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When good ideas make bad business

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Re: When good ideas make bad business

#291

Post by pgsbathhouse »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #287
pgsbathhouse wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a lie. Marketing budgets are approximately equal to R&D Your own source doesn't even say that. In the exact BBC article you linked: >But as the table below shows, drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much - than on developing them Here's some very very basic reading on the subject that you can find in 10 seconds of googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_ma…

In the context of a claimed difference of "several orders of magnitude" (i.e. >1000x), a difference of 1-2x rounds down to 1. If you follow the citations for that Wikipedia claim (a very very basic step) you will see that they don't provide any evidence for an order of magnitudes difference. I'm not usually in the habit of shilling for Big Pharma, but since you've taken such a condescending tone I'll make an exceptio…

Ah yes, the very classic "you're making me act this way u big meanie" response.

I notice you didn't want to correct the original OP on his misleading claim. Is there a reason you were shilling for Big Pharma before my post hurt your feelings?

>which would have the same effect as reducing free samples

Where do you even get this idea from?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#292

Post by DanBC »

folli wrote: post #195
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

Universal healthcare won't help you there, since it also requires a stringent cost-benefit-calculation, e.g. the British system is very (in)famous for this.

> e.g. the British system

There isn't a "british" system because health is devolved. There are four separate systems, one each for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England.

> requires a stringent cost-benefit-calculation

There are lots of problems with the English NHS, but this is almost never one of them. Unless you have particular examples?

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#293

Post by sumedh »

planetzero wrote: post #209
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

"This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life." Government-run healthcare isn't a panacea that will 'value human life' any more than the insurance companies. You are still a number in a database somewhere. Most new drugs come out of the US and socialized governments create generics at a fraction of the cost, because they don't have to p…

> with an even more inefficient layer called the government.

Maybe in the US, other countries (e.g Australia) are not so inefficient.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#294

Post by conductr »

mwilcox wrote: post #100
mritchie712 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny part is, he might still be wrong about it being worthless. He talked to ten doctors? There are 1M in the US. It's kind of funny to drop all that time and 40k in then give up after ten doctors say no, especially without trying to tweak the product based on feedback. I, as a consumer, find it worthless and they shouldn't have even started it, but now that you're here, might as well give it a bit more of shot…

He should obviously be selling to clinics / hospitals Plus when did the 'we don't have any budget' excuse stop a SaaS company? That's what you raise VC for - build the product, hand it to the customer for 'free' and charge them what it was really worth based on their usage when you threaten to take it away

Or, pharma. They have pockets and imagine what that graphic could be worth to Aleve. Otherwise reps could use this data in their sales pitches. Lots of money here.

Have that doctor introduce you to her pharma reps.

Find other data that is specialty specific and sell to pharma in that specialty.

I’m a healthcare CFO and this could work. You’re talking to people that’s a great step.

Keep talking. You built the thing, put it on a $30/month server. I suspect you don’t need the cloud stuff. Just make it your proprietary graphics & viz data. It doesn’t have to be freely available.

Raise money for this. You’re in the Bay Area for a reason.

Get commitments from pharma first. Keep more of your company from PE.

Good luck.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#295

Post by nodemaker »

planetzero wrote: post #209
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

"This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life." Government-run healthcare isn't a panacea that will 'value human life' any more than the insurance companies. You are still a number in a database somewhere. Most new drugs come out of the US and socialized governments create generics at a fraction of the cost, because they don't have to p…

The government runs a lot of things better than the private sector. Even in the US, the government loosely or strongly manages Police, National Defense, Garbage Disposal, Water managenemt, Power Management, Internet infrastructure, Education, Telephone, Mail and many more. Any service that every citizen needs to live a healthy life is better and more cost effectively run by the government.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#297

Post by philjohn »

folli wrote: post #195
omegaworks wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely why we need universal healthcare. The incentive structure of private markets don't properly value human life.

Universal healthcare won't help you there, since it also requires a stringent cost-benefit-calculation, e.g. the British system is very (in)famous for this.

That is for approving new treatments, not for ongoing lifesaving care, so is an apples to oranges comparison IMHO.

The drug needs to have a proven benefit, which usually comes down to how much longer does it give you, if it's only marginally better than the existing treatment, but orders of magnitude more expensive they work with the manufacturer to bring the cost down to where it can be approved.

A lot of what was written about the UK system during the ACA debate was outright falshoods or misrepresentations (e.g. the infamous "death panels", whilst ignoring the Kafkaesque nightmare that can be the US system).

Tell you what, I'd take the NHS over what you've got any day of the week, as would the vast majority of people in the UK.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#298

Post by philjohn »

DanBC wrote: post #292
folli wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal healthcare won't help you there, since it also requires a stringent cost-benefit-calculation, e.g. the British system is very (in)famous for this.

> e.g. the British system There isn't a "british" system because health is devolved. There are four separate systems, one each for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and England. > requires a stringent cost-benefit-calculation There are lots of problems with the English NHS, but this is almost never one of them. Unless you have particular examples?

I'm assuming it's the widely debunked "death panel" talk that was doing the rounds during the ACA debate.

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#299

Post by philjohn »

cal5k wrote: post #247
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Doctors can still have individual discretion over their choice of IT service provision (etc) under single payer. The only thing single payer does is eliminate insurance company opportunism. It doesn't suddenly convert the entire healthcare system into a dystopian concrete monolith. Although if it did it would make OP's job far easier, because if you could prove there were cost and health outcome bene…

> because if you could prove there were cost and health outcome benefits on a national scale you would be able to convert the idea into a viable business with a single corporate sales pitch, instead of trying to sell to every doctor individually. As someone who ran a healthcare business in Canada, I can tell you that this is absolutely not the case. Single payers are outrageously conservative buyers... sure, you may…

That's a shame, in the UK we've seen some medical companies do very well by selling to GP surgeries and Primary Care Services (e.g. Egton who provide the online prescription and appointment booking service PatientAccess).

Re: When good ideas make bad business

#300

Post by disillusioned »

Androider wrote: post #212
eightysixfour wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or he should try selling it to CVS as a in-the-store tool for OTC products, where his original need came from in the first place.

CVS doesn't care if you buy Tylenol or Advil or which one works better, and makes no additional money depending on your choice of product. In fact, the brands pay CVS for the privilege of being featured on an eye-level shelf vs at the bottom. I think it was a great article. Like it said: To succeed, an offering must create value for all entities involved in the exchange—target customers, the company, and its collabor…

This is a pretty short-sighted way of thinking of it.

A tool like this could easily be marketed as a USP for a pharmacy:

"Only CVS has MedFinder: a proprietary system to find you the medication that's most likely to help cure YOUR SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS. No more standing in front of the racks of too-similar sounding medications. Enter your symptoms, get a recommendation backed with data!"

The product here is a kiosk backed with some real data that you can build a marketing effort around as yet another way to try to differentiate yourself in a heavily commoditized business. Pharmacies fight tooth and nail to get people in their door, and especially, to transfer prescriptions to them. One more small detail that you can convince people might help them, that actually gets them through the door? You could build an entire campaign around it.

(Think Dr. Scholls placing those foot-pressure-sensor systems in pharmacies. They drive, pun intended, foot traffic.)

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