DTx Spotlight: An Interview with Susanne Gruber
For this month's episode of DTx Spotlight I sat down with incredible, Susanne Gruber.
Susanne boasts over two decades of invaluable experience in the healthcare sector, holding esteemed roles both domestically and internationally. Armed with a degree in computer science, she moved through the ranks at Novartis, assuming numerous leadership positions before moving into the position of VP Pharma Partnerships at Sidekick Health.
Her impressive career as a seasoned healthcare advisor sees her collaborating with startups, life science companies, and investors alike, championing the commercialisation of digital health solutions. Fuelled by an unwavering passion for driving innovation and enhancing patient outcomes, Susanne has honed her expertise in crafting robust business models and spearheading the launch of digital health solutions across diverse disease landscapes and global markets.
In this interview Susanne and I discussed the importance of including patients in the product development process of digital health solutions and exactly how this should be done.
Hope you enjoy the conversation!
To kick us off Susanne, Let me start by asking what has been something that you have learnt and has been crucial to the success of digital health solutions throughout your career?
"A successful launch of a Digital Health solution requires a pioneering and entrepreneurial mindset. There is no given commercial pathway and no guarantee for success. At least if we use the traditional healthcare KPIs, like market share, revenue or ROI. You constantly have to envision the future, monitor the regulatory developments, and learn from the success and failures of yourself and others.
"My three key learnings are:
When we met you mentioned that it is particularly important to include patients at critical stages of the product development process, why?
"One of the challenges in the DTx market is the low level of user adoption. This barrier is even more difficult to overcome as an increasing number of similar products are available. I would clearly state user adoption and engagement as a key success factor for the commercial success of a DTx. The DTx has to offer clear value to a patient, and the user experience has to be pleasant and motivating. DTx products promise a clinical benefit that can only be achieved if the app is used as intended. This means all targeted users need to understand easily why and how to use the app. Including patients in your product development process from the beginning can make a big difference to your product’s commercial success."
How can this be done in a stepwise approach?
"To achieve a high user adoption, patients need to be actively involved in all relevant steps of the product development process.
The better you understand the patient journey for a disease in different healthcare systems, the more customer oriented your product can be. Talk to patients, caregivers or representatives from patient associations to discover the most dominating pain points or gain creators. Invite them to actively contribute to your product value proposition and product design. There are different tools to do so, like interviews, focus groups, ideation or design thinking workshops.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Product development nowadays is an agile process, where you start with a MVP to get your product into users hands as soon as possible. This is a great way to get constant first hand feedback from your customers. I recommend having a combination of fix and random test users. Your test users should be diverse and represent different socio-demographics as well as digital readiness levels. Test users can be recruited via social media or patient associations.
Patient associations want to be involved in the design of clinical trials. This is an opportunity also for DTx companies specifically if they are not so experienced in the design and execution of trials. Involving patients in the design of your study can help to improve the quality, and to reduce the recruitment time. Patient associations can promote your trial to patients and even clinics. As we know, the effectiveness of the trial execution is critical for the product’s market access.
User acquisition is an important KPI for a DTx launch. The role of patient associations or even influencers is rarely leveraged by DTx companies. Many patient associations are open to include Digital health solutions in their communication activities, as long as they consider it as valuable for their members and if they are drug-agnostic. There are opportunities to buy a space in the association's communication tools, like newsletters, magazines, or events."
It is important to treat a patient association with respect to their own mission and values. Ideally you achieve a win-win-partnership, going beyond a one time activity.
How should digital health companies form strong partnerships with patient associations?
"Communicate clearly your own objectives and the role you want the association to play. It is important to treat a patient association with respect to their own mission and values. Ideally you achieve a win-win-partnership, going beyond a one time activity.
"I used to work with a patient council, where we had representatives from different patient associations. We met regularly, either F2F or virtually to discuss and co-create digital health solutions. It was appreciated by the council members that we also focused on their education, allowing them to build their own digital health literacy. With this knowledge the association can act as a trusted multiplier transferring the knowledge to their own members."
How do we ensure that patient associations play an active role in the digital healthcare ecosystem?
"More and more associations want to take an active role in the digital healthcare ecosystem. As a trusted organisation they can play an important part in building patients trust in DTx solutions. Many look for partnerships at eye level where they are really listened to and can have relevant influence on the DTx ecosystem.
"I collaborate with the Lovexair Foundation , an international patient focused NGO, providing a hybrid healthcare ecosystem to Respiratory patients. We develop our own digital health tools and aim to be a facilitator of the European Health Data Space EUHDS. Patient associations could play a more active role in generating real life health data, by educating and motivating their members to contribute."
What are your predictions for the digital health industry for 2024 and beyond?
"I believe we will see a healthy consolidation of the DTx market. From less point solutions to a more holistic ecosystem approach. Generative AI will allow a more cost effective and personalized product offering driving the user adoption. Those DTx companies will succeed who add to their innovative products and robust clinical evidence a well thought through business model with the right strategic partnerships."
"Digital Healthcare is here to stay, just because the void in healthcare will get bigger and bigger."
If you'd be interested in contributing your thoughts to the DTx Spotlight series please get in touch.
Global Advisor for the commercialization of Digital Health solutions - GTM & Partnership Expert - Brand Strategist
7moThanks Ellis Ward for the great exchange on that important topic. I hope it will help others to think differently about patient centricity and co-creating with patients and patient associations.
CEO | A Healthier Democracy | Physician
8moAn insightful discussion, Ellis Ward 👍🏽! Including patients in the product development journey is paramount for meaningful innovations in digital health. Susanne's expertise sheds light on crucial yet often overlooked aspects of DTx commercial success.