ALGOA PROGRESS

Summary

Algoa Progress is developing the world’s first solution allowing visualisation of the influence of treatment options, while strengthening patient engagement to the prescribed knee osteoarthritis therapy. Algoa brings value especially to radiologists and clinicians, who want to improve service quality and obtain recurring sales. Later on, direct value can also be delivered to insurance companies, physiotherapists and consumer brands, among others. This will enable extending towards a higher scalability and building a platform for preventing musculoskeletal diseases and the associated pain.

Target Market

Currently, there are over 100 million people affected by OA in Europe and North America alone. In the next 20 years, OA patients are expected to increase by over 70% in developed countries, with a 300% surge in total costs. Already now, the total costs caused by the disease are enormous, for example in the US alone the annual costs exceed $300 billion. These costs have doubled within the past 15 years, and continue to grow.

Business Model

We will integrate in medical data systems to create a steadily growing user pool. We aim to achieve integration in PACS systems and create the tool for 1) mass screening, and 2) individual patient OA risk assessment. We will further improve the features and mass screening possibilities to grow our revenues.

The second product is a mobile application that is suitable for B2C market. By paying monthly fee, private consumers can get a clear analysis of his/he knee condition and monthly treatment suggestions. Not only the mobile application increase the patients to improve treatment adherence, but also enables us to rely on a platform business model in the future, by offering it as service provisioning and marketing channel in this target segment.

Management

Our team consists of world-renowned scientists in osteoarthritis research and experts in health economics, international business, software as medical device development, artificial intelligence, medical imaging and hospital data systems.

Problem worth solving

Currently, clinicians do not have any methods at their disposal to predict the progression of OA on an individual level, especially from a healthy knee, leading to inevitable development of the disease and a delay in treatment commencement. In addition, there is a high amount of subjectivity in OA treatment planning, as the disease develops individually and the available treatments are not as effective for everyone. In order to ease the huge economic burden that OA causes on healthcare, insurers and employers, tools for systematic prevention are desperately needed.

Product/Services

With the aim of avoiding or delaying knee joint replacement surgery, our platform predicts disease progression and proposes optimized and personalized treatment. It is the world’s first solution that is able to predict and quantify the healthy patient’s OA risk evolution and provides a visual demonstration of the prediction and the best prevention strategy, such as the effect of weight loss. This allows strengthening of patient engagement to the prescribed therapy. Here, private hospitals and insurance companies might prove to be an important clientele seeking cost savings and new business.

Customers

We have identified four target customer segments: 1) Healthcare professionals (clinicians / radiologists) 2) Existing software and medical device manufacturers 3) Insurance companies 4) Individuals.

Sales/Marketing Strategy

Our unique selling proposition is built on the achieved long-term patient commitment, and associated new business, savings, or profit – depending on the client. We conduct a health economics assessment to evaluate the potential costs savings generated by our model. We will improve the usability of our software and include additional treatment options for added value and customer retention. The software is developed together with our vast network of clinicians.

Competitors

There are no alternative methods that allow a personalized prediction of osteoarthritis development and the simulation of treatment options. Currently, diagnosis and treatment planning are based on general treatment guidelines and the clinician’s personal experience, making them highly subjective. With our solution, clinicians can provide objective and personalized treatment, leading to better treatment outcomes.

Competitive Advantage

Our innovation is the outcome of more than a decade of research by world leading scientists. This expertise combined with leaders in clinical image analysis, artificial intelligence, hospital data systems and existing distribution channels offer us clear first mover advantages and sustained competitive advantage.