Your Ph.D. From the School of Life Is Just as Important as That STEM Degree

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By Kevin Xu, CEO of MEBO International

 

 

Recently, a partner and I joined forces to set up a healthcare nonprofit. Despite coming in with ideas upon ideas for the venture, I realized an invaluable lesson: No matter the amount of scientific knowledge we had between the two of us, business acumen and human instincts are just as important in healthcare as they are in other industries.

 

The medical field is in a precarious state, and related startups are popping up one after another to service patients looking to replace antiquated treatments of the past with current, more innovative methods. In fact, from 2010 to 2014, the number of health startups increased by 200 percent, with upsurges in IT health providers sparking a 125 percent uptick in 2014 alone.

 

The rise in chronic and age-associated illnesses means medical startups will continue to emerge. But the founders, leaders, and employees at these places must successfully mix entrepreneurial knowledge, a STEM-steeped education, and real-life experience to have the type of lasting impact they desire.

 

 

What Ails Healthcare Startups

 

In spite of their best intentions, statistics show most healthcare startups flatline before they can do the good they set out to accomplish. According to Forbes, 98 percent of these young medical businesses fail due to funding issues or an underdeveloped business model.

 

A healthcare startup can have a vision that will change the world, but if expenditures don’t align with the company’s projected profits, the concept is as good as gone. That’s why it’s so important for healthcare startups to remain sustainable. These businesses don’t just provide insight and solutions to varying problems — they educate their patients and can inspire proactivity.

 

RetraceHealth is a great example of the above model. Co-founder and CEO Thompson Aderinkomi started the company because of sub-standard doctor visits with his 1-year-old daughter. It became his goal to “take the clinic to the people,” making healthcare affordable and accessible through in-person and home visits.

 

After assembling a core of caring, experienced medical personnel, his business is seeing success and making a difference. With a bad healthcare experience still fresh in his mind, Aderinkomi took his vision for what healthcare can be, set up a business model, and hired the people to make it happen. With those three variables, your burgeoning healthcare business can be its very best version.

 

 

How to Treat Startup Patients in Need

 

Leaders with extensive STEM knowledge usually carry a healthcare company far. But to get it to its apex, that intelligence needs to be supplemented by strong doses of common sense. Here’s how to find that balance:

 

  1. Confront the diagnosis head-on. No matter how phenomenal or revolutionary your idea may be, it must be scalable. Your services need to be standardized and replicated in order to apply it to a varying areas and diverse audiences.

 

AdhereTech took its own offering and ran with it. Its smart, wireless pill bottles have been a revelation for patients suffering from memory loss. Partnering with pharmaceutical companies, AdhereTech gets expensive prescriptions in the hands of the patients most in need. The union takes some of the financial burden off AdhereTech, allowing it to be a financially solvent solution for customers.

 

  1. Focus on health, not just profit. Healthcare is big business that must have a conscience. Once you step into the industry, it’s no longer just about making profit — you’re in the well-being business.

 

Asian companies like Diabeto and HealthPlix understand this. Through the use of technology, each helps patients in its own country and in the U.S. treat the effects of diabetes. And neither asks its patients to break the bank.

 

  1. Recognize how health impacts quality of life. You can’t put a price tag on human wellness. Individuals — some more than others — place a different value on their health.

 

No matter how much profit you anticipate, your business owes it to the public to maintain a reasonable, consistent price point throughout. Candescent Health, a radiology company, understands how health affects quality of life and envisions restoring individuals and the system that serves them.

 

As a healthcare provider, be it physical or otherwise, you have a social responsibility to invest in patients’ lives and not profit from their pain. Consumers — people with real illnesses — will spread the news about your business, and it will thrive (if you can stand out above the rest).

 

 

 

About the author

Kevin Xu is the CEO of MEBO International, a California- and Beijing-based intellectual property management company specializing in applied health systems. He also leads Skingenix, which specializes in skin organ regeneration and the research and development of botanical drug products. Kevin is co-founder of the Human Heritage Project.