The Demand for Poop

“Passing a stool-screening test may be the hardest part of the process. “It’s actually more difficult than getting into Harvard,” says Smith. Only about four per cent of people who volunteer to be stool donors pass the three-step screening process, which involves a questionnaire, and stool and blood test, meant to rule out the presence of any known pathogens. (It’s easier to pass the mail-in variety lab test, which collect much less information.)

Despite the rigorous screening process, OpenBiome still manages to collect enough stool to supply 371 clinics and hospitals in 48 states and five countries. The bank collected its first sample in October 2013 and treated six patients by the end of the year. In 2014, they treated 2,000 patients, and by now they’ve provided stool for 5,419 treatments, and counting. “I didn’t really anticipate that it was going to grow as quickly as it has,” says Smith. And while there’s a distinct ick factor tied to his product, Smith says the stuff sells itself. “What’s kind of crazy about this thing is I sent out one email to a group of clinicians who were doing fecal transplants, and since then we’ve just been responding to requests.””