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Creating a new medical technology is a triple win: you tap into 12% of the Canadian economy [ 1 ], you are helping to ease the burden of delivering care, and you are improving or even saving lives! But you would be forgiven for seeing the MedTech landscape in Canada as daunting due to its scale, complexity, and funding challenges.
Luckily, ventureLAB’s advisor Colin Hung is here to help with these tips:
Tip 1: Turn a Perceived Disadvantage into an Advantage
In the United States, hospitals have bigger budgets and often have funds dedicated to adopting new technologies - especially if those technologies can help attract new patients. In Canada, by contrast, healthcare organizations do not compete with one another for patients. Instead, Canadian healthcare organizations are constantly under pressure to deliver more services to more people at lower cost. There is a perception, therefore, that Canadian healthcare organizations do not invest in innovation.
What seems like a disadvantage should be turned to your advantage - to be appealing to the Canadian market, MedTech firms must clearly demonstrate how their technology generates real improvement for patients or clinicians, and tangible ROI. Do this and the technology will be appealing in Canada, the US, and internationally.
Tip 2: Dig deeper when validating your product-market-fit
This tip also turns a challenge into an opportunity. Having patients or even doctors say they like your product is not sufficient in MedTech.
Healthcare is complex and everywhere you look, there are problems as well as inefficiencies that could be solved. However, in healthcare, just because a problem exists, does not mean there is motivation or funding to solve it. To be successful, MedTech entrepreneurs need to ensure their solutions or services address challenges that healthcare organizations are ready to pay to solve.
We all would love to have an Iron-Man exoskeleton to help patients to walk again while healing from a broken toe, but a $50 pair of crutches achieves the same thing (albeit without being as cool).
In order to really sell your product you need to dig deeper and ask probing questions like:
- Does my product replace something you are using now? If so, how much is that existing product? How often is it prescribed/used?
- What are the specific features about my product that you could not live without?
- How much of your daily routine or standard workflow would have to change in order to use my product?
- Who needs to be involved in deciding whether or not to budget for/purchase this type of product?
It is not enough to simply poll many people - you have to dig to find out as much as you can about the competition your product faces and how your product can be purchased (if at all). Taking these factors into account will put you on the solid footing you need to turn a product into profit.
Tip 3: Get the right Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) on board
Networking is key to success in any sector, but nowhere is that more true than in MedTech. To get your technology in front of the right people, you need to develop a robust network that includes surgeons, doctors, nurses, researchers, or administrators who are recognized Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) within healthcare. These are people that others in healthcare turn to for advice and guidance. You need KOLs to help advocate for your product. KOLs are relatively easy to find (just look at who the keynote and other speakers are at healthcare conferences), but very difficult to build a relationship with. It can take significant time, effort and establishing yourself within a KOL’s broader network. However, having the right KOLs advocating for your product can accelerate your time to market and time to commercialize by months or years!
Tip 4: Get specific with your target market
Targeting a specific market seems obvious - but can be harder to achieve than it seems. For example, say your target market is diabetes patients. Yes, there are millions of diabetic and at-risk-for-diabetes patients in Canada and the US. But that generalization will not get you very far in healthcare.
Diabetes patients are not homogenous. Some are below the poverty line. Some have multiple chronic conditions (some with higher acuity like cancer, liver disease, etc). Some live in rural areas which have no access to stable internet. All of these customers will require a different approach in terms of product design, user experience, and marketing. Do the work to really understand the demographic, ethnographic and socioeconomic groups that your product truly appeals to. This approach will result in a smaller total addressable market, but it will demonstrate to investors that you are serious and healthcare savvy. It will make your product iterations better as you tailor new versions to the specific target.
Tip 5: Getting FDA or Health Canada approval is just a step in a long process
This tip again relates to the specific challenges of working in MedTech. Getting FDA or Health Canada certification is not the end goal. It is just a step in a long process. FDA or Health Canada approval is like getting a hunting license - you need the license to hunt, but you still have to do the actual hunting in order to turn your piece of paper into profit.
No company has been successful by waiting for customers to come to their doors simply because they got approval. Don’t wait for approval before going out and building a sales pipeline. You can’t actually sell your product without FDA approval, but you can drum up interest without it and create potential buyers.
Tip 6: Position your company in an ecosystem that will provide an environment conducive to growth
Choosing where to locate your company is crucial to success - you want an environment that will support rather than hinder your growth.
For instance, the City of Vaughan offers many resources for a company to scale and grow. Vaughan’s Health and Healthcare Tech and Life Sciences sector comprises:
- more than 350 life sciences and health-tech companies in York Region.
- more than 1,300 businesses employing more than 17,000 people in life sciences, health and health-tech across Vaughan.
- 18 world-class hospitals within the Greater Toronto Area[ 2 ].
Vaughan’s location includes Canada’s first smart hospital, the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital which features fully integrated smart technology systems and medical devices that can speak directly to one another to maximize information exchange and enable improved patient care[ 3 ].
Companies in Vaughan can access the many services offered by York Region’s premiere startup and scaleup incubator. ventureLAB provides support for startup and scaling companies to commercialize medical devices and digital health solutions, including assistance with fundraising, certifications, IP, business strategy, international expansion, and go-to-market tactics.
ventureLAB’s Hardware Catalyst Initiative offers access to two lab environments, including a state-of-the-art MedTech lab in Vaughan. The MedTech Lab, developed in partnership with Sterling Industries, with whom ventureLAB recently signed an MOU, focuses on developing microelectronic hardware devices for medical applications. Vaughan companies have unparalleled exposure to MedTech manufacturing expertise, inside one of Canada’s most prolific medical device production facilities.
ventureLAB is also one of the key partners, along with the City of Vaughan, York University and MacKenzie Health, collaborating in an exciting initiative called the Vaughan Healthcare Centre Precinct (VHCP). These partners are bringing together business practitioners, educators, research and practitioners to transform an 82-acre area of land at Jane Street and Major Mackenzie Drive into an innovative cluster of healthcare excellence.
The VHCP will build out a unique “care without walls” approach to healthcare delivery, informatics and wellness, in research, education, innovation or commercialization. Vaughan Mayor Stephen Del Duca has cited “the cross-pollination that you can achieve within a physical space when there’s a cluster of interest, investment, knowledge, innovation—that’s all physically located in one area.”[ 4 ] The VHCP is set up to provide the seedbed for bringing together all of the advantages that the region has to offer.
Vaughan’s unique ecosystem enables the development of MedTech solutions while helping domestic companies to commercialize, grow, and scale their businesses for global markets.
[ 1 ] https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends
[ 3 ] https://www.mackenziehealth.ca/about-us/cortellucci-vaughan-hospital
[ 4 ] https://betakit.com/tapping-into-vaughans-emerging-world-class-healthcare-hub-with-mayor-del-duca/
