(We originally posted this in 2020. You can read more of our original ideas in our archive.)
Problem: When new diseases arise, it’s tough to find people to participate in clinical trials. During COVID19, there was a boost in the number of trials conducted and studies published (see Mary Meeker’s COVID-19 Trends Report for more or below).
Solution: As Meeker wrote in her report, COVID19 “may become the ‘call to arms’ to better marry technology with healthcare, in terms of everything from telehealth to rapid point-of-care diagnostics, to applying automation and AI to health care services.” This business would work in the health-tech space to provide clinical trial groups with a reliable and sorted database of potential clinical trial participants. Using a combination of health records, demographic information, and artificial intelligence this business would innovate on the US National Library of Medicine’s website ClinicalTrials.gov.
For a quick back of the envelope market size, ClinicalTrials.gov currently has 343,680 research studies in all 50 states and in 216 countries. Assuming that these clinical trials cost $100k a year, the market would be more than $34 billion. This aligns almost perfectly with the third party market size created by Grand View Research which estimates that the market size value in 2020 was $49.4 billion.
Other sources also have various estimates for what the size of the clinical trials market could be (and many other sources are much higher). This business would optimize one of the most necessary parts of the clinical trials market: finding participants to actually be in the clinical trials. What’s great about this businesses is that it would be a supplement and value-add to existing pipelines rather than being a complete substitute.
Monetization: Percentage of clinical trial participants placed or subscription from medical institutions.
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)