The Future of Healthcare: Why In-Home Diagnostics Are Going To Disrupt The Industry
In this installment of Prototype Capital’s “Future Of” blog series, we speak to Jim Chauvapun, Head of Operations at Juno Diagnostics, a Prototype Capital portfolio company in the healthcare diagnostics space.
We asked Jim a series of open-ended questions about unmet needs in his industry and where he believes the industry is headed.
- What is the biggest unmet need in healthcare?
Jim: In our discussions with both physicians and patients, one of the largest unmet needs is having the right diagnostic information at the right time to make treatment decisions. For example, consider a use case where a mother has a sick child at home with a fever. Today, she will make an appointment with a pediatrician to determine whether it is a common cold (bacterial infection) or a flu (viral infection) after an in-office or laboratory test, where for the later it could take several days for results to be reported. With an in-home diagnostic test, this workflow can be dramatically improved as treatment can begin immediately based on the diagnostic test (for medical testing like in-home influenza testing, a confirmatory test will not be necessary). The most compelling use case is one where in-home diagnostic testing is used in conjunction with telemedicine. Doctors seeing patients remotely will be able to rely on diagnostic tests performed at-home and can make treatment decisions (ordering anti-viral therapies) in real-time.
A second example mentioned by one of our advisors Steven Stack, MD (former president of the American Medical Association) is the case were STD testing is done in-home. For these patients, the biggest challenge is getting patient diagnosed early enough to make a difference. Patient are often scared of seeing their “family doctor” to even share the concern that they may have an STD. So an in-home test that would screen or potentially identify disease would be beneficial to the healthcare system.
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2. Is the market ready for in-home testing? And what are some of the hurdle to this happening?
Jim: This is an interesting thought exercise as we plan for products beyond our initial in-home applications. We believe that accessible healthtech and better diagnostics have the power to shift the healthcare paradigm from reactive to proactive. As healthcare evolves, patient expectations are changing. Historically, the doctor-patient relationship was one where the doctor served the patient and the patient was a less active participant in their care. Today the paradigm is changing, with patients expecting and becoming more welcomed as a member of the care team.
· Patients today are less willing to tolerate the delays and inefficiencies typically associated with healthcare. The more they pay for their own medical costs, the more they will expect (due to increasing high deductible plans).
As we think about consumer genomics and disease diagnostics in particular, we have been encouraged by the rapid adoption of genetic testing. Companies like Ancestry and 23andMe have done the heavy lifting in terms of educating the market on the utility of genetic tests. For example, in 2017 Ancestry generated $1B in revenue.
The primary barriers / hurdles from both the consumer and market side are as follows:
· Decreasing the cost of genetic tests. At Juno, we believe that this will be a critical component as test cost and ultimately product price will greatly influence adoption.
· Improving the accessibility / convenience for consumers; especially for blood based genetic tests which oftentimes requires a phlebotomy draw. The primary reason that we are focusing our efforts on reducing the amount of blood needed (i.e., finger prick) for our tests is that we want to enable consumers the convenience of being able to perform diagnostic test at the point of need (i.e., in-home, doctor’s office, or low resource developing countries).
· Providing information / testing that is both deemed valuable and will support / improve the physician workflow. We have seen a lot of technologies fail because they are disruptive to the physician workflow and as a result are not broadly adopted.
Many thanks to Jim for spending some time and enlightening us about the future of healthcare.
Cheers to the future,
Team Prototype Capital
