’s what I can tell you. We’ve developed behavioral tools, right? Whether it’s the stationary or the band that empower trust and accountability, which is, you know, in the space, there’s a lack of trust. There’s a lack of accountability. It’s an interesting dynamic of these individuals that are affected by alcohol. So what we’re working with these companies in the market, the behavioral health facilities, which I think there are 46,000 clinicians, anybody that’s involved in this space. It’s not the technology where aha you know you’re drinking we caught you that’s not where we want to be and that’s where we started it’s now we’re giving you your sponsor on your wrists right we’re giving you the ability to have that confidence where if you do drink some your sponsor your spouse someone will know your clinician somebody will know about it and they can get to you quicker and they can help you. So over the last 18 months, we’ve been at a number of conferences and we’ve got a good chunk of customers using the technology. And what we’re finding out in the space is the more customers you get that trust you in this space and believe in you in this space, you start to grow organically. So we’re in that spot now where everybody knows who we are. Everybody that’s using our technology sees that there’s a major difference between somebody blowing into something and then blowing again six hours later where you can’t track them. So we’re building that reputation and that trust. And in the consumer space, we’re doing the same thing. And what we find is that these individuals, some of them may not want to quit drinking, doctor. They may want to say, okay, when this band shows that I’m drinking, I’m now going to stop drinking. They’re trying to control it. So then there’s severe situations. So we’re seeing a tremendous adoption now because we’ve been in the space for 18 months. But when we came in as a newbie, it took a year or so to gain trust from a group. And if you look at most of these individuals that run facilities, they have alcohol use disorder. They have some issue, right? So they’re trusting, can we really support them? Are we trying to make a buck off them, right? So that’s transitioning now for us. So we’re really building trust in the space. Things are really starting to take off for us, which it took some time.
Dr. Mark Leeds [08:30] Yeah, that’s great. There’s also a community of people who, a growing community of people who are trying to quit drinking, but quit drinking by gradually tapering their alcohol. And they do it. It’s called the Sinclair method, where they take naltrexone tablets, and it helps them to gradually cut back. And they also need help in monitoring their alcohol intake to make sure that they’re not getting out of control and that the process is actually working.
David Gandini [08:58] And doctor, hasn’t that drug been around for a while? It was originally called Antabuse, wasn’t it?
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:05] Naltrexone, it’s actually an open…
David Gandini [09:06] Naltrexone, but wasn’t there a drug prior to that?
Dr. Mark Leeds [09:09] Yeah, yeah, disulfiram Antabuse, which is, that’s been around for a long time. And that’s actually not really, you know, by punishing people, you know, saying, you know, if you drink, you’re going to get really sick. It doesn’t work all that great. But naltrexone, I think, was approved for one use in the 80s and another in the 90s. It’s an opioid blocker, and it works for opioid use disorder, but it also happens to decrease the compulsion to keep drinking. And they did some studies in another country. There was a Dr. Sinclair that came up with it and studied it. And they showed that if a person keeps taking naltrexone, they take a tablet an hour before they take a drink. And when they do that, it allows the person to control and just have like one or two drinks instead. So not have the urge to keep going. Yeah, little by little, they call it pharmacological extinction, where little by little they get to a point where they just don’t care about alcohol anymore. And that could take months or maybe even years. But over that time, they’re progressively cutting back.
David Gandini [10:09] Yeah, but you know what, though? But it’s not, as you just mentioned, it’s not penalizing the person, right? They’re not getting sick and they want to ball up in the corner and die. So, yeah, there’s several companies out there, and it’s interesting that you mentioned that because I was thinking just last week talking to some of my sales guys, should we think about maybe partnering with some of these companies? So I just thought about that a week or so ago. So I appreciate that insight, and I’ll definitely look into that.
Dr. Mark Leeds [10:37] Yeah, yeah, that would be great. Yeah, because it’s there’s not too many. I think there might actually just be one company, one tech company that does like a telemedicine thing for the Sinclair Method. But otherwise, it’s a there’s an actress, Claudia Christian. You know, she was a star of Babylon 5 and also a Disney movie, the Atlantis movie. She was one of the stars of that. And she’s the biggest proponent of the Sinclair Method. It. She did a TED talk and it kind of took off from there. And it’s one of those things where probably the rehab industry, you know, doesn’t like that being talked about because it probably keeps people out of rehab and also doesn’t go along with the AA philosophy of, you know, making a, having a person quit cold turkey and doing a detox, you know, they kind of, they’re able to quit gradually. So it’s just another approach to it.
David Gandini [11:24] But, you know, that’s, that’s a, that I understand that thing that makes a lot of sense because what we’re finding in the industry is that the repetitive process just keeps continuing. Somebody’s drinking, they go into rehabilitation, they get out for 30 days, they go on outpatient. Now, you probably know statistics better than I do, but how we understand it from the information we have is that within the first month, more than 70%, if they don’t get through that first day, go back. And over four years, almost over 90% of the individuals go back and rehab. So it’s not working. And that’s another thing. When you talk about how the patient’s managed, one of the things that we provide with the stationary devices, think about today, you’re blowing, you go into a facility, you blow in, you show your identification, somebody puts the information in manually. With our technology, you put your hand on the device, within 10 seconds, it identifies you and determines whether you have alcohol in your system or not. And that’s a digital record. So it changes you from a minute to a minute and a half when you check in down to 10 seconds. And slowly we’re providing a scenario where you as the provider can spend more time with your patients rather than spending X amount of hours a day checking everybody out. And then it’s kind of inhumane when you’re standing there blowing in and you’re remembering maybe it was a roadside test or something happened to you. So those triggers go off. So there’s a number of ways that we’re trying to make a change in how these individuals are treated and managed to.
Dr. Mark Leeds [13:01] Yeah, you know, you know, it’s interesting is that, and I understand, I think, and you can talk about the technology a little bit that I think it measures it measures the alcohol level through the skin. And I know that the big tech companies, you know, like Apple, and probably some other ones, they’re always like looking for what kind of medical thing can we test through the skin, you know, can we can look at your oxygen level, we can check your pulse, maybe, maybe blood pressure, maybe blood sugar, but it didn’t occur to any of them, like, maybe we could help people with alcohol use disorder.
David Gandini [13:30] Well, as I understand it, though, there were efforts by those companies that you had mentioned for alcohol detection. So just to answer your question. So first of all, we don’t measure levels. We’re not a BAC. It’s not you have O3 or O4, I think. So what we do is we have a transdermal sensor. It’s in a chamber. The chamber is whether it’s in a band or where you put your finger on it. It looks for ethanol alcohol in your fingertips or your wrist based on drinking. So anywhere between if you’re drinking between 15 and 45 minutes, depending on your size, your sex and all the other things, the physiological issues, it will recognize that you have alcohol in your system early on. So the sensor’s been tested. We’ve got third party validation on our technology. So it detects whether you have alcohol in your system early on, and then it provides that information to whoever is your spouse, say your clinician, wherever it may be. And that stationary device and the band are also tied together in a dashboard. So if you have 300 patients that you’re managing, you manage wherever you have alerts. So if you have somebody here and it’s got GPS, so it just kind of covers the whole gambit of when somebody gets into a situation and there’s a problem, you can more quickly react to it rather than somebody, you know, today blowing into a device every four hours. And you get a report and say, well, that could have happened, you know, three and a half, four hours ago. And now we just find out about it. So it’s just we operate a little differently to give better support to those that are involved in this whole AUD situation.
Dr. Mark Leeds [15:14] Do you do you also so you have the device that can detect like a qualitative test like did you drink or did you not drink within a certain time period but do you also provide a program like you were saying a dashboard where you can watch a large number of people is there like you know just like there’s security companies that do video security and we’re watching like a bunch of like say car dealerships or whatever and one one person or say in macy’s you know once I walked in this back room, Macy’s, and I saw the guy had a thousand screens and he’s watching every camera. Do you have like a service like that where you provide that monitoring service?
David Gandini [15:47] Yeah. So what we do is we have a monitoring service that would flag individuals that are in trouble. So if you’re a behavioral health facility and like I say, you have a hundred bands that are being used out in the market, you have, it’s really cool. It’s a dashboard. It gives you a pie chart and then you’ve got a say if you get individuals in trouble it’ll show red you hover over the red and you’ll see everybody that’s in trouble so then you can react that or in a situation with the band it’s a it’s an application and you if say you and I are friends and you want to manage my situation with alcohol you have access to my data so if I’m somewhere and I’m in trouble, you know where I’m at and you know I’m in trouble and you can contact me. So yeah, we enable a visualization of any issues and it’s just part of the SaaS product that we have for behavioral health. So yes.
Dr. Mark Leeds [16:47] Yeah, that’s incredible.
David Gandini [16:49] That’s different though too, doctor. I mean, the way the system’s set up right now, it’s more ICB for these users with breathalyzers and it’s taken some time to educate the market to say you have everything here on one screen and it makes life a lot easier. And then furthermore, let’s say you go into a program and you’re monitored daily and weekly. We have reports on you or me that says that I was this for the last seven days I’ve been clean or in this state this happened, this state this happened. So normally that’s today that’s being kind of manually assembled. So it’s a major, major change on how we provide data and how the data is used. So, yes, we manage that. But we don’t like to, you know, another thing, we’re not tracking you. We’re not big brother. We’re not following you. But if you have a situation, then we know where you’re at and we can help you. The other thing is some individuals may elect not to use that part of the software. They don’t want it. So it’s up to you on how you want to be managed.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:53] Yeah. So suppose, you know, I have this device on and it’s, you know, keeping an eye on me, it’s helping me. Throughout the day, like say, I would imagine it probably needs to charge or maybe I’m thinking like, well, I really want to drink. If I just take the thing off for a while, I can have a drink and put it back on like an hour later. Like how do you how do you deal with that kind of a thing?
David Gandini [18:17] Yes. So it’s not. Remember, it’s not penal. You know, it’s not it’s not mandated. So what we have today is we have certain flags. So the battery right now is about three and a half to four days regular use. So when you are charging the battery, we’ll flag that and we’ll report that you’re charging. If you have the band off, we’ll flag that and report. But the watch is paired to your phone. If you decide to take the band off and drink, when you put the band back on, we’ll have that data. It stores in the band. But it’s not a mandatory situation. So what we find is the individuals, for the most part, and we continue to gather data, they want to use this technology to improve their behavior, improve their outcome. And so they trust the band. But if you take it off, we can flag that.
Dr. Mark Leeds [19:12] Yeah yeah I think it’s a great idea and even though it’s not intended to be punitive just the idea of you know and maybe to some degree may not be punitive like where you’re going to say we’re going to throw you back in rehab or in jail or whatever but you know maybe have a spouse involved who wants to know like or maybe a parent you know […] and in fact some you know I think in that situation the parents in another state, they’re always looking for that kind of a leash, you know, like how can I make sure my kid isn’t doing anything bad when they’re down in Florida, they went to rehab, they graduated from the rehab, and now they’re kind of out free in Florida, and they didn’t grow up in Florida, and what are they doing down there? And if only there was a way that we knew they were safe.
David Gandini [19:58] Well, it’s also, we have some of our customers, I’m laughing because I’m thinking about, I’m sure you remember your first year in college, but buying bands for their children when they go to school, go to college because they’re underage and they’re concerned about their potential drinking habits. And we have some customers that have their children wearing bands when they’re in school. And I think there’s some positives to it and there’s some negatives to it. But yeah, it could be, there’s many, many applications for the technology. And I think it just depends on, again, the trust level between the children and the parents and how they want to manage that. And they figure out what boundaries they set and they use the technology accordingly. So it can be applied in a lot of different situations. But our focus, our primary focus right now is in behavioral health space with these patients that are affected. And then in the consumer space where there may be some bleed from, you get out, you’ve got a rehabilitation, you’ve done six months, you’re clean, you’re feeling great, and your wife or husband wants you to put the band on. So they’re all kind of interrelated, but those are the two spaces. I should also say it’s really interesting, too, Doctor. We’re in Australia and New Zealand, and we’ve been in that market for about a year or so with a channel partner, and they’ve got different and more interesting programs. For example, in Australia and New Zealand, if you’re a doctor or a lawyer and you’ve had issues with alcohol, in order to continue your profession, you have to be tracked. And so we have our bands being used with doctors and attorneys. And I think this is primarily in New Zealand, bleeding in Australia, where they have to have this to keep their jobs. And so they’re thankful that they have this rather than being in their office working with somebody. And all of a sudden they get a notification where they have to blow under breathalyzer. I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing. Right. So that’s there. And then we’re testing in Italy where you’re drinking and driving. It’s zero. It’s not 05 like it is in the U.S. It’s zero. So we have a large company with a bunch of truck trucks out there in the market, like thousands of trucks. And they’re testing with our band to make sure that their employees are safe. And then in India, we are testing very soon at one of the airports because in India, zero tolerance. Pilots are tested, not like you’re in the U.S. So I think we’ll launch next month in India. But the possibility for expansion, all of these companies in these countries have reached out to us and said, you know, this is a great solution. How do we get involved and do some testing? So there’s potential for expansion. I don’t know if you agree with this number or not. We looked at the entire world, and we looked at the alcohol abuse. It’s anywhere from 8% to 13%, 14%. In India, it’s significant. There are about 800 million individuals that are affected by alcohol globally. And we originally stepped into it saying, well, U.S. And then North America, we have Canadian users as well, and said, well, wait a minute. This is really a global issue. How do we look at the potential in the future to expand and how would we do that so this testing is giving us an idea of what these markets will look like and then we’d figure out if we can how would we make that next step and I’m saying we’ll do it but we could move forward in some of these other countries where the problems are much more significant in india you have you know a billion people there that we could we could support so there’s there’s other things happening outside of our little footprint today.
Dr. Mark Leeds [23:43] So 800 million people worldwide that we know of, which is almost a billion. So is that like one in 10 people in the world?
David Gandini [23:52] Somewhere, it’s probably, yeah, somewhere between, you know, seven tenths of one person. Yeah, depending on the country. But yeah, it’s a significant issue. And like I said, we get a lot of emails from individuals outside the U.S. Our platform’s not set up, you know, and there’s rules of having internet and product and all that. But there is interest and it’s growing. So if we could expand through other partnerships, that’d be fantastic. I mean, at the end of the day, if I can help and the company can help these individuals and these families, wouldn’t that be something awesome? What a mark I could leave, you know, for all these startups and all these things. If this is the most important thing that I’ve done because I can make a difference in society, it would be awesome if that could happen.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:35] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s a huge thing. And it’s something that a lot of people, a lot of companies just haven’t been interested in addressing. You know, like I was just talking to someone yesterday about this, about how before COVID started, the FDA was talking about approving naloxone. Naloxone is the rescue drug to save people from opioid overdoses. And they were talking about fast tracking to make it over the counter, because at that time it wasn’t an over the counter drug. It finally is, but very recently. And so COVID came along. They’d already been talking about it before COVID. And then we saw very quickly, because there’s a pandemic, they fast track these vaccines. Like in no time, we suddenly have vaccines. And I was thinking the whole time, where’s that fast track naloxone? Because that’s a pandemic also. People around the world are dying left and right from opioid overdoses. And it took until after COVID for them finally to approve it. So it’s like, you know, you wonder, like, what are people’s priorities?
David Gandini [25:35] Well, yeah, this is so that’s a great segue for us. So originally in 20 and 20, late 22, we our focus was on the fleet and manufacturing space. So individuals could check in and they’re driving company vehicles or they were working in issues in factories where there were major accidents. So there was significant potential for if you’re if you had alcohol in your system. And we had a number of pilots. All the pilots were successful. And there was interest all the way up until I mean, business owners coming back and say, if I have to alcohol test my employees, I’ll lose X percent. I’m not willing to do that. I’ll take the risk on insurance. So that’s where we were. We didn’t understand the dollars and cents of the market when we were going into this. And we had great pilots. So that’s why we shifted into a market where there was already that function being tested. But we learned the hard way. And I was shocked. I mean, even in the situation of school bus drivers, we had several contracts with school districts in the Northeast. And then we found out during the contract process that the drivers of these can drive at an O4 BAC. They can drive children in a bus with alcohol in their system. I mean, it was like we couldn’t believe it. Like, I’m sure you understand this whole AUD situation and drug situation. But, I mean, we walked into the markets thinking we were going to be helpful and making people safer. They weren’t interested. And they already had in these unions, they already had language in agreements. And I was just dumbfounded. You can have a bus driver that has alcohol in their system that take your children to school. So hopefully we can circle back to that in the future. But that was a shocker to us. And it was all about dollars and cents.
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:33] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, it seems like that’s gotten into a lot of areas, the whole private equity thing and hospitals. And someone was even telling me the other day that you see all these problems with Boeing, you know, and someone told me Boeing is no longer an engineering company. There is a financially motivated. It’s all it’s all about money with these companies where they used to. I mean, there still are companies. And just like you’re talking about, there’s still companies and entrepreneurs that are still focused on helping people and doing the right thing and not just about the money only.
David Gandini [28:09] Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was a for us. It was it was a surprise. That’s all. We were. Wow. How does this happen? But anyway,
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:18] It’s hard to believe, though, that I mean, I can see that, you know, if a cop pulls you over, that they have a standard. You know, there’s a legal limit of whatever it is, point four, you know, point eight or whatever, whatever that legal limit is per state. But that doesn’t mean that a school or a union or a bus driving company can’t have a standard of zero.
David Gandini [28:38] No, I mean, they can’t have one. They should. You’re exposing families when you’re doing something like that. But anyway, so hopefully we can circle back to that as we build more brand and more notoriety. We do have, though, I mean, we do have a very longstanding customer because their focus is safety. They’re in the oil and gas business where alcohol is significantly high rate. And they’ve been with us for two and a half years. They’re in 16 or 17 locations where every time the individuals that work in that field or work in that facility, they check in. If they leave, they check in. If they go back, they check in. And I can’t give you the statistics because it’s private, but we’ve significantly improved or reduced the number of accidents and improved the culture there. And they’ve been using us for over two years. So there are safety conscious individuals and management teams that want to do the right thing. And that’s a perfect fit in that environment.
Dr. Mark Leeds [29:46] Yeah. And it does come down to, in the end, you know, when, and I’m sure you can demonstrate that you do save the money. Because more accident-free days means you save money. And that’s for insurance and for the cost of an accident and cost of losing lives and injuries. I mean, so it is something that does save money.
David Gandini [30:05] Yep. And we also were on the insurance path several years ago and talked to several companies, four or five companies in the top 100 U.S. Insurance companies. They love the technology, but the objective was to provide a discount to the company if they could validate that they were 100% alcohol free. And as soon as there was a discussion around discounting insurance costs to the customer, nobody was interested at that point. So maybe that’ll come back as well because, I mean, insurance costs are rising. I mean, it seemed like a perfect fit there. But again, we skin our knees a lot early on. And so our focus is the behavioral health space right now and the affected consumers out there, which we our numbers, Doc, I don’t know about you, but our number that we have from our statistics that there were 30 million people, there are 30 million people in the U.S. That are affected. And there were somewhere around 10 to 12 percent of those 30 million that were looking for a solution. And that’s where our focus is from a marketing perspective. Our digital marketing program is all around talking and enlightening and educating those individuals on our technology. And as you know, by today, you’ve got to touch somebody 10 or 11 or 12 times before they make a buying decision. So that kicked off in November and we’re seeing improvement in the number of consumers that are buying the band on a monthly basis. But again, it’s just focus, focus, focus, grit and hard work and determination is what this is about.
Dr. Mark Leeds [31:42] Yeah, we mentioned insurance and I would imagine it would also be useful for life insurance. You know, if they could prove that a person’s alcohol free instead of just taking your word for it. And also with insurance, it reminds me of the device that some of the car insurance companies offer. You know, like if you stick this thing in your car, it’ll monitor you and we’ll give you a better rate if we can put that if we can watch it.
David Gandini [32:04] But the thing is, it’s not necessarily a better rate. If you’re a poor driver, your rate will go up. Right. That’s the whole that’s a catch to that. I’ve had friends of mine that have put those in their car. They stop. They stop aggressively at red lights and things like that. And their insurance is going up. So, again, it changes your behavior as a driver, right? No different than the band changes your behavior as a drinker. So, yeah, it’s all very, very positive stuff to change behavior, change your relationship with your car, with drinking, whatever it may be.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:35] Yeah. So is the technology of detecting alcohol through the skin, is that something that your company has patented that anybody that wants to test alcohol through the skin would have to come to you for that?
David Gandini [32:46] No, we’re using transdermal technology, and that’s pretty much been in the industry. We have a little, our sensor is unique in comparison to other transdermal sensors that are out there. And then the algorithm behind the sensor that would eliminate environmentals and certain things that would cause false positives. It’s a constant effort. So there are other companies that do what we do and have been around for a long time before us. We just have a different way of doing it. And then we tie it in with all the data back end reporting. And it’s just a different situation. Today, there are several alcohol bands that are trying to get into the market. We’ve been in for over a year now. So we have the leading technology. But if you go to an ankle monitor, that’s very similar. It’s just transdermal, but they lock it. So what we’re doing is we’re in a different market. Where there hasn’t been transdermal. It’s been primarily in the penal justice space where you’ve got two DUIs and you have to wear a monitor. So we’re not the only company providing transdermal, but we’ve got a different software hardware set.
Dr. Mark Leeds [33:58] Yeah, so sort of like with the analogy of like the camera and the security company, you know, anybody can make a camera, but there’s, you know, some will definitely put it to better use than others.
David Gandini [34:09] Yeah, and again, you talked earlier about some of the bigger companies that, you know, the Apples, the Googles, the Samsungs of the world. We’re in conversations with some of the companies that provide engineering support. But here’s what you got to think about, though. I don’t have a band in front of me, but there’s you have to have a space where the sensor sits. So if you think about the Apple Watch or whatever, they probably have to make that watch about a quarter of an inch higher, which would change the whole look of the of the of the of the product. And so you have to have a chamber so you’re getting constant airflow there so you don’t report false positives. So there are other ways to do things. You may want to put it on the band itself and have a vent on top. So there are other ways to do things. But again, I think there’s opportunity with some of these larger companies, as you mentioned, but we have to establish credibility and we have to have users and we have to have data. So that’s what we’re in the process of doing.
Dr. Mark Leeds [35:06] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s that’s definitely important. And that’s valuable to have this technology out there and to be exploring all the different uses and collecting the data and, you know, putting all that together.
David Gandini [35:19] Yeah, the next step, doctor, is so you have your users, right, and you provide questionnaires. Have you been to rehab before? How many times have you been there? How long have you had this problem? And then you start to track these users through the facilities that they’re working with and however they’re trying to manage that. We can segregate that data, and then we can provide that data back and say we see the most success here, the least success here. And that’s kind of the next step when we get into machine learning and AI with our band users where we can develop and dial in your baseline based on your physiology. Because it’s important. With our band, it takes somewhere between 48, probably around 48 hours once you put it on for the sensor to understand your physiology. And once that’s done, then we send you a text that says you have calibrated. And then you go on from there. So it’s not where you just put it on like a Fitbit and it works. It has to calibrate to your physiology. So it’s very unique in terms of how that works. And then what I would like to be able to do is work with insurance companies in the future where I can definitely categorize individuals and companies and where their success points are and who’s and why they’re being successful. And you never know where that could go. But the data will be important. But we I think we have to get to at least over 5000 users before it makes any sense.
Dr. Mark Leeds [36:50] Yeah, this would definitely be popular with the Sinclair Method crowd because the only way that they, you know, they’re actively, you know, these are people that would put it on voluntarily and want to have it on because the only way that they can track their success over time is to keep a diary, whether it’s in an app or on paper, of how many drinks they’ve had each day. And they really want to stop drinking and they want the process to work. But they only know by, you know, they’re tracking and keeping a graph and seeing how they’re approaching pharmacological extinction. And they talk about this in all the Facebook groups of getting to that point. And if that could be tracking, you know, like a scale that like a scale that a Wi-Fi scale that you don’t have to, like, write down the number. You can just get on every day and look back and say, oh, look, I’ve had really good progress over the last year.
David Gandini [37:36] Well, if you know anybody, doctor, we can talk to you, please connect me.
Dr. Mark Leeds [37:40] […]
David Gandini [37:59] You go online, silversight.com. Yeah. Okay. Yes.
Dr. Mark Leeds [38:04] What is it again? So is it S-O-B-L?
David Gandini [38:06] You know what I’ll do? I’ll connect with you because we are running a promotional program, so don’t do anything yet. It’ll be in the month of July. I’ll get your contact information from Talia and make sure that we’ll take carry on that.
Dr. Mark Leeds [38:20] Okay, thank you. Isn’t July like a sober? There’s some kind of celebration of sobriety coming up?
David Gandini [38:27] I think that’s September, right? Oh, maybe. It’s the month of September. Yeah, that could be it. Yeah, but you should take a look at SOBR, SoberSafe.com. You should take a look at our website, the testimonials. We’ve got some really great things happening. There’s a lot of respect and support around using our technology versus having an ankle monitor strapped to you, which is very inhumane. But, again, we’re making significant progress on a daily basis, gaining trust from that market, and we just keep our heads down and keep going. So it’s moving forward in the proper direction.
Dr. Mark Leeds [39:03] Definitely, definitely. So, David, David Gandini, thank you again. This is really incredible. I know a lot of people are going to be fascinated by this technology. So thank you for joining me today. Yeah, let’s stay in touch.
David Gandini [39:16] You know, I’ll catch up with you after this, but let’s stay in touch. Maybe we could get together in the future and I could give you more information on the progress we’re making and how we’re helping these individuals and just have more data behind that. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Dr. Mark. Have a good day.
