The Client & Business Challenge:

Our client was a world-leading medical technology and services company. Their core business was the provision of respiratory therapies to patients with chronic respiratory diseases.

The objective of the project was to explore additional revenue opportunities outside of their core business areas. Research and development teams had developed a series of innovative, high level product and service concepts related to remote patient monitoring and connected devices.

IDR Medical was commissioned to carry out an unmet needs analysis, to understand how they could optimise their business strategy in line with market needs, and test if their concepts had potential.

Our Approach:

The project was conducted in 3 phases.

We initially worked with the client to refine the objectives of the project, define the scope, and agree a statement of work.  IDR Medical then conducted a period of desk research to explore the competitive landscape and quantify the potential size of the opportunity in each product category.  Following a series of interviews with the project stakeholders, IDR developed discussion guides and research materials for the qualitative research.

The qualitative market research was conducted across Europe and targeted a range of healthcare professionals including; Pulmonologists, Respiratory Therapists, Nurses, GP’s and Payors in 5 markets.  Interviews were conducted face to face and via web conference.  On completion of this phase, a report was delivered to the client evaluating the response to and willingness to pay for the product and service concepts, and the extent to which they addressed a prioritised list of clinical and workflow related unmet needs.

Based on the findings of the desk and qualitative research, IDR Medical worked with the client to prioritise the concepts, and developed research materials for a quantitative program of market research.  This was used to validate findings from the previous phase, and quantify uptake and willingness to pay for the various concepts with a wider sample of healthcare professionals.

In parallel, a program of research was conducted with patients in key markets, to understand their response to, and potential compliance with the proposed solutions.

IDR Medical consolidated the analysis across the different work-streams of the project and produced a report of findings which also outlined our recommendations going forward.

The Results and Impact:

The project provided input to decisions regarding how to prioritise R&D investment for the in-scope concepts.

The research also gleaned a range of unmet needs in the wider homecare market, and on our recommendation, the client began do develop additional product and service concepts that could address these needs.