When Jonathan Coffman and Dan Didier submitted their plan for ScriptAlert last year, the judges were enamored by the idea that promised to save lives and reduce medical costs.
But nine months later, the duo have yet to find investors equally smitten with the $1.4 million start-up price-tag.
ScriptAlert's goal is to provide physicians with a fast and cheap way of screening patients for common genetic anomalies that might make them vulnerable to adverse drug reactions.
The benefits are not in doubt. According to some studies, adverse drug reactions cause approximately 7,000 deaths and 2.2 million hospitalizations per year.
Here's how ScriptAlert would help: A doctor who wanted to prescribe a drug -- say a heart disease medication with a known side effect -- would swab the inside of a patient's mouth to collect DNA. The sample would be mailed to a ScriptAlert processing center where it would be compared with a database of known contraindications and the company would produce a personalized risk assesment. When new drugs came to market, the company would update its database and automatically alert patients who might be at risk.
Not only would the system benefit patients and doctors, but by eliminating some of the risks associated with new drug development, pharmaceutical companies might also embrace the idea.
FINANCIAL CHALLENGES
Coffman, who is now director of health sciences at South University in West Palm Beach, and Didier, who has a Ph.D in microbiology and works for a biotech firm in St. Louis, have had nibbles from angel investors and a major healthcare player. But the up-front costs -- which include a pricey FDA-approved genetic screening machine -- have been something of an issue.
BREAK-EVEN POINT
''The initial cost of the equipment and the labor is a big risk because you need volume to drive it,'' Coffman explained. The service would cost about $200 per patient and the company estimates it would need 4,400 patients to break even.
In their business plan, Coffman and Didier expected that health insurance companies would be eager to embrace this technology, but potential investors haven't been so sure.
Coffman said they've been told: ''Until there is some fear of litigation,'' insurance companies ``won't want to spend the money.''
The Business Plan Challenge hasn't resulted in instant success for ScriptAlert -- and our stable of past winners proves that's about par for the course -- but it has opened up other entrepreneurial avenues. Coffman has been getting consulting work helping others write business plans.
And the duo still hopes to find the right investor for the project.
''It might be just a little ahead of its time right now,'' said Coffman.
