« The good thing is that we provide multiple services into one product. And that, I think, is going to be the future of the market. » (Snehal Patel)
In an interview with H&TI at the end of October 2017, Snehal Patel, co-founder and CEO of the eHealth company Mydoc, talks about the foundation of his company, booming in Singapore and in Southeast Asia, but also about the specificity of its business model and the differences he has seen during his career between the Asian, the European and the American markets.
Investing in digital health: a very specific market
Why have you decided to invest in the digital health sector?
Snehal Patel: I’m American. I moved to Singapore in 2008 when I switched over from a corporate healthcare perspectives to looking at investments. I joined a private equity shop here which is focused on health patient care. It’s really important in terms of how MyDoc eventually came out.
One of the things I was really interested in when I moved in Asia was that there were a lot of fragmentations when it came to health patients at work. It is true pretty much everywhere in the world but when you go to places like India or Indonesia and Vietnam, you have consumers that are far more at tune for their own health than consumers in the US. Still, there is a lack of communication between doctors and pharmacists.
So our initial model, with my private equity shop, was to buy these small groups, before merging them into a common company and then rebrand it all so that you actually start to create an infrastructure.
And it worked …
Yes it did. The market was active in India, Indonesia Vietnam and then I launched it in Philippines as well. When I built the team with this infrastructure, that was very interesting but it required a specific capital investment to buy all of these clinics.
In 2010, the penetration of digital technologies in Asia was really coming up in a big way. In a way that I was surprised, when I went back to New York, haht it wasn’t at the same levelover there.
The importance of a local experience
And then you founded MyDoc.
That was the beginning. To be honest, I came with my healthcare care background, with my private equity background but tech was new to me. Vas [Metupalle], the other co-founder, is a doctor. But a local doctor, he is Singaporean. We met thanks to friends and realized that we had common interests.
In digital health, there are a lot of very smart people, very interesting ideas but healthcare is such a different type of industry. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world to understand the new answers, to understand the frustrating complexity of the industry and to understand that you need to have someone who is actually in the sector to build a business in it. Something we both knew is that we had been through market cycles, we understood how we could put things together. We were also trying to solve the same problems. The question was “How can we put our heads together to make the system more efficient, to make things less difficult for the consumer?”
Vas has experience in tele-radiology and a pretty descent experience in tech start-up here. The model was initially to create a communication solution. We had to be able to transfer information between doctors to patients, patients to nurses.
Private data: « We discuss about privacy issues with our partners all the times »
Data protection is a big challenge in the digital area, especially in healthcare. Concretely, how can you reassure your users ?
Privacy is a very important thing. You have two parts of privacy: one is the consumer side, the other is the corporate side.
They both can be problematic for start-ups in a sense that the corporate side requires a lot of efforts and time getting people on board but it is solvable.
The consumer side is more tricky. In the US for example, people are naturally skeptical of any sort of data use. Asians seem to be much less concerned – I don’t mean that people don’t care at all, they do ask questions to see if you are serious but they are more open-minded. If you can assure them reasonably that you’re doing a good job on privacy, they’re in. In the US, it just takes more time.
So we started doing health screening. There was a big gap between consumers and healthcare professionals because patients rarely follow doctors’ advice after the screening to try to improve their health. The vision of MyDoc is to be a connector.
« The consumer owns his information »
You are working with insurance companies. Isn’t there an ethical issue with that kind of partnership regarding data privacy?
Privacy issues are discussed with our partners all the time. Legal framework is very clear. MyDoc requires that we make the consumer own his information. If he doesn’t want to share it with anyone, he doesn’t have to.
There is a settle point around how you communicate on that issu. The way we manage it is by telling our partners : we are third party, we are separate companies. As a result, AXA and AIA are our partners but we are not sharing our solution with them. It took some talking and training but we can assure that your data will remain private.
MyDoc@work: a solution to encourage employees to preserve their health
Your new suite of products, MyDoc@work, is set to launch towards the end of this year. Can you tell a bit more about the purpose of these products?
MyDoc@work is a health tool that provides full comprehensive corporate health services.
Our channels to our customers are going through. When we built the platform, the next thing we had to do was was to find our natural market. Neither one of us had a big experience in marketing but the idea was to reflecy on our approach to users. In most markets around the world, in our mind, it was really difficult to get a B&C company that’s was going to be scalable.
Thus, in terms of scale of business model, we quickly moved to the idea of getting corporates and insurance on board, the main point being they would be paying for health.
On the customers side, it’s convenient. We provide this product that’s really interesting, that saves you time, that is convenient, etc. With MyDoc@work, you’ll be able to talk with nutritionists, dentists or mental health professionals….
The connective gap is that they don’t want to talk at first. Even if they know it’s good for them. So the quetsion is : how do we make it easier for them to access? We have evidence to prove that our product is working. Last week (in October), a study from the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research and PwC showed that “patients with abnormal post-screening results were nearly six times more likely to follow up via virtual consults with a physician (using MyDoc), than via in-person consults with a general practitioner”. As a result, “administering virtual consults can potentially translate to about five times greater savings for patients and their payers over long term as a result of averted future in-patient admissions for diabetes”. For us, it’s really important.
Health tech devices are becoming a must-have
Do you feel that it’s easier now, that people are less skeptical about your product? What is the users feedback so far?
A lot of things are converting. Consumers are asking for these kind of service. It’s becoming less a novelty and more a must-have.
If you take a look at the evolution, on the European market or in the US, if you analyze the different parts of the industry, you have got patients, you have got providers and doctors and partners. In US, everyone was complaining at first. We are now blessed. Doctors who were a bit skeptical are now on board.
They exceeded their fear, the risk of a new technology coming in, messing up with it. We said, listen, we understand but what about a position driven model that does actually do the right thing when it comes to care? That’s helping. We’re getting more and more support.
We are still very selective, we want to make sure our services are very efficient because the worst thing that could happen is to lose control. One bad outcome would be very difficult. So far, we knock on wood, everything is fine.
MyDoc: 50,000 active users
How many people use MyDoc?
Around 50,000. It’s growing quite quickly. The number of users increases on average by 10% per month.
A team dedicated to quality control
What aspects of your tools would you like to improve?
One of the benefits to be on the market now is that we are very open to feedback. We are always asking to customers what we can do to improve our services. So far, the results are very positive.
We have a team dedicated to quality control to make sure our services are gexcellent. One of our test cases in companies showed that 100% of the users are likely to use our product. That’s great! We’re listening to the feedback. Some of users said: “Look, it’s great but how can I also get this or that?” We are listening and we try to give answers.
The good thing is that we provide multiple services into one product. And that, I think, is going to be the future of the market.
« Partnerships are key »
You have many partners, such as AXA, AIA and Guardian Pharmacy. Do you believe partnerships are mandatory in the digital market?
In our opinio, as a platforms partnerships are key. That’s how we succeed. We found out that if you do less selection but a high quality selection, it’s much better. Some competitors think that putting 16 000 doctors on their platform is great – I don’t personally believe that this kind of model works. Quality is more important that quantity.
MyDoc: $2.8 million dedicated to regional development
In September, you raised US$5.2 million (€4.4 million) in a series A founding round and you plan to spend $2.8 million (€2.4 million) to expand your business in other Asian countries. Where do you want to set up your business exactly?
We are already active in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kon and are looking to quickly move into Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, China as well. It takes a while to get through big corporates and big insurance companies but once you’re able to get in, it becomes an easy way to expand because they have offices everywhere. So expansion is one of our goal for now.
Do you plan to expand in the EU or in the US in the coming years?
We have insurances US-based technology firms that have huge operations in the UK, in Spain, in France and in Germany, where markets are big. One of the benefit to have these investors is that they can extend our reach, we’re still relatively small and we don’t want spend a lot of money on that but we can find a fit.
Digital health: the benefits of a strong network of industry players
You are also the co-founder of Galen Growth Asia, an independent group founded in Singapore to develop the health tech ecosystem across Asia Pacific. Why have you decided to create this organization?
Several of the co-founders of this organization arrived quite early on on that market. When we went to tech conferences, we spoke about healthcare and what was going on on the market. That was great but we realized that we needed to have a resourcing board. After chatting around a coffee we decided to bring people together and connect them.
It’s beneficial to be able to be part of that network. I think it also helps early-stage entrepreneurs, who can talk to investors who can tell them for example, “look, you know what, there’s an opportunity in Singapore or in Malaysia”. It is a great place for a lot of small start-ups to meet people who are relevant, to share ideas with them and to try to partner with them.
What are you currently working on?
We are organizing the CEO Summit, which brings together some of the region’s most influential leaders in Southeast Asia (it took place on November 17th). This is one of our most important events of the year.
Singapore: an ideal infrastructure for developing eHealth business
According to you, what are the main issues in the Singapore healthcare system, and more generally in the Asian healthcare systems? In your opinion, how can health tech be useful to overcome these issues?
In Singapore, the healthcare system is quite efficient, it is very dense compared to other countries in Asia but similar issues exist.
Let’s go back to our founding point. When we first launched MyDoc, one of the common push back was: “We don’t need a solution like this in Singapore, where healthcare is excellent” or “why do we need to be able to speak to a doctor online since we have doctors everywhere”. That is true. But that proved that people tend to forget about two things :
- 1. Concerning health screening services, only 20% of people who are screened actually follow up with the results. Offering online consultation services makes it convenient for employees to do follow-up check-ups and encourages them to do so.
- 2. The second thing is people forget that in urban areas, the biggest consumers of digital health solutions will be urban consumers. It’s not because they are short on resources but because they are short oo time and time is the essence. You can help making things quicker, more convenient and there will be less wastage.
Singapore is a great model for that. We have been able to show that on other markets the infrastructure was not so good.
This is the headquarters of all multinational companies, like Google. Given our market, which is around corporate insurance, it makes senses to start here.
« I think Asia will become a leader in digital health »
Singapore is currently the Asian leader on the digital health market. Do you believe the city-state can become a world leader in that area?
I think Asia in general will become a leader regarding digital health and that’s pure demographic. This region has the biggest number of people, graphically aging, and they need solutions like this.
Plus, my feeling is that people in Asia tend to be more tech friendly than in other parts of the world, where people are still looking at some of these innovations with skepticism.
In Southeast Asia, Singapore is where a lot of innovations are setting up and it’s a great place to experiment.
