PatientsLikeMe Case Study
PatientsLikeMe is a fast growing company which owns an online-platform that helps the people with rare diseases to communicate with each other. The platform has become very popular in the USA and now the owners think how to unlock the potential in the short term. The main goal is to create the general platform based on the existing online platform and extend the number of the communities covering the larger number of diseases.
However, this task is not simple, because the company risks losing integrity of the business model that relies on the sense of community. In fact the PatientsLikeMe used to be a non-profit organization that wanted to conduct research in a new way, but later it received seed funding and became profit driven. The concept of Health 2.0 was so unique that PatientsLikeMe attracted much attention from the ill people, the media and the pharmaceutical companies. In 2010 there were 80,000 registered patients, 40 employees and 8 million in revenue from the outcome studies and market research services.
Now the company would like to work not only with the pharmaceutical companies, but also with the health insurance companies that are interested in the enhanced health care. In order to have more business partners, there should be much more users that will be willing to share their personal information on the general platform provided by PatientsLikeMe. In addition, the company would like to specialize in the research and drug discovery, because it has access to the patients’ shared information. The research could potentially bring much more revenue than cooperation with the pharmaceutical and health insurance companies.
The company has formed some ideas about the general platform. There will be five categories of illnesses: chronic illness, mental illness, infections, one-time medical issues, and pregnancy-related issues. When the new patients decided to sign up, they will need to provide some personal information concerning their disease. The problematic questions include the following: should the company focus on the top diseases or on the wide range of diseases; how to keep the high level of engagement; what kind of forums to offer to the patients with two and more diseases; how big should be the communities; shall the business model be changed.
PatientsLikeMe operates as an innovative company that is disrupting the existing market. Therefore, the company needs to stay active and work constantly on the improvement of their platform. The business growth can be achieved only when the number of the users increases. So PatientsLikeMe should definitely extend the list of communities. In order to eliminate the risk of inability to cope with the influx of patients, the company should introduce the phase-in expansion. According to Exhibit 8, the existing communities mainly include the patients with chronic diseases and mood disorders. They should remain the target audience of the platform. At the same time, if the company decides to sharply increase the number of users, there should be more attention to the quality and monitoring of the information that will be posted on the platform. Some loyal patients will be dissatisfied with the influx of new patients. So the functionality of the platform needs to be significantly improved and the users should have a possibility to filter the information they are reading. Finally, PatientsLikeMe should reassess the areas of activities in order to avoid the conflict of interests. The company should probably focus on the long term goals and focus on the research and discovery of the new drugs, because the prospects of cooperation with the insurance companies are not clear. As the result, PatientsLikeMe will continue working in accordance with its vision and in the long term might get much higher revenue than now.
In conclusion, any disruptive innovation should be targeted at the displacement of the existing alliances in the market. So PatientsLikeMe should increase the number of the patients that use its platform and earn the money by using the gathered bid data. The research that results in the discovery of new drugs or better treatment of the patients should be the main objective for PatientsLikeMe.
Bibliography
Gupta, S. Riis, J. 5 November 2012. PatientsLikeMe: An Online Community of Patients.
Harvard Business School.
