There are several services and tools as well as innovative methodologies that may support your venture and these are all designed to help the new entrepreneur along the way. Growing the new health business from the seed of an idea is indeed a challenge. With several exciting transformations in the health entrepreneurship segment happening around us with and with technological innovation, business pathway creation, skill set development and rapid learning curve between entities, the new idea that you have, has to be developed and allowed to mature and take shape. In spite of these challenges we believe that being a health entrepreneur is well worth it. While it is one thing to create something useful that people buy, it is quite another to create something that can bring improvement in people’s lives and health. In this article we endeavour to provide foundational building blocks of entrepreneurship which involves developing on the idea so envisioned.
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Steps propounded by experts to develop an idea and bring it to fruition
If you are an ambitious and budding health entrepreneur you may find an edge in the industry just by listening and learning from the experiences of those who have been there before you and succeeded. One such success story is that of device entrepreneur and investor Rudy Mazzocchi who is the CEO of Elenza. Starting his career in the early 1980s when as he recalls “One could sketch an idea on a napkin, have your engineer prototype it, get FDA approval in 90 days and commercially launch a product within 6 months” Rudy Mazzochi made a remarkable mark in the industry.
Today the environment in the health entrepreneur sector is very different. The average time taken from conceptualization to bringing a product to market is 4 to 5 years and slower processes and extra capital required can make a huge impact on the company’s success. Yet, clinical validation happens to be the cornerstone and the prime driver for any health device company. With solid clinical data a company can get to the next modulation point and raise more funds for his venture.
1. If you are looking to validate a new concept, ask simple questions that will enable you to uncover unmet needs
By asking the right questions and getting the responses you will find your unmet need. The questions you may want to ask:
Rudy says that he has found these questions to be great ways to arrive at unmet needs and by witnessing surgical procedures and asking these questions he has many a times discovered an unmet need and hence a new revolutionary product.
2. By critiquing the components of an idea one can assess the feasibility of the idea
Rudy describes his approach to this as “jumping from rabbit holes to chase opportunities”. Rudy says “You need to come up for air from time to time to test the feasibility of the idea for your proposed health device”.
This example is very useful to prove this point to the readers here. He speaks about an electroactive implantable intraocular lens which was being developed by Elenza for cataract patients. In bringing down the components of the lens – right upto the minute detailing – from liquid crystal chemistry to power cell and chip needed to run the algorithm – They were able to conclude that all requirements were feasible and indeed available for fabrication. In this specific instance that even the FDA came forward to provide specific consultative advice for the approval process!