Creating A Culture Of Innovation - 8 Key Insights For Medtechs Seeking A Culture Of Innovation
BLOG SERIES: CREATING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION [Installment 9 of 10]
Attention, MedTech and medical device companies! Seeking ways to take your great new product or service to the next level? Have dreams of transforming healthcare and becoming wealthy in the process? Fantastic … but it all begins with a culture of innovation. In Installment 9 of this 10-part blog series, we discuss things to keep in mind as you create and nurture a culture of innovation.
8 KEY INSIGHTS FOR MEDTECHS SEEKING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
By THOMAS HICKEY
Partner
[February 4, 2022] – It struck me as I reviewed a recent Med Tech Gurus podcast conducted with a healthcare industry superstar how similar the belief system is among those who’ve found great success in developing and introducing innovative new products or services to market. People I consider experts in their respective healthcare sectors often say similar things [and, I assume, stub their toes along the way in similar fashion].
In Med Tech Gurus Episode #109, Richard Hague shared eight key insights for those somewhere in the process of creating/developing/introducing a great new healthcare innovation. Before we share those insights, let me provide you a greater sense of just who Richard Hague is.
A lifelong New Englander now living in, and enjoying, the outdoor recreation focus of beautiful Park City, UT, Richard is CEO of PolarityTE, Inc., a Salt Lake City-based translational regenerative medicine company. PolarityTE develops functionally polarized human tissues to improve clinical medicine and biomedical research. Previously, Richard held biotechnology and executive leadership positions at Anika Therapeutics, TEI Medical, Genzyme and Sanofi. He has led the development of numerous innovative biologics and medical devices.
Safe to say, this gentleman has ‘got chops’. Here we go …
Innovation Comes in Many Shapes and Sizes, and from Many Directions. – It’s critically important for your team as a whole to understand MedTech innovations take many forms and can flow from any member of your organization. But innovation only flourishes when there’s a culture of openness, creativity and innovation in place. Every member of your team must be 100% confident their perspective and their voice matters. This frees them and empowers them to make their greatest contributions by thinking and acting creatively without fear of rejection or judgment.
Failing Fast + Often = Greater Learning + Enhanced Likelihood of Success. – As the Chinese proverb goes, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” Thomas Edison even said of his failed attempts at the lightbulb, "I didn't fail 1,000 times, the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." You get the point.
Richard stresses the importance of a “fail fast” mindset, learning from those failures, pivoting and establishing a new and better jumping-off point for success. Bottom line: It’s OK to be wrong on the way to being right. It’s all part of the process and that process is seldom as linear or as algebraic as we might prefer. “The more you can learn as you go,” he says, “the better you’re going to be in the end. It’s the continuous improvement approach.”
Accept the Reality that MedTech Innovation Is Never a Guaranteed Success. – The road to riches and breakthrough MedTech success is littered with the bones and carcasses of many, many others. For every success, there are scores of products or services that for varying reasons never made it to market. Knowing this up front will help you understand the importance of successfully executing each step of the process.
As such, the further down the road to market you’ve journeyed, the greater the heartbreak will be if your innovation isn’t ultimately adopted. I know this sounds discouraging but it is reality and it speaks to the need to strip away [as much as you can, even when it’s “your baby”] the emotional component. Products that stumble out of the gate or a few steps down the road are easier to pull the plug on than others that reach late-stage development and have racked up successes along the way. Calling it quits can become a very difficult thing to do. And costly, I might add.
Richard shared with our Med Tech Gurus audience a personal experience. At Anika Therapeutics, his team had developed an innovative technology platform involving long-lasting hyaluronic acid for osteoarthritis in knee joints. But its efficacy took time so a fast-acting steroid was added and trials returned encouraging results. Unfortunately, the team encountered a barrier to entry imposed by FDA. So they abandoned their U.S. efforts, pivoted and brought the innovation to Canada and Europe where healthcare governing bodies are, shall we say, more welcoming. Point is: Yes, their dreams of success were dashed in the U.S. but they persisted and found alternative markets that embraced their arduous work.
Keep Your Investors Informed and Updated. – Your financial backers were impressed with you enough to roll the dice and invest in the potential for financial success for all involved. It’s critically important for you to communicate progress on a regular basis and manage expectations.
“In the stage of final regulatory determination, sometimes you get surprised, and not always in a good way” Richard shared. “It’s very important to be very open and honest around opportunities. Make sure you’re expressing the right level of confidence but, at the same time, recognizing there’s always risk involved. Take off your salesperson’s hat at times and make sure you’re being as transparent as possible about the risks as well as the upside opportunity.”
It’s Never Too Early to Plan for Success. – The earlier you start your planning and strategy, the better. Innovators need to be thinking about commercialization long before commercialization is even on the horizon. A good time-window is 18-24 months in advance of when you hope to launch though it can vary based on your particular regulatory pathway.
And when you’re planning and strategizing, be ever mindful of healthcare economics and the likelihood of your product or service being paid for. Focus on building a highly compelling value proposition. Lean on specialists [such as Excelerant Consulting] that understand not only how to create a strong value-prop but also the mindsets and key priorities of the constituencies involved along your pathway to market – healthcare providers, patients, payors and hospital systems. In your Phase Three trials, build in certain components that will demonstrate your value-prop in a randomized control trial format that’s robust and well received, especially by payors.
Failing to do so may leave you spinning your wheels. On one hand, you may have physicians who really like your innovation but the hospitable system doesn’t see the cost-benefit of using the product. “Close but no cigar” is not where you want to be so do your homework early, early, early!
Let’s Build on that Last Point Above -- Yes, everyone has their own unique priorities. Docs want improved outcomes. Healthcare systems want to see a cost benefit. Payors don’t want to be overcharged. Investors want to see a healthy ROI. You want to be rewarded for your years of hard work, as do your team members.
But ultimately, it’s about the patient.
“If you let finance alone dictate your vision, you’re going to miss out on a lot of great opportunities,” Richard says in the Med Tech Gurus podcast. Start by identifying a current, unmet patient need and be driven by meeting that need, especially diseases or issues that have a substantial impact on a patient’s quality of life.
Secondly, be honest about what you know and, more importantly, what you don’t know. Understand where your knowledge and/or experience gaps are and build a team around you that fills those gaps and brings hard-won wisdom and perspectives developed over time. No one person has all the answers, or knows everything about everything [including me, as much I hate to admit it]. The better you are at recognizing this, the sooner you’ll be smart about hiring the right people in the right roles and fielding a strong team that enhances the likelihood of product success.
Having said that, be sure and shoot straight with your team. Be fair and respectful but up-front with them if they’re not getting the job done. Don’t be afraid to be honest with people and communicate in the style of a mentor who’s willing to coach an underperforming team member and get them where they need to be. Make your coaching sessions a non-emotional conversation. Trust me, your willingness to work with them will pay long-term dividends in terms of commitment, passion and loyalty.
Be Flexible! – Times change. Markets change. Circumstances change. Look no further than the past 21 months during a pandemic to see a classic – if not catastrophic – example of the need to be flexible and course-correct along the way. Richard stresses the need to react to changing environments and conditions and working within the constraints of each while still advancing your efforts and moving your innovation ever closer to market introduction and success. “We had to look at things in a creative fashion and provide different methods for our clinical trial sites to interact with patients,” he says about the Covid era’s impact on PolarityTE, Inc. There will always be challenges -- some expected, some out of nowhere so remember to pivot as necessary.
Remember, When All Else Fails, There’s Opportunity – In some cases, physicians have worked through a variety of treatments or therapies and seen little in the way of compelling patient outcomes. So what do they have to lose if they take “a flyer” on your product.
In the case of PolarityTE, the company had developed a product called SkinTE for complex wounds and hard-to-heal burns. “The beauty of our product is that it actually comes from the patient,” Richard explained, “so our providers take a small harvest of full-thickness skin and we process it [into] multi-cellular skin segments delivered in a needle-less syringe in a paste form that can be spread out over a large wound. It’s very similar to native skin and is full-thickness, hair-bearing skin with sweat glands and pliability to it.” Where other products fell short of a desired outcome, SkinTE was able to fill a previously unmet need.
So there you have it … eight key insights from an industry superstar. Journeying down the road to market introduction with the next great MedTech innovation isn’t always easy but with perseverance, knowledge and the right people, you and your team can be the next superstars!
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In Installment 10 of our Creating a Culture of Innovation series, we’ll summarize all the key insights from our entire blog series and provide you a “Cliff Notes” recap that you can keep handy and review regularly.
Remember, commercialization, success and profitability are out there waiting on you!
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TUNE IN: Thomas Hickey is host of Med Tech Gurus, a podcast focused on Medical Entrepreneurship and Marketing [available on Apple Podcasts and other platforms].
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ABOUT THOMAS HICKEY -- Thomas is expert at developing innovative strategies and tactics and possesses a deep understanding of sales strategy and sales channels that combine to produce impressive results. With more than 35 years’ experience in the medical device industry and executive-level experience with manufacturers and Group Purchasing Organizations [GPOs], Thomas is skilled at launches, start-ups, international distribution, technology assessment, and assessing market feasibility. He has successfully launched several products and hired, coached, trained, motivated and optimized literally hundreds of independent and distributor sales team members.
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ABOUT EXCELERANT CONSULTING -- Excelerant Consulting is the go-to organization for med-tech companies that need to position products and services successfully for value analysis committees, contract acquisition, and sales modeling and execution to commercialize the launch of medical devices or services with Group Purchasing Organizations [GPO], Integrated Delivery Networks [IDN], or Regional Purchasing Coalitions [RPC]. Our clients
rely on us to enhance their product positioning, navigate corporate contracting opportunities, and provide sales support to accelerate sales growth.
For more info, contact Excelerant Consulting at info@excelerantconsulting.com.