Why Your Product Should Generate Revenue Versus Reduce Costs

Cognetivity Neurosciences Co-founder and CEO Sina Habibi met his business partner Seyed-Mahdi Khaligh-Razavi while obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge.

Sina and Seyed-Mahdi bonded when realizing both had loved ones diagnosed with dementia in the later stages of the disease, when it was too late to reduce its effects. Sina, an engineer, and Seyed-Mahdi, a neuroscientist, set out to fix the process for diagnosing dementia, resulting in the launch of Cognetivity in 2013.

Cognetivity is on the cutting edge of neuroscience and uses artificial intelligence (AI) for early detection of cognitive impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

When it first launched, the company was on the front lines of the digital health space, which required blazing new trails with regulators. The Cognetivity team had to learn the ins and outs of digital health product development and regulation on their own.

“There was not much that we could look at in terms of peers or examples that had gone down the pathway, both from a regulatory point of view [and in] product development. So we had to do a lot of the work ourselves,” Sina says.

Since then, the company has launched two products: Cognetivity’s Integrated Cognitive Assessment (CognICA) and OptiMind.

CognICA is a five-minute, computerized test that measures cognitive function. Considered a medical product, it has marketing authorization in the European Union and the United States. OptiMind is a wellness app that measures users’ everyday cognitive performance.

In this episode of Medsider, Sina discusses the importance of getting input from both end users and regulators throughout the development process, why companies should focus on how their product can generate revenue versus reducing costs, and the importance of teaming up with an expert fundraiser.