Competition

Performed by CureTip
Based on our interview data we can conclude that top two priorities for our
end-users - clinical oncologists - is the quality of provided results, i.e. the amount
and accuracy of predicted data, and the clearness of interpretation of these results.
Doctors care about the cost of treatment and actual time consumption much less.
This is true for all oncologists and those specialized in lung cancer in particular.
Besides of our end-users, we should also think about the primary economic
buyer - insurance company in our case. The top priority for insurance companies is
amount of saved money.
Based on current market stage and clinicians priorities we choose our core. It
is our unique statistics-free algorithm of drug choosing. Focusing and developing
this part will allow us to maintain extremely good quality of our product. Main
way of protection of our core is maintaining our current algorithm and software in
secret and providing only results of our calculation, not software itself. In this case
none of our competitors will get access to our software solutions. On the other
hand we are going to make some additional barriers by building simple interface
that will give clinicians information in the way they want and, therefore, increasing
our Clear interpreting value. Also we will build clinics connection network that
will make our test a part of standard protocol, which wont be replaced in near
future. In long-term perspective our goal is to gain reputation not only from
clinicians but also from the patients and become a brand in oncology.
Based on priorities of our end-user and DMU we should analyze
competitors. One of the potential competitors is NCCN that could be considered as
customers status-quo: doctors just perform DNA test in laboratories and then use
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NCCN guidelines to determine the right drug. Besides, they can pay companies for
such tests. So we looked for companies, which perform DNA test and based on this
information suggest drugs for treatment and have reputation in oncological clinics.
Two companies, which meet these requirements, were selected: Foundation
Medicine and Ambry Genetics. Besides, MyCancerGenome database is used by
clinicians, which is free and provides doctors with rather accurate data.
Our potential future competitors can be either companies, which perform
only DNA sequencing service not related to drug choosing at the moment, such as
Illumina or Complete Genomics. Other potential future competitors will be
computational biology software companies such as Schrodinger. All of them could
be our strong competitors as they have high amount of funds and brand name (e. g.
Illumina have 331 million dollars in revenue and a leading place in sequencing
industry, Schrodinger - 20 million revenue and history of almost 25 years in
market).
Lets have a more precise look at our current competitors:
- NCCN is an alliance of 23 world's leading cancer centers. NCCN offers a
number of programs to give clinicians access to tools and knowledge that can help
to guide decision-making in the management of cancer. Despite the prevalence of
this service, we received complaints of physicians about its slow updating, missing
data of trial drugs and inconvenient interface.
- Foundation Medicine is leading a transformation in cancer care, where
each patients treatment is informed by a deep understanding of the molecular
changes that contribute to their disease. It was established in 2010 and since that
time raised more than $33.5M. Its annual income in 2012 was $10.75M. The key
competitive advantage of Foundation Medicine is their test results, which are
uniquely reported within the context of publicly available scientific and medical
literature and clinical trials, integrating complex genomic research in a coordinated
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and easily accessible way for physicians to inform treatment recommendations. In

their strategy, they dont focus especially on therapy prediction. That makes their
algorithms not such precise as ours. Moreover, they perform therapy prediction
only for their test. As we know from interviews, a lot of physicians make DNA
tests in their own clinics laboratories, so they dont need performing of these tests,
they only require a correct drug prediction. This fact gives us competitive
advantage in terms of too narrow specialisation of FM.
- Ambry Genetics Corporation provides genetic services. It focuses on
clinical diagnostics, such as diagnostic testing for genetic diseases. Ambry
Genetics Corporation was founded in 1999 and is based in Aliso Viejo, California.
Its annual revenue is approximately $8M. AG experienced team of client service
specialists, genetic counselors and medical directors can help on each step.
Whether its making sure a test is covered by insurance, explaining testing options,
or interpreting test results. Despite the fact Ambry provides clear and
understandable results, it does not recommend any type of treatment based on
results of test. And thus, quality of their product from the point of choosing best
drugs is rather low.
- My Cancer Genome is a freely available online personalized cancer
medicine knowledge resource was established in 2010 and is managed by
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, which is in an alliance of NCCN. This database
contains the most precise and relevant information about cancer treatment
statistics. But it cannot propose a solution for new or rare mutations, what out
product can. In addition, this service has rather uncomfortable interface allowing to
search only one gene and one mutation at a time. While most of patient usually
have multiple mutations.
Based on information about these companies and priorities of our DMU we
charted our competitive positions.
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The amount of saved money for insurance companies correlates with quality
of results, thats why actually we got 1D plot of quality.