I have been looking at the medtech field a couple of months ago, specifically in the continuous health monitoring in the space of diabetes, cardiology and fitness.
What I have learned from the Slovak startup Diagnose.me is that there is a market demand for radiology expertise.
The concept originally came from founder of Neulogy Ventures Ivan Stefunko, the co-founder of Diagnose.me who had to get a second opinion from an experienced radiologist but found it difficult.
To solve the problem of he teamed up with another Slovak entrepreneur in the health services domain Lukas Alner and started a B2C marketplace for radiology consultations Diagnose.me.
To understand better this medtech market segment and issues within it I talked to Erik Ranschaert, Chief Medical Officer of Diagnose.me. Ranschaert, who has previously built and sold a B2B radiology company, sees a great potential in opening up access for individuals to the radiology experts. Whilst on the B2B level remote radiology consultation services are a commonplace, there is little available on the B2C market.
The market need comes from individuals who seek second opinion from experienced radiologists. By using Diagnose.me they gain access to radiologists online, and can receive a professional second opinion on ilnesses such as brain tumor, breast cancer or back pain by simply sending them images – x-rays, MRI and CAT scans.
Diagnose.me has an internal quality review process to admit radiologists to its market place - so far it has 50 experts on board. Its business model – commission on the fees charged by the radiologists for the advice provided to the platform users. The company website went live at the end of 2013.
In a similar field, image-related medical advice service has been launched recently by the German startup Goderma, that helps individuals seek skin problem consultations by sending through images of their skin problems. In Germany the challenge of the medtech is getting health insurance companies cover such costs in their policies. For the moment this is kind of services are paid by the patients.
