Market Knowledge and Stakeholder Considerations for the Biopharmaceutics Sector—Incorporating User Value and Societal Needs in Therapeutic Interventions

Purpose: Many health systems are considered ill-equipped to adequately meet future demand. Although academic entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) drive health technology innovation, they often suboptimally consider important market and stakeholder requirements. This can result in missed opportunities to improve health system performance, address demand-supply gaps, and achieve financial rewards. Market intelligence can provide crucial information in this regard, but scientifically sourced guidance on how to perform market research for biopharmaceutics is scarce. Our objective was, therefore, to create and provide an easily accessible biopharmaceutics market research toolbox that can be perused by academic entrepreneurs and SMEs to improve the alignment of their developments with stakeholder needs. Design: Guided by market orientation theory, we interviewed senior managers and commercialisation experts from the biopharmaceutics sector. We asked them which information they consider most relevant, and how they collect, analyse and respond to new information to align product features, positioning and stakeholder-relationship management with market needs. Findings: Our innovator toolbox consists of a high-level overview of market intelligence considerations mapped against a novel innovation framework, a stakeholder reasoning and value model, and detailed considerations (checklists) per stakeholder of biopharmaceutics interventions. Originality: We provide here the first market orientation-based overview of market intelligence considerations for the biopharmaceutics sector. Although primarily collated for academic entrepreneurs and SMEs, our innovator toolbox for the biopharmaceutics sector can help all stakeholders better understand their orientation towards markets.

Adopting Health Apps, What’s Hindering Doctors and Patients?

There are high expectations for Mobile Health to transform health into a sustainable and prevention-based system. Unfortunately it has not reached its scale of adoption many had hoped for, due to the existence of adoption barriers. More insight into these barriers fosters adoption of mHealth and the innovation it can bring to worldwide healthcare. This study investigates the main barriers in the adoption of mHealth, their underlying causes and their breakthrough possibilities. All the data are gathered from an international and multi-stakeholder point of view. First of all we tried to identify the main barriers by doing an international literature study. Second of all we asked Dutch mHealth Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) to rank the barriers to importance. These KOLs were from different stakeholder groups;policy-makers, users and developers. At last we asked the KOLs in interviews for underlying causes and breakthrough opportunities of the barriers. Eventually twelve main adoption barriers emerged. According to literature and to the KOLs the most important barriers are “Integration and interoperability” and “Business case”. An underlying cause for the barrier “Integration and interoperability” might be the active closed power system of technology suppliers, which exists in the Netherlands. Furthermore there seems to be a difference in the importance of the barriers “Privacy and security” and “Conservative culture” when perceptions of Dutch KOLS and international literature are compared. Within the stakeholders-groups, the KOLs think differently about the importance of the barriers “Visionless development” and “Competing payment mechanism”. The Dutch healthcare insurers could take a more leading role in the fragmented landscape of mHealth in the Netherlands, by strategically funding new initiatives that use open standards and deliver better value for end-users. Other chances might lie in the international cooperation between countries to overcome certain barriers.

Cost-effectiveness in Clostridium difficile treatment decision-making

AIM: To develop a framework for the clinical and health economic assessment for management of Clostridium difficile infection(CDI).METHODS: CDI has vast economic consequences emphasizing the need for innovative and cost effective solutions, which were aim of this study. A guidance model was developed for coverage decisions and guideline development in CDI. The model included pharmacotherapy with oral metronidazole or oral vancomycin, which is the mainstay for pharmacological treatment of CDI and is recommended by most treatment guidelines.RESULTS: A design for a patient-based cost-effectiveness model was developed, which can be used to estimate the cost-effectiveness of current and future treatment strategies in CDI. Patient-based outcomes were extrapolated to the population by including factors like, e.g., person-to-person transmission, isolation precautions and closing and cleaning wards of hospitals. CONCLUSION: The proposed framework for a population-based CDI model may be used for clinical and health economic assessments of CDI guidelines and coverage decisions for emerging treatments for CDI.