MassDevice.com is liveblogging the World Health Medical Technology Conference at Boston University.
The World Health Medical Technology Conference is a one-day workshop dedicated to exploring the opportunities and challenges of designing, building and funding medical technologies for the developing world. It’s a way to bring together stakeholders from the medical technology industry with the leading minds in the Global Health movement. To find out more about the conference, visit the conference’s website for an agenda, registration information and a list of speakers.
CEO of Diagnostics For All, Una Ryan, began her remarks at the WHMTC by noting some of the nuances of administering healthcare in developing nations.
Her company, a Cambridge, Mass.-based non-profit that’s developing, paper-based, ultra-low-cost diagnostics for the developing world, said if you want to make the greatest possible impact on a population in a developing nation, you need to understand the population. Developed nations have amazing tech, but no way to get it to people in the developing world, but the logistical problems are far more complicated than distances or even governmental stability.
Ryan said in the developed world has centralized hospitals, highly trained med staff, reliable power and refrigeration, and possibility for follow up appointments, but none of which exist in the developing world.
During her presentation, Ryan put of a slide of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ASSURED test for any medical test to help illustrate her discussion. All tests must be:
Affordable
Sensitive
Specific
User-friedly
Rapid and Robust
Equipment Free and
Devliverable to end users
Her company created a paper-based product because paper "is the cheapest ubiquitous material in the world," she said. The company’s devices rely on microfluidics, which doesn’t require power, clean water or a skilled staff, and attempts to have zero-cost. The devices resemble postage stamps and are designed to channel bodily fluids through to enable sophisticated testing. If the paper is layered, the tests can be more and more sophisticated. The organization last week received a Gates Foundation grant to embed electronics into the paper.
Diagnostics for All designed the products to be printed on a device similar to desktop printer, and one printer, which costs $800, can create 71 million stamp-sized diagnostic implements per year. In their business model, which Ryan described as "backwards," the company plans to license their technology to the rest of the world as well, with applications for pediactrics, emergency care, athletes and military. Typcially, for profit companies design products for the wealthiest consumers.
Some key points of DFA’s business model:
The for-profit is a wholly owned subsid of the non-profit.
It relies on academic labs (Harvard’s Whitesides Labs)
They are a 501(c)3 non-profit.
They attempt to rely on local for-profit manufacturing.
