A Guide to Widespread Adoption in Medtech
Developing an innovative product is only half the battle. The true challenge lies in ensuring its widespread adoption by providers, patients, and the entire healthcare system. In this playbook, we’ll break down practical strategies that industry veterans use to achieve widespread adoption.
Prioritize data collection: Gather robust data early and often. Demonstrating repeatability and sustainability with scientific evidence helps garner support and builds credibility with a wide array of stakeholders, including key opinion leaders, societies, and regulatory and governmental bodies.
Understand who your stakeholders are: In emerging markets, focus on collaboration rather than competition. Build partnerships with others in the space to create something bigger together. Tailor your messaging by gathering direct feedback from all stakeholders, from users to providers, and address their unique concerns.
Collaborate strategically: Collaborate with key stakeholders and work within the regulatory and reimbursement frameworks. Address any challenges to secure reimbursement and aim for scalability by focusing on large-scale organizations where your product can make a bigger impact.
Follow the incentives: Identify where the value lies and align your product with high-value treatments or areas where financial incentives are strongest. Collaborate with well-resourced partners to scale your product and capture value within the ecosystem.
Don’t build a product; build an ecosystem: Leverage local resources and collaborate with research institutions to drive innovation and adoption. Build a platform where your product can integrate with others, generating value for all involved. Foster an ecosystem where partners mutually benefit, amplifying growth and innovation for everyone.
Convince With Hard Evidence
Greg Bullington, co-founder and CEO of Magnolia Medical, has overseen many phases of a medtech startup from clinical trials and product development to establishing partnerships with industry giants.
Magnolia Medical is the company behind Steripath, a device platform that significantly reduces contamination in blood cultures—a critical step in correctly diagnosing sepsis.
While sepsis ranks as the primary cause of death in US hospitals and the fifth leading cause of death worldwide, the standard tests used to diagnose it are inaccurate—approximately 40% of the time in hospitals nationwide. However, Steripath has shown a 90%+ reduction in false-positive sepsis tests in large-scale clinical studies at leading institutions.
When viewed in this light, the urgency of sepsis and the importance of Steripath really stand out. This is why Greg prioritizes data collection above all.
Steripath consists of a novel device and technique to collect blood samples, so it’s no surprise that it’s built on rigorous scientific evidence. This robust data foundation has been instrumental in gaining support from key opinion leaders, influential societies, and standard-setting bodies. Greg shares, “I think that really focusing on the data, focusing on the repeatability, focusing on the sustainability early on, gives you the calling card that you need to be able to really garner support and begin building traction.”
The traction he’s talking about isn’t just commercial. Magnolia has successfully gained governmental support for Steripath from both the Senate and the House, as well as various federal agencies. This bipartisan support in Congress helped the adoption of Steripath throughout the country. The company now works with 500 hospitals, aiming to become the standard of care in the U.S.
Magnolia also had to work closely with FDA and other organizations like the CDC and CMS to create a new category for both their technique and device, and ensure its regulatory approval. This process involved extensive education and communication about the device's benefits.
In short, as Greg puts it, “The combination of the data, the magnitude of the solution, and understanding that this is something that preventably harms folks within every district within the United States has been a compelling narrative and opportunity for driving support from all stakeholders, including governing bodies and end users.” These were the key variables in Steripath’s success.
Collaboration Over Competition
L.R. Fox, the founder of NEXT Life Sciences, is a young and ambitious innovator with a background in engineering and a track record of successful ventures in highly-regulated industries like cybersecurity, defense, and aerospace. At NEXT, his team is developing Plan A, a non-hormonal, long-lasting, reversible male contraceptive.
Fox’s algorithm for medtech is, first and foremost, is to aim for a new industry rather than competing in an existing, already crowded market. Even if there are other players in this new space, if it isn’t saturated yet, you can collaborate instead of competing to build something significant. "A rising tide really does raise all ships. It's easy for people to get overly competitive, but when you're creating a new industry, instead of seeing others as competition, it's more about asking, 'How can we partner to create something together?' We're all on the same team." Fox says.
Secondly, Fox likes to break down his company’s stakeholders and closely examine each of their needs. Among these stakeholders are potential users, healthcare providers, and payers, each with their own distinct concerns. Once you identify the stakeholders who have the most influence on your position, you can start a meaningful dialogue. For example, Plan A and its messaging was tailored according to the direct feedback the team collected from potential users. To apply this to your company, think carefully about whom your product or service concerns. For instance, addressing the spouses or partners of end users was an unexpected but effective step in NEXT’s case.
Thirdly, as an entrepreneur who likes to try his hand at different industries, Fox understands the value of experience and actively seeks out domain experts and leaders in the pertinent field. He asks himself, “If there's one person I need to talk to to really understand this, who is that person?” This attitude opens doors to valuable partnerships, collaborations, and opportunities for further innovation. Thanks to the network he built in this fashion, Fox positioned Plan A not only as a contraceptive but as an impetus for addressing structural problems in society.
To take a page from Fox’s book, before diving into an industry, assess whether it’s an overcrowded market or a space where you can create a paradigm shift through collaboration. Then, take some time to identify the different groups who have a stake in your product or service. Remember, skepticism is healthy and deserves engagement. That’s the only way to tailor your solution or message to your stakeholders’ respective needs. While doing that, actively seek out subject matter experts in your field, offer support, and foster collaborations. Connect with others who share your goals and stand together in the niche you’re seeking to reshape.
Work Within the System, Not Around It
John Bertrand is the CEO of Digital Diagnostics. Their flagship product, LumineticsCore, is the first—and so far, only—algorithm that conducts diabetic retinopathy exams and diagnoses patients without a physician’s involvement.
Developing, obtaining regulatory clearance, securing reimbursement, and achieving integration in the healthcare flow for such a radically innovative device is no small feat.
In the development phase, which is an ongoing process even after commercialization, John champions close collaboration with customers and end-users. For example, Digital Diagnostics engineers regularly visit real-world clinics to observe how LumineticsCore is used and gather feedback directly from users. “You'll be shocked at the “aha” moments that you get out of folks,” John remarks. These insights even help identify minor issues or inefficiencies that, when addressed, can significantly improve the product and its workflow. This hands-on approach ensures that LumineticsCore remains not only cutting-edge but also user-friendly and highly effective for its intended users.
Next, “You need the reimbursement to justify making the investment,” John says. That was one of the first issues he addressed—positioning the product as a value-based care tool. It was a challenge because the fact that the algorithm doesn’t directly rely on a provider conflicted with existing reimbursement models; thus, it took more in-depth conversations with different bodies, like the American Diabetes Association and the FDA. To gain buy-in, John worked closely with each stakeholder, adjusted rules, and ultimately secured approval for the diagnostic tool. John explains, “Creating that buy-in, that understanding, made it easier to bring new products to the market. It's much easier because we have the reputation of working with folks rather than around them.”
Another piece of advice from John is not to play small. For John, scalability in his commercialization efforts is of great importance. The team targeted larger organizations where the platform could be rolled out across many clinics. John says, “You need to be trying to package these up and finding customer segments and ideal customer profiles where people are going to want to use your product across the entire enterprise. The sales cost is the same whether you're selling one or 100, and the sales cycle will be the same length of time whether it's one or 100."
To follow in John’s footsteps, observe and incorporate feedback from end users, and never try to force your offering, especially if it’s a disruptive one. Instead, collaborate and make a concerted effort to build relationships with your key audiences and stakeholders. And when it comes to commercialization, aim at as many birds as possible with your limited stones.
Follow the Incentives
Patrick Anquetil and his team at Portal Instruments are working to alleviate the painful daily ritual of needles for those who are suffering from chronic diseases. Their needle-free drug delivery system is considerably less invasive, more precise, and much more comfortable for patients.
Patrick learned how external factors like partnerships and market shifts can dramatically affect a medtech company's trajectory during his early days at Aretais, specifically when the company's fate was tied to Pfizer’s discontinued inhalable insulin therapy. That’s how he knows what it takes to find a place for Portal's needle-free drug delivery technology in the market and to bring the technology to a practical business model: collaboration with big players.
Portal’s mission is noble, but it takes a lot of convincing and resources to change the workflow of healthcare providers. For this, Patrick’s first advice is “follow the money”. In his case, for example, it wasn’t the patients, or even the insurance providers who had the money—it was the pharma companies, who also had injectable drugs that could be enhanced by Portal’s platform. “Pharma companies actually have money... We structured deals with royalties, upfront payments, milestone payments... That was the realization—we can capture value from injecting high-value drugs,” shares Patrick.
Aligning their interests with pharmaceutical companies' financial incentives, Portal secured the necessary resources to drive adoption and scale up their R&D efforts. This wasn’t only beneficial for Portal; it was a win-win for both parties involved.
When you have a platform technology that you can apply to many areas, it’s important to think about the value of the entire ecosystem and what part your solution plays within it. “If what we inject is of high value, then there's an opportunity for us to actually capture some of that value back,” simplifies Patrick.
If you're looking to follow in Patrick’s footsteps, follow the money before forming partnerships and find your place in the value chain. If your product adds significant value to high-cost treatments, you can share in that value.
Create a Collaborative Ecosystem
Before launching Proprio in 2016, Gabriel Jones held roles in engineering, law, finance, and philanthropy worldwide.
Proprio’s name comes from ‘proprioception,’ also known as kinesthesia, our body's ability to sense movement. The team at Propio is working on improving surgical precision with AI-powered technology, specifically by immersing surgeons in a real-time 3D environment that provides immediate feedback during operations—just like using a real-time GPS.
“I really wanted to fundamentally understand how things are designed, engineered, and manufactured at scale,” says Gabriel. His engineering tenet in Japan gave him an understanding of how to scale operations efficiently. “Toyota methodologies, they're literally the masters of that,” he explains.
Propio is based in Seattle for a reason. It’s a hub for cloud computing and software development as well as world-class healthcare institutions like the University of Washington, which receives significant grants from NIH. Collaborating with such institutions provides access to research, clinical trials, and medical expertise, all essential for developing and adopting medtech solutions at scale. “It’s the perfect place to build something like Propio and to try to seed an ecosystem where technology and medicine can intersect and amplify each other,” shares Gabriel.
To build an ecosystem you don’t play a zero-sum game but work together. “If you want to build an ecosystem, you have to build a platform company, which means your products have to make other products sing... all your partners have to benefit too,” he explains. “For example, you should be able to plug the app into the App Store and make money for that partner of yours.”
Ideally, you should try to leverage local resources and established institutions, particularly those rich in technology and healthcare innovation. If you don't have access to such institutions in your area, remember the saying: if the mountain won't come to you, then you must go to the mountain. Additionally, you want to think about the ways you can create a platform where members can integrate their offerings and generate mutual benefits. By doing so, you can build a thriving, interconnected ecosystem that drives innovation and growth.