Think Biosolution is an original design manufacturer (ODM) and technology provider, building customized Remote Patient Monitoring platforms for Telehealth enterprises and Provider organizations.
In this Interview with Shourjya Sanyal, CEO of Think Biosolution, let us know more about it.
Tell us about Think Biosolution.
Think Biosolution was founded in March 2016 in Dublin, Ireland, and is now a global innovation leader in building customized early warning score-based triaging platforms for assisted living facilities and hospital groups in the USA. Our two current platforms are the At-home COVID-19 Monitoring Platform and the At-home Geriatric Care Platform. Think Biosolution currently uses third-party point of care medical devices like pulse oximeters and blood pressure monitors to predict the onset of a chronic condition for a given patient.
Our future Chronic Disease Prevention platform is projected to be launched in early 2023 will help patients prevent the onset of new eighteen different chronic conditions. The platform will decrease the number of hospital visits, and the length of hospital stays for patients. This market-creating innovation will directly impact health insurance enterprises in the USA and national healthcare authorities in the EU, who will launch a new category of preventative care delivery with a significant reduction in insurance premiums.
What were the initial challenges you faced?
Our biggest challenge was to find a good product-market fit for our technology. We knew from the get-go that our multiparameter wearable medical device QuasaR™ could have big impacts in multiple marketplaces, including regulated medical devices, smart apparel, and professional athlete monitoring. However, it took us two years to identify the correct marketplace, i.e., long-term care facilities in the USA. It then took us another two years to quantify our target customers’ impact on KPIs for patient outcomes, cost savings, and an increase in revenue.
Which was that point that triggered the growth of Think Biosolution?
Understanding our platform’s impact on patient outcomes, cost savings, and revenue increase for long-term care facilities helped us trigger growth. Long-term care facilities include assisted living, skilled nursing facilities, post-hospitalization care, and at-home care.
The other major factor was the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic ushered in a huge need for provider organizations to immediately deploy patient monitoring programs for at-risk, suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients.
How have Think Biosolution graphs changed since the foundation? Can you share a few statistics?
Think Biosolution has already done pilot launches of our existing platforms with four healthcare facility partners and has achieved annual recurring revenue (ARR) of €408,012 in Q3 2020. Think Biosolution has payment orders in place with the existing commercial partners worth €3,412,200 to be fulfilled by Q3 2021.
What is the reason behind Think Biosolution’s long-standing success?
Our team has the right balance of engineering ingenuity combined with sales and marketing experience. This balance has helped us to iteratively identify a niche yet scalable market that needs not be addressed by any of our competitors.
The USA physician to population ratio is 295:100,000. As a result, treatment is delivered in long-term care facilities to patients with critical and severe symptoms. Our platforms help patients prevent the onset of new chronic conditions, manage escalation of existing chronic diseases, and therefore decrease the number of hospital visits and length of hospital stays.
What are the products/services Think Biosolution focuses on? How are your services different from those in the market?
Our two current platforms are the At-home COVID-19 Monitoring Platform and the At-home Geriatric Care Platform. This platform is a virtual doctor that uses early warning score-based triaging to provide long-term care facility administrators real-time updates about capacity, condition, and overdue tasks.
The most important responsibility of an entrepreneur is to find a product-market fit.
None of our competitors can predict that the onset of chronic conditions is focused on managing single chronic conditions. Examples – Propeller Health (Respiratory), Datos Health (Cardiology and Oncology), and Vivify (Health Cardiology and Hypertension).
How do you decide to take Think Biosolution a step further in terms of your products/services?
Think Biosolution is now getting regulatory approval for the QuasaR™ device. QuasaR™ device is a wearable medical device that can measure the maximum number of biometric parameters in the marketplace (heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation, blood pressure, movement, location, and temperature). By combining these biometric parameters, the QuasaR™ device will be monitoring patients for the onset of new chronic conditions when patients start using QuasaR™ for managing a single chronic condition. Our future Chronic Disease Prevention platform uses the QuasaR™ device and is projected to be launched in early 2023.
Is there any new addition to the list of products/services? Anything exciting you would like to share?
Our disruptive innovation is our eighteen patented disease-specific early warning scores that can prevent the onset of half of all existing chronic conditions. Using these early warning scores, our At-home Chronic Disease Prevention platform will be able to provide automated triaging for high-risk patients in long-term care facilities or at home. This market-creating innovation will directly impact health insurance enterprises in the USA and national healthcare authorities in the EU, who will launch a new category of preventative care delivery with a significant reduction in insurance premiums.
What do you think are the responsibilities of an entrepreneur?
The most important responsibility of an entrepreneur is to find a product-market fit. Secondary responsibilities include building a strong team that can deliver the product and ensuring that the team is always listening to the customer’s needs.
Can you please brief us about your professional experience?
I co-founded Digital Self Technology, Ireland, in 2013. I won the Deloitte Top Technology Award in 2016, Cruickshank High Achieving Merit Award by Enterprise Ireland in 2014, and CASL ACE Award in 2014. I was also one of the youngest fellows of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Students’ alumni meet held in Germany, 2009, and received the KVPY fellowship in 2007 from India’s Government. I was also a lecturer in Data Science in Digital Skills Academy, Ireland, between 2016-2019. I currently serve as a Roster of Experts, Digital Health Technical Advisory Board, World Health Organization, and a Standard Committee for Remote Patient Monitoring Standard, CHQI.
In 2016 right after my Ph.D. I co-founded Think Biosolution with my best friend from college. Our vision from the get-go was to reduce the cost of health care using innovation.
What are the key achievements of your entrepreneurial journey?
Think Biosolution raised a €1.2 Million seed round, of which €350,000 came from Luminate, the world’s largest Optics Accelerator based in Rochester, NY, and €150,000 came from DIGI-B-CUBE, an EU funded digital health accelerator. Think Biosolution has also won multiple awards, including the Brain Catalyst Pitch organized by Roche in 2020, Open Data Engagement Fund by Data.gov.ie in 2020, “5 Top Telemedicine Startups Impacting The Healthcare Industry “by StartUs Insights in 2020, “Healthcare Laboratory of the Year Winner” by The Irish Laboratory Awards in 2020, and “The 10 Most Disruptive AI Companies in Healthcare “by Analytics Insight in 2019.
How do you look after your employees? What makes your team unique?
Our employees’ well-being is the number one priority for the management team. Besides providing them market-leading benefits such as stock options, Health Insurance plans, paid vacations, etc. we also focus on their personal growth through continuous training, certifications, and institute memberships in their respective fields.
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire
Think Biosolution is a diverse team of engineers, clinicians, and regulatory experts working together for four years in the medical device industry. Our management team has proven expertise in designing and deploying disease prevention platforms in the US and EU markets. Our CEO wrote the technical standard for Remote Patient Monitoring with CHQI in the USA. Our Director of Sales was SVP of Sales for a leading remote patient monitoring company for the last seventeen years. Our Board of Advisors has previously worked with senior board member-level executives in private and public health insurance in the USA.
Can you tell us what your favorite book is? And your favorite part of the book (if any)?
My favorite books include I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, and What If? by Randall Munroe.
I am an avid reader, and I read, on average, a couple of books a week. Science fiction, business, and fiction are some of my favorite genres. I enjoy reading books since the process helps me understand different points so view about a given situation.
One person, who you admire the most?
I also look up to Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, the founders of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Whose business story do you find the most inspiring?
I find Elon Mask’s ability to translate technology towards impacting human lives inspiring.
Constant vigilance- a need or a strategy? Please share your views.
In my view, constant vigilance is a need for SMEs and a strategy for scale-ups. Successful entrepreneurs are the ones who can make this switch happen at the right time.
It’s a rat race out there. How do you cope with that?
A strong founding team is a key to turning every little setback into a learning experience for growth. My co-founder and I have been working as a team for more than a decade, and I believe that is the most valuable asset contributing to my company’s growth story.