Lesson: Is Your Idea Marketable?
Your motivation (5 min)
If you are developing a pharmaceutical or technology product, will it help other human beings or yourself?
Is it going to matter for?
Me
- I have a health issue and my/our idea may prevent, treat or cure it. If this matters enough to you, then it will not be important to spend time investigating or marketing your idea to other partners.
- I want to be a millionaire ! The size of the market, where you want to market, the health policies of the countries where you want to market and the size of your partners will impact on the money you make.
Family / Friends
- A family member or friend has a health issue - if you develop your idea for your family member only you are never going to recoup the costs but because it's your family or friend, the need to market your product won't matter either to you or larger companies.
Your community or society
- If it's a local health problem affecting hundreds or thousands of people with local prevention, treatment or cure, then it may be worth the risk of developing your idea regardless of whether a large pharmaceutical company does something similar. You will need to consider the effects of developing your product (or a competitor developing a similar product) on your local community, economy and environment.
Global
- If your idea is developing prevention, treatment or cure for global diseases such as HIV, Ebola, TB, it would not be possible to develop from your shed or back yard and you will need a large partner or several partners to identify the populations needed for your clinical trials and markets where your product will be regulated.
Technology and apps
It is rare for a technology to be sold to a large company for millions within a few months of marketing and it will depend on whether it falls within regulatory guidelines or not.
These two different examples from a nurse and an education developer show how they have managed to produce working apps within healthcare.
Blood app development transcript
Platelets app
Developing consent for healthcare app