MedTrix is working on developing a platform to improve healthcare and patient access. Vimal Narayanan, Director, Medtrix Healthcare shares more details about the platform and the company’s key plans as well as strategies, in an interaction with Usha Sharma
What services are offered by MedTrix Healthcare? Tell us about your key initiatives?
MedTrix Healthcare is a provider of digital and medical communication solutions to top pharmaceutical companies having its headquarter in Bangalore. Acting as business catalysts, MedTrix enhances the medical and digital communication operations of pharma companies by forging and strengthening their relationships with key opinion leaders (KOLs), physicians, patients and other stakeholders. Some of our key initiatives include healthcare professional engagement through digital route, innovative platforms to reach out to doctors and educating them in their own terms, training of sales representatives in pharma, production of digital assets for pharma communications like apps, websites, videos, social media support etc. We also provide support to conceptualise, develop and launch new initiatives which would benefit the patients and healthcare providers along with securing a measured return on investment.
Tell us about your offerings for the global pharma sector? What are your plans for the Indian pharma market?
MedTrix has a widespread network of technical and medical professionals across the US, UK, APAC and the Middle East. We have the trust of several of the top 20 pharma companies and some of the fastest growing pharma brands across the world. MedTrix is among the few companies globally, who are able to work in the strategic digital and medical communication space for their clients. For most of our clients, we are the first company from India or elsewhere to provide the kind of solutions that we offer. Among our clientele are some of the big pharma firms like Novartis, Bayer, Nestle, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and Amgen to name a few.
We are in talks with Indian pharma companies and we plan to leverage on Digital India initiative to spur our growth in the domestic market.
What are the learnings from your global experience that would help to leverage the potential in the Indian market?
The sector, despite its competency, has been traditionally slower to ride the wave of change. The pharma sector is at its experimental phase as far as developing and deploying digital health solutions, which are aimed at reaching healthcare practitioners (HCPs) and patients to improve disease outcomes. Though the pharma industry has been slow to adopt the technology, few global giants have been pioneers in bringing changes to this scenario. There is a sea change in the way digital technology is redefining the nature of business. Digital has emerged as a buzzword today and the pharma sector has not been excluded from this evolution. Hence, companies who have the expertise to fulfill the technical and scientific requirements for this natural progression would surely be leading navigators of the paradigm shifts occurring in India’s pharma industry.
Globally as well as domestically, several pharma companies are investing substantially for adoption of digital solutions. What are the key trends in the industry? How well prepared are you to tap the market?
Ongoing trends show that both patients and healthcare professionals are increasingly moving online to manage health outcomes. Simultaneously, pharma companies are establishing across – the – board virtual ecosystems on digital platforms, to create seamless interactions with all the stakeholders. While mobile phones have been the preferred medium across the globe, the total spend on digital marketing could start at one per cent and go up to even 30 per cent in some products depending on the product lifecycle and other promotional support.
The global pharma industry is at an inflection point, where it is pivoting from doing digital to being digital. The key aspect to this shift is the growing pressure on global pharma in terms of cost, ability to innovate, emergence of technology and the digital medium to reach their clients.
MedTrix is proud to partner with some of the large global pharma companies for their key initiatives in this direction. We bring together a unique matrix of science, technology and strategy in offering innovative, cost effective and impactful solutions that are designed and delivered to meet the commercial objectives of pharma and healthcare organisations. We have the expertise to fulfill the technical and scientific requirements for this natural progression. MedTrix has added a liberal dose of global pharma strategy, medical content and certified process to be among the top echelons of digital pharma communications. Unlike some of the western agencies, MedTrix offers an integrated understanding of a brand or therapy across several geographies since this is catered by one single team.
With an estimated investment on digital solutions by global healthcare and pharma industry touching $6.9 billion in 2015, this space does look attractive and MedTrix has begun to offer a berth for India in this intellectually exciting space for others to follow. This means that global pharma and healthcare has to offer India a seat in the strategic planning table in the future.
Recently, MedTrix Healthcare announced its plans to expand its presence in the US and EU. Can you elaborate on them?
We have announced our expansion in the US and EU in the light of some recent strategic agreements with our key clients in these markets. Until recently, MedTrix had been engaging with some of our key clients in several projects in developed markets but most of them were in a pilot phase where our clients wanted to test our capabilities. We are happy to announce that many of them have gone on to achieve substantial success metrics which has prompted our clients to provide us with larger engagements.
Tell us about the new technologies/ services you have in the pipeline? When are they likely to hit the market?
India, with its firm lineage on IT, is all set to capitalise on this trend. MedTrix is working on developing a platform to improve healthcare and patient access for which the pilot would be implemented by early 2017.
Presently, how many people are working with the organisation and do you have plans to add more?
Currently, we have a team of 50 members from Bengaluru which includes programmers, graphic designers, developers, business managers and a team of medical content writers, who are certified medical doctors. We are planning to expand in multiple geographies by increasing our access into the top 20 pharma companies and doubling headcount within a year.
Tell us about the company’s corporate plans.
In the long – term, we want to launch services pan – healthcare segment, moving just beyond pharma. We will look for fund infusion to expand into tier-II and tier-III cities in India with our healthcare and patient access platform, which is at an early stage of development currently. Globally, we would like to be in the space of healthcare IT, with the ability to launch select products to improve patients outcomes, disease management, cost savings in healthcare management and better access to all across the healthcare management spectrum. These products would be used across the product life cycle starting from phase I clinical trials until later in the commercialisation stage.