Business Encounters: Life Scientist

Clinical Tools Wins $200K SBIR Award to Explore Life Science Entrepreneurship

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 5/01/2019

[Chapel Hill, NC – May 1, 2019] – Clinical Tools, Inc. won a $200K Phase I SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences to begin development of the OpenPipe Simulation Experience to Enhance Entrepreneurial Intent and Self-Efficacy. OpenPipe will be a 3D computer role-playing simulation to help post-doc and early-stage life science researchers explore factors that impact entrepreneurial intent and self-efficacy.

The life scientist is key to unlocking the commercial and health impact value of life science research. Unfortunately, scientists have few resources to assess the emotional and logistical ramifications of the challenging change from scientific explorer to entrepreneur. The proposed simulation and decision support experience helps the life scientist explore entrepreneurship, assess entrepreneurial intent, build confidence, and enhance team-building skills. Through subsequent action, they potentially unlock scientific findings that can impact real-world health outcomes.

The simulation will include a game-style interface where life scientists can make decisions on how to best address challenges related to entrepreneurship and experience the outcomes, as well as build knowledge and learn techniques to move from life science to business success!

About Clinical Tools and Health Impact Studio:

Clinical Tools, Inc. (CTI) is a diverse group with expertise in medicine, psychology, public health, basic sciences, programming, project and program management, gaming, information technology, and communications. Based in Chapel Hill, the company has a 20+ year history of success with SBIRT-developed products.

Health Impact Studio, a division of Clinical Tools, utilizes gaming technology to create healthy lifestyle change. The company combines expertise from medicine, psychology, public health with gaming, to create innovative games to positively impact health. Health Impact Studio creates games for healthcare professionals, medical students, and the general public on topics like obesity, addiction, and nutrition.

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For Further Information

Company: Clinical Tools and Health Impact Studio

Email: games@healthimpact.studio

Website: BioStartUpAdvice.com

Founder, President, and Vision Leader: Bradley Tanner, MD, ME

About Health Impact Studio

We are a dedicated team of developers and researchers with the mission to improve the health of individuals through novel technology including games, virtual reality, and role-playing simulations. We welcome input from the full range of stakeholders to create a customer experience with the broadest applicability to improving health outcomes.

Keep Reading

Building Social and Financial Capital

Dexter Robinson‘s blog post Building Social and Financial Capital persuasively argues that the world is changing and that a founder dedicated to the old school method of face-to-face communication doesn’t necessary have an advantage. And the founder better get on board with the changing nature of engagement if they hope to reach a younger audience. Moreover, the argument offers hope for younger individuals that they may indeed have found a way to level the playing field, or perhaps tilt in their favor.

Social media, or more broadly media that enable long distance communication through platforms across a large breadth of users, upends the old school model. It will likely replace it completely. Social media and Internet-based social connections are great for capitalism in that it provides a more efficient means of communication and for the best ideas to get support.

As an example, in the past Angels were people you had to meet through accountants and lawyers and who were difficult to connect with. They, of course, came with biases and would only connect with certain people. Now, they are more likely to be collected into online angel syndicates that will respond to online pitches. No handshakes. No introductions. And fewer biases. The only people who lose are people for whom the old system worked well for them. Folks high on the extroversion scale will continue to have an advantage, however the power won’t be so absolute.

The challenge with social media is that without focus it can become an enormous distraction. However, with focus, it can form the social capital necessary to launch a business. Robinson’s insight into how one could use social media to build a connection is a fantastic example. If you doubt the value of social media to make connections then perhaps you should ask him to perform a similar analysis of your situation.

Similarly, equity crowdfunding offers great potential for entrepreneurs to acquire the capital they need to launch their enterprise. As with the angel syndicates discussed above, collections of people whom one accesses via the Internet are likely to value ideas more based on their merit than on the presentation skills of the entrepreneur in a one-to-one framework. Those one-to-one skills will still be required. However, currently, those one-to-one presentation skills are predominate in importance and a lack of those skills can cut off the entrepreneur from funding even when the idea has great potential.

There is continued value in rewards crowdfunding as seen with Kickstarter and Indiegogo and many smaller examples. There won’t be enormous wealth to be obtained. However, there is enough capital and input and guidance for the entrepreneur to establish an idea, test the waters, and build a customer-focused enterprise from the beginning. In essence, reward crowdfunding has all one needs to get the ball rolling.

Further Reading

Photo Credit: Pixabay. CC0 Creative Commons. Free for commercial use. No attribution required

How Else Can Innovation Come to Stagnant Markets? (Part 3 of 3)

We’ve been discussing creative destruction theories and come to the conclusion that no matter what theory you use, there is not the proper condition for a paradigm shift in medical education. For those of us who feel that a paradigm shift in the process of medical education would be a good thing, this is indeed bad news. It means that creative destruction can’t and won’t happen. The “Normal Science” of medical education will continue unabated and unchallenged until a recession in the health care market takes place. And if the latter theory is true, destruction will only occur on the upswing AFTER the downturn. And ONLY if the recession is so bad that it instills fear that another will come. It sounds hopeless.

Perhaps other factors that enable creative destruction can take hold with, say, the help of competition. Think digital cameras from Canon and Nikon vs. the old film based ones from Kodak (which by the way had digital technology that it chose not to use). Competition pushed creative destruction. Medical schools sadly don’t compete with each other. No hope there. Strike one.

How about unstable labor markets? A stable labor market discourages creative destruction as people stay with what they have and few are incentivized to become entrepreneurs. Although there has been some upheaval in term of PhDs at medical schools, most jobs are pretty secure. That security translates again to less anxiety and less interest in and support for creative destruction. Another dead end. Strike two.

Excess regulation inhibits creative destruction. Examples include cities that are trying to halt AirBNB and Uber with laws that were written 50 years ago, or laws that require Tesla to use dealerships. Medical education is so controlled by government regulations (OSHA, HIPAA, access rules) and systematized by non-governmental organizations that it is indeed highly regulated. Can it be that the original paradigm shift that started with the Flexner Report is now part of the problem? That is, in seeking “consistency” and “quality” we created a system that highlights banality, caution, and a lack of innovation? It seems we have squelched creative destruction in the process just as is seen in markets with excessive government regulation. Is the solution then to loosen standards and dissolve organizational bodies so that schools (like states in the US) can be incubators or novel ideas? Since institutions come but rarely go, this seems rather unlikely. Strike three.

The depressing conclusion (for folks who want change to happen) is that the “creative destruction” model is stymied from action because of the following:

  1. lack of a downturn
  2. lack of a fear of a downturn because of incessant growth and easy access to money
  3. no competition, a comfortable and stable labor market, and tight regulation

It makes sense. Nonetheless, it’s depressing that the environment for creative destruction and subsequent paradigm shift in medical education is extremely poor.

Picture Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0 Nick Youngson

Maintaining Control Versus Maximizing Wealth

It’s your idea and your company, right? You instinctively hold onto your creation. Like a little kid holding onto a toy, you won’t let anyone play with it. Unfortunately, stubbornness and entitlement is not exactly a recipe for entrepreneurial success.

You have a lot of competition, and they have teams of smart, dedicated people working in tandem toward a common goal. By the time you let someone else play with your toy, the market may have moved on to something else. As you probably learned a long time ago, you are going to have to share. And sharing means sharing ownership of your idea.

You might say, “Fine, but I’m in charge.” Does that mean you are in charge of the development process, the employees, the marketing plan, the sales effort, and the oversight of the finances? Leaving aside the issue of who would want to work with someone who is such a control freak, do you really think that your skills in all these domains are better than every other person out there?

You are going to have to give up some control as well. The individuals who work for you will need to feel like they have some control. More importantly, your company cannot grow if every single component requires your input, vision, and guidance. The question then becomes how much power to give up.

Let’s say you are a person with excellent leadership skills and the CEO task is what you are best suited for. Perhaps you have a technical background, but others have more technical expertise than you have. You hire a CTO.

You don’t have to give complete control over the technology to the future CTO. Maybe the CTO is a “pie in the sky” early adopter of the latest technology. They might choose the most expensive, cutting-edge technology, with the most exciting and trendy features. Is that the best way to deliver a viable product that meets customer needs on time and on a budget?

Probably not. So you still need to have some control over technical development and set the overall goal and limiting parameters. But recognize that there is an end to your power. Eventually, you have to let your CTO make some specific decisions based on their expertise. And some decisions may be a mistake. That’s the risk you take. But the danger of disempowering people is higher. You don’t want to be the only one who cares about your toy and kid that no one plays with.

Further Reading

Photo Credits: Max Pixel (CC0 Public Domain) and Donnie Ray Jones on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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