The Future of Diagnostics: Consumer Driven Medicine
What if the first step diagnosing your health was done by you, in your home, at your convenience? What if you could leverage new technology to see your fertility cycles, determine whether you have the flu or just a cold, monitor a chronic condition, or update your eyeglass prescription?
Point-of-consumer diagnostics is a rapidly expanding field that uses advanced sensing technologies, wireless monitoring, smartphones, big data, and affordable point-of-care biochemical processes to put diagnostic tools directly in the hands of the patient. Driven by the convergence of these technologies and healthcare cost pressures, a new direct-to-consumer healthcare market is emerging, in which we actively take ownership of our health by demanding new technology that empowers us and mitigates healthcare costs.
According to a report published by BCC Research in January 2012, the point-of-care diagnostic space reached $13.4B in 2010 and is estimated to grow to over $16.0B in 2016, leveraging the one billion smartphones already in use globally.
New venture opportunities for direct-to-consumer diagnostics are vast, yet challenges remain as entrepreneurs push the bounds of existing regulations, seek capital at the unmapped crossroads of high-tech and medicine, and identify the keys to monetization and market entry.