Business model for the sickle cell diagnostics venture

Conner Calzone, Roy Ndebvudzemene, Tiffany Pang

 

 

  • Develop a business model for your venture using the Osterwalder business model canvas

 

 

Value Proposition: 

  • For all children of 5 years and younger who have sickle cell disease, our SCA diagnostic device is capable of identifying between normal blood, sickle cell disease and sickle cell trait, in order to take the necessary steps for treatment.

 

Distribution Channels:

  • Clinics through a screening program
  • Hospitals
  • Non-Governmental Organizations
  • Government Health Sector

 

Key Resources:

  • Retrieval of blood
  • Data of who are diagnosed with SCD or SCT
  • Management of how the blood will be taken from patients
  • IRB Approval

 

Cost Structure:

  • Fixed Costs: Utilities, Community Health Worker Salaries
  • Variable Costs: Direct Materials, Indirect Materials, Taxes

 

How should the device be paid for? Government health sector or individual patients?

  • Things to think about: If the government, how realistic is that for the government to pay? There could be political problems and for the most part, not always successful. If the individual patients, they may struggle to pay and may choose not to use the diagnostic device at all if the financial burden falls on them.
  • Current: Receiving funds from grants and competition
  • Distribution & Approval: Pharmacy Board, Hospitals, Clinics in Sierra Leone
  • Possible Plan: If healthcare workers are already there, we may not have to pay them and hence we can save money. The money from the grants could be used in manufacturing and transporting the device. The money gained from the devices will be injected into the program to keep it running and perhaps expand it as well.

 

Key Partners:

  • World Hope International
  • Dr. Cheedy Jaja
  • World Hope Organization
  • Sickle Scan Society

 

Key Activities:

  • Educating individuals on the stigma and effects of Sickle Cell Disease
  • Testing children under 5 for Sickle Cell Trait and Sickle Cell Disease
  • Directing SCT and SCD patients to the most effective treatment types
  • Directing SCT and SCD patients to how and where they can be treated

 

Customer segments:

  • Children under the age of 5
  • Newborn babies
  • Sierra Leoneans with SCD or SCT

 

Customer Relationships: 

  • User Communities: The targeted customers/consumers will benefit more by getting involved more with the program for sickle cell screening, advisory services, and educational services.

 

Future Addressable Markets:

  • Point of care testing market (POCT)
    • The point-of-care testing market has been developing rapidly over recent years. This market includes all detection devices that are able to rapidly diagnose patients. The global point-of-care testing (POCT) market is expected to grow up to $36.96 billion in 2021. This expansion of the market is validated by the importance of POCT in global health. These devices are intended to simplify the diagnosis of many diseases and are especially useful in low-resource areas.
  • World Health Organization (WHO)
    • Also, distribute these diagnostic devices to low-resource areas as a step towards reducing world health care issues. This point-of-care device will likely be distributed by a non-profit organization to be utilized by health care professionals and patients in low and middle resource countries. The patients and medical professionals who come in contact directly with the device are the product’s end users. 
  • Non-governmental Organization (NGOs)
    • Because Sierra Leone and other developing countries do not have the ability to purchase the test strips from us as they would cost too much money, these costs would be taken up by large organizations such as UKAID, and UNICEF who have programs such as the innovation fund which could fund our project for several years
  • Free Healthcare Initiative (FHCI)
    • Funded by other governments (especially the UK Department of International Development), the UN, and financial NGOs. This initiative provides free, basic healthcare services to pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under 5. 

 

    1. List ten lessons from the business and operations model of the Aravind eye hospital

 

  • Recognize the problem

 

        1. State the problem
          1. “Today, we’re reaching not even 10% of them”
            1. This sentence speaks “why” we should even consider this
        2. Ex: Recognize what it is like to be blind

 

  • Sharing a real-life person’s story

 

        1. The woman talks about her struggles, depravity of their livelihood and their dignity, their independence and their status in the family

 

  • State the statistics

 

        1. “One amongst the millions”
        2. Numbers or percentages show the severity of how many are affected by blindness
        3. Numbers/percentages/facts also indicate “possibility”, “success”, “validity” and the “power” of the project (encompassing how many can be cured and given sight)
          1. “A simple procedure-will give sight to 7.5 million”
          2. “Last three decades we have done about  3 ½ million surgeries”
          3. “A typical day we perform about 1000 surgeries and see about 6000 patients”

 

  • Discuss how the project all started/The History or Founding of the Project

 

        1. Start with meaning
        2. “Started with no money. He had to mortgage all his life savings.”
        3. Building blocks
          1. Value system
          2. Efficient delivery process
          3. Fostering culture of innovation

 

  • Show the growth of the project/implemented system

 

        1. “Over time, we have grown into a network of fie hospitals”
        2. Mention “where” it is predominately established
        3. Mission centers: hub-and-spoke model
        4. Management or hospitals in-country and down the line, in other parts of the world

 

  • State Target Customers 

 

        1. “Who” is this project for?

 

  • State Your Approach or Solution

 

        1. “Send out teams into the villages to examine, bring back patients” (Transportation)
        2. Consultations
        3. Training for residents/fellows, technicians and healthcare workers (prioritizing those who will become future staff) 

 

  • Establish meaning in your project

 

        1. Build an ethical and highly patient-centric management with a system that supports it
          1. “Implicit faith in you. Here is an old lady who has got so much faith in me, I must do my best for her.”
          2. “When we grow in spiritual consciousness, we identify ourselves with all that is in the world, so there is no exploitation. It is ourselves we are helping. It is ourselves we are healing.”

 

  • Marketing Strategy

 

        1. McDonald’s franchise is available all over the world, selling the same product with the same service
          1. Consistency and Convenience is Key
        2. “The eyeball is the same, the problem is the same, the treatment is the same. Yet, why should there be so much variation in quality and in service?”
          1. The design of delivery systems need to constantly “innovate”

 

  • Creating a Step-By-Step Execution Strategy

 

      1. Create ownership in the community to the problem and engage with them as a partner
      2. Community-organized camp
        1. Organize volunteers, Bring in doctors/healthcare workers, Determine next steps (what further testing/treatment should be done), Diagnosis (prescribes a line of treatment), If needed glasses (immediately available at the camp site), patients get glasses with frames by “their choice” (fashion statement they’re willing to pay for), those who need surgery are counseled (buses waiting to transport them to the base hospital), they receive surgery the following day, stay for a day or two to recuperate, then they are transported back to where they came from…..

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