Michael Lui, RMR Laboratories

Michael Lui, an army veteran and the founder of RMR Laboratories, is tackling the ongoing opioid crisis with cutting edge medical technology. With their first product group, topical creams, RMR Laboratories offers safe, effective solutions to consumers seeking cannabis as a pain management solution. Michael tells us what it’s like to build such an exciting startup that has the potential to better so many lives.

What is your business, and what problem you are solving?

RMR Laboratories is an R&D company that develops health and wellness applications using cannabis derivatives.

While there is significant interest in using cannabis to soothe health ailments, there aren’t any cannabis products in the market that are safe, effective, and convenient for people to use everyday. There just isn’t enough real science underlying current cannabis products, which is partly due to the regulatory history of the industry.

Even with changing attitudes towards cannabis as a way to manage pain, there’s a gap in the market. Until you have a series of products that are effective, safe and tailored for the mass market, you’ll see a gap between widespread acceptance and products that people want to use.

Our first chronic pain treatment product combines cannabidiol (CBD) with a proprietary, patented technology that delivers cannabinoids through the skin. The transdermal technology has been proven to deliver ingredients 5-25mm below the surface of the skin. That means we finally have a third way to harness the therapeutic power of cannabis and deliver it to the places where people need it. And because it’s a cream and CBD-based, the product is convenient to use without any psychoactive properties.

What inspired you to start your company?

I am an Army veteran and an amateur athlete, leaving me with wear and tear on my body. Several people I knew were using cannabis to treat their health ailments. I was curious whether cannabis would help me, but I don’t like to smoke and found ingesting cannabis very inconsistent. Neither of those two methods addressed the source of my pain, they just distracted me from it.  In addition, the topicals in the market are mostly just novelty items. The actual concentration of active ingredients, CBD or THC, are often less than 1%.

At the time I was researching about cannabis to remedy pain, I also learned about the increasing epidemic of opioids throughout the US. I felt that cannabis products could be a better option.

What is your mission?

I want to make cannabis part of mainstream conversation. Our aim at RMR Laboratories is to be the first mass-market cannabis company with products you can use and go about your day. Once the industry is deregulated and cannabis is descheduled at the federal level, we’ll be poised to be the industry leader.

The ideal is for our products to become a safe, effective, and convenient therapy that everyone can access. On top of that, I would love to see cannabis become the first line of therapy, prior to opioids and other mind-altering painkillers.

I think it’s rare to have a team with this amount of subject matter depth and I feel humbled to work with them every day.

Who is in your core team? How did your team come together?

We have an exciting core team of four. Will and Leila are the marketing leads. Together, they have built startups, launched health and wellness products, and managed international brands. Leila owns Brand & Consumer Research and Will runs our Marketing Technology. I met Leila while we were both getting our MBAs at UCLA. Will and I connected through a mutual friend and we bonded quickly from our mutual appreciation of the outdoors and sports. He’s a serial entrepreneur with an MBA from Wharton.

Ryan leads R&D for us and he’s a life sciences rockstar. In addition to being a doctor, he was also a partner at McKinsey.

I think it’s rare to have a team with this amount of subject matter depth and I feel humbled to work with them every day.

We couple technology and science underlying our products with clinical data that shows how our products are different and effective.

What is your edge over your competition?

Instead of other methods, our product introduces the cannabinoid active ingredients into your body through topical skin cream. Our technology is a game changer. By delivering active ingredients through the skin, we remove barriers to product development. Consequently, we can change our formulation to address different health ailments and provide different concentrations.

Another key differentiator is the robust data at the core of our work. We couple technology and science underlying our products with clinical data that shows how our products are different and effective. RMR technology is covered by a strong patent portfolio and has been clinically validated through 15 Institutional Review Board (IRB) studies.

Looking ahead, we have a long roadmap for our topical category, starting with chronic pain and sports injuries and progressing to areas such as anxiety and insomnia. The current plan is to go to market with CBD-based chronic and sports pain creams.

Any challenges you anticipate? How do you plan to approach them?

As a startup, we have to ruthlessly prioritize and learn fast. Fortunately, I have a great team that pushes each other and the company in a healthy direction.

Second, we need to educate customers about how our product works as a topical therapy, which can prove to be a challenging task. The skin is designed to keep things out of the body. As a result, most topicals currently on the market don’t do anything, or simply mask the pain with things like menthol (a skin cooling agent). We counter this challenge by clearly explaining how our technology and products work.

As for the industry, there will be a time when the state and federal regulations converge. When that happens, RMR will be well-positioned as our product development is geared towards the mass market. Until then, we are still in a position to lead the market, but we need to be smart about how we grow and how we set up our production and distribution. 

Favorite book? Why?

I enjoy reading nonfiction to better understand the world around me. I recently re-read Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. It helped me fill in some gaps for how people and societies act.

Another all-time favorite book is Thinking: Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. If you read these two books and really absorb the concepts in them, I think you can understand most of human behavior. The only problem is that you have to be able to analyze and apply the concepts in real-time. That’s a whole other issue that I think can only be solved through practice, feedback and reflection.

As legalization picks up, the best talent will want to come work in the industry. It will be one of the fastest growing talent pools because it’s one of the fastest growing industries dealing with interesting, relevant problems.

How do you see your industry changing in the next five years?

I expect cannabis to become more and more accepted. Professional sports organizations like the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) has already said that CBD will be legal for athletes in 2018. WADA influences much of the policy for the Olympics, which means countries all over the world will begin looking at CBD for therapeutics purposes. As elite athletes are always looking for an edge, I’m excited to expand our reach within elite athletes and we’ve been seeing great traction so far.

Second, there are opportunities for operational excellence, marketing, and digital technology. As legalization picks up, the best talent will want to come work in the industry. It will be one of the fastest growing talent pools because it’s one of the fastest growing industries dealing with interesting, relevant problems. On the flip side, there will be a shakeout in different areas of the cannabis value chain from growers to retailers. While the current market is much like the “wild west” in terms of organization, competition will cause dominant business models to arise. Staying differentiated will be key.

If you never had to work another day in your life, what would you do? Why?

I’d spend half my time in nature and the other half teaching. It’s only me and my dog now so I think I could pull that off. When I have a family, I think I’ll still spend half my time teaching, but I’ll have to plan how to drag them out into nature for weeks at a time.

I draw strength and motivation from people that aren’t in the spotlight.

An entrepreneur who inspires you?

Not any of the typical famous ones that develop electric cars or massive e-commerce companies, although they are very impressive. I draw strength and motivation from people that aren’t in the spotlight. I think about the people that toil day-in and day-out for no recognition other than the satisfaction that they provide for their families. I think these folks are no less innovative or bring any less potential than the most well-known entrepreneurs out there.

Something you can’t live without (other than your cell phone)?

A comfortable bed. Rest is under-appreciated. That said, I can fall asleep pretty much anywhere so I’m just saying a comfortable bed to make a point that rest is as important as active practices.

Why equity crowdfunding?

The products developed at RMR Laboratories will benefit thousands, if not millions of people. Why not give them the opportunity to share the success of our company? We are in the first few pages of a huge new story in the cannabis industry and I like the idea of writing it with everyday individual investors.