Stumble It!
A Visit to the Roche New Concept Incubator
We tend to assume that the big companies making glucose monitoring products do nothing but sit around thinking about how they can sell more product. You can’t blame us; it sure looks that way from the outside. But late last week I was privileged to get an inside view of some of the real innovation going on behind closed doors.
I was invited to visit Roche’s New Concept Incubator, a small “think tank” of about 20 people including designers, sociologists and behavioral experts located just down the road from me in Palo Alto, CA. My role was to spend the morning sharing my knowledge about Online Social Support Environments for PWDs.
Before I go on, the requisite disclosure:
[Disclosure: In return for my participation with Roche, I was paid a modest honorarium, and reimbursed for travel expenses and lunch. All content here is that of the author and neither reviewed or approved by Roche. In fact, I was NOT encouraged to post about this visit or to publicize Roche in any way. The speaker's agreement I signed included the statement: "neither your participation... nor any payments or reimbursement received by you... are or will be intended to induce, or in any way influence you to prescribe, promote, recommend, or require the use of any Roche product."]
The reason I’m posting about this is because I found it fascinating — and I think many PWDs out there would like to know about the high-powered creativity that companies like Roche are investing in finding The Next Big Thing in Diabetes Care.
And this Next Big Thing has nothing directly to do with glucose monitoring products. Rather, this group has conducted extensive qualitative research primarily with Type 2 diabetics and discovered that which is so obvious to those of us living with diabetes (as described to me by a lead engineer): “People’s needs are scattered; they’re struggling to deal with diet, activity, stress and depression, social support, busy lives like the rest of us and more. There’s not one big problem, so there’s not one single solution that can help people manage their diabetes better. Rather, a holistic solution is required.”
A brainstorming environment
Tools of the creativity trade (in every cubicle)
I’m not at liberty to say exactly what this group is developing (which is business-confidential for obvious reasons), but I can tell you that it’s quite a departure from what you would expect a “stodgy” company like Roche to be working on. It’s all about educating people about their illness and helping them live better with it.
Mapping the life of a PWD
What I tried to share with their team was more detail on the everyday frustrations of us PWDs, and what we get out of connecting online. Lots of healthcare professionals out there are still stuck on the idea that patients exchanging info online can be dangerous, because the content may not always be medically accurate. The Roche innovation team seems to well understand that this is so not the point. They’ve looked around enough to see that social networks are making a big impact on people’s mental state and motivation. So what else can be done to actually get people to start eating better and be more physically active, for example?
Roche is certainly not alone in trying to figure out how to motivate behavior change. But I was duly impressed by their approach to “enable emotional intelligence and empathy-driven strategies within companies.” Can’t argue with that.
btw, my host was Ryan Rodriguez, an Innovation Strategist and very sweet guy, who tells me the Incubator hopes to have an early prototype of its first concept by late next year.
Thank you, Ryan!
Viva la Innovation.
Don’t know what it is, but I’d sign up to try it out. Thanks for the info Amy.
Posted by: Bernard Farrell | October 26th, 2009 at 7:38 amLooks very exciting! Bet it was so interesting…thanks for sharing
Posted by: Jaimie | October 26th, 2009 at 9:19 amVery interesting! I’m so glad to see companies looking at the bigger picture of this “living with diabetes” thing!
Posted by: Scott K. Johnson | October 26th, 2009 at 9:43 amat first glance, the diabetic in me thought that the ‘tools of the creativity trade’ were candy… on second glance, the rest of my brain kicked it to realize they were plastic, metal, and magnetic…
cool project none the less
Posted by: Virtue | October 26th, 2009 at 9:49 amIt’s too bad Roche has just fired everyone on the Palo Alto site and are shutting it down. Actually, they are leasing the buildings out to an undisclosed tenant.
Posted by: Mr152 | October 26th, 2009 at 10:37 amI love that Roche is willing to look ahead in hopes of coming up with something that can be useful and helpful for us PWD’s. Cool stuff indeed!
Posted by: George | October 26th, 2009 at 1:55 pmI am sorry but I am not one bit impressed. Rather than having 20 people thinkinng about yet again positive energy and educating people, I would much rather see them spending ALL their efforts making cgm smaller, less painful less intrusive etc etc something better. I am fed up hearing about information getting connected, how you can better record your numbers and other stuipid gadgets that really make no real difference. Having the choice for colour doexnt take away caluses on the fingers
Posted by: katerina | October 26th, 2009 at 2:42 pmI have to agree with katerina. A “think tank” to me is “how will the general public of PWD deal with this product that we want to develop”, “is it worth our while”, will it make us money? It is a fact of product development.
Posted by: dargirl | October 26th, 2009 at 6:49 pmActually considering the financial pressures most diabetes care companies are facing [patent expirations, generic competition, reduced reimbursement schedules] I am surprised such a group ever was allowed to independently exist as that size group would burn several million a year with no guarantees that useful advances would ever be produced.
Posted by: mcityrk | October 26th, 2009 at 7:54 pmVery inspirational site!
Posted by: George | October 27th, 2009 at 4:08 amI agree with your explanations. Thanks for sharing it.
@katerina – what they’re doing has nothing to do with new gadget colors, I can assure you.
@mcityrk – I’m with you. So far it’s pure innovation, no business strategy. Refreshing, but a considerable risk for a big public company.
Posted by: AmyT | October 27th, 2009 at 7:57 amA letter to Roche to be viewed via “the internet blogging observation”
Dear Roche,
I have been using your product for many! many! many! years and here is your internet communication from your consumer as to what I would really like to see your company develop. A Cure! But I realize that Roche would not be the likely Pharma company to develop a cure. But you are a company that can make my life a little easier.
I understand through the internet sites you are trying to develop a understanding of PWD as to what we really want. You ask yourself is it marketable, is it profitable to develop with a whole lot of analyzing.
Well here is my feedback directly to Roche. I want a Accu-check meter that will be able to test, log, calculate carb ratio, log insulin dosages, log exercise and other diabetic things, for an affordable price for everyone. All in one handy dandy little meter. Now that is what I want.
In recent years the accu-check meter has been in the stone ages. All it does is “TEST” and I need more from my meter. Meters have made a huge differance for PWD in dealing with Diabetes in the past 30+ years. Huge! Good Job!
So go back to your drawing table, puts your heads together and come up with new meter. Just think! I have just save Roche millions of dollars of analyzing. Please give me some feedback as what you have going on and I will continue to give you feedback as to wheather it will make a differance in PWD lives.
P.S. Also I would like in a pretty pink! Thanks.
Sincerely,
dargirl
Posted by: dargirl | October 27th, 2009 at 8:40 am