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    Identifying Innovation Opportunities & Needs-Based Segments in the Medical Device Industry

    The Challenge

    A category-leading medical device company had targeted a fast-growing clinical area for innovation and new product development. One particular disease in this clinical area is especially complex, and only one effective treatment currently exists for it. Our client was interested in developing a needs-based segmentation that would inform their product development process and enable success in the space.

    Physician Recruitment, competitive advantage, MedTech, stakeholders like physicians, nurses, payers, and patients, In-Depth Interviews (IDIs) , Quantitative Online Surveys, Survey design, Survey programming, Survey optimization, Survey recruiting, survey hosting, Survey launch, Survey data collection, survey analysis, actionable market and customer insights in healthcare. go-to market research partner, market research projects, TDI, IDI, Medical Device Approval, Clinical Trial Patient Research, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Turnkey End-to-End Surveys, In Person Interviews, Phone Interviews, Focus Groups, From Concept to Launch

    The Approach

    The immediate challenge was that physicians involved in treatment hold varied perspectives on how the treatment is best used and where innovation efforts should focus. Several factors contribute to this variability:

    • Clinical understanding of the disease is evolving rapidly
    • Distinct etiologies can contribute to disease progression
    • The referral pathway for patients with the condition is changing quickly
    • Two distinct physician specialties currently provide the treatment

     

    Understanding customers’ underserved (i.e., important and unsatisfied) needs enabled the client to prioritize opportunities for innovation and develop offerings that deliver maximum value and capture significant market share.

    Market Edge designed and executed observational research and interviews to develop a comprehensive analysis of the treatment process for the target disease, including the jobs-to-be-done and desired outcomes. Based on this map, we developed and fielded a quantitative survey to >200 physicians who use the current treatment. Using machine-learning algorithms and other quantitative analysis methods, we developed actionable market intelligence with implications for product design and offer development.

    The Outcome

    Market Edge was able to help the client

    1. Identify needs-based segments and characterize in terms of salient features, enabling the client’s sales force to identify and target segment members in the field.
    2. Prioritize the innovation opportunities, i.e., treatment outcomes that are underserved (important and unsatisfied) with the current treatment.
    3. Enable the organization to improve R&D effectiveness (segment-specific, differentiated new products) and efficiency (speed, cost) based on a data-driven go-to-market strategy.

    Example: Deliverable Characterizing a Needs-Based Segment