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This is why pre-design research is essential for the IVD industry

It’s an entrepreneurial fairy tale: two wunderkinds meet in college decide to launch a startup backed by millions in venture capital funding and become 20-something millionaires before they graduate. The details these kinds of fairy tales tend to leave out are the myriad failures and the startups that struggle to move from prototype to launch. But Flatiron Health is, to date, a success story.

Founded in 2012 by Zach Weinberg and Nat Turner, Flatiron is the third company the pair has started. Their first venture, a food delivery service for college students, failed. The second, a digital marketing company, was bought out by Google. When both saw family members struggle with cancer, they decided to leverage big data to improve cancer care.

The two spent years learning about the patient experience and the clinical workflow in cancer care, speaking with oncologists, nurses, researchers, and practice and hospital administrators, before ultimately focusing their attention on electronic health records systems. Using their research, Weinberg and Turner developed OncoTrials, a software tool that works with existing EHR systems to help doctors identify patients for clinical trials. Today, Flatiron works with more than 250 oncology clinics, multiple academic institutions, and many of the top pharmaceutical oncology firms. Google Ventures and Roche are among their investors, who have raised more than $300 million for the company since its 2012 launch.

The rest of my piece is published here: http://medcitynews.com/2017/09/pre-design-research-essential-ivd-industry/

Sorry for the redirection, but since it is being published I want to make sure I point everyone in the right direction. If you do like the piece, please let me know here and I can write more on this topic or similar topics.

What can the Flatiron experience teach the in vitro diagnostics (IVD) industry? It pays to do research before heading to the design table.