Blood Testing for Dummies

May 20, 2010 - PRLog -- Blood Testing for Dummies
Do It Yourself Doctors – America’s biggest Trend¹
 
By Adolfo Sandoval
Winter Park, FL

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”  
                                                                  - Albert Einstein

It is certainly an intriguing process to discover the capacity of our brain’s creative side. It seems every day more apparent that younger generations are becoming more conscious of this innate capacity, coming up with innovative and more effective ways of developing new processes and technologies.  It is, in fact, technology itself which has brought such an unexpected shift in industrial advancements over the last decade. Specifically, the development of products and processes that make complex but relevant information available to consumers in a simple, user-friendly way, one of today’s hottest trends – greatly hunted by investors– and anxiously sought by consumers willing to implement this relevant information on making educated decisions.

Society’s idea of technology is reaching boundaries Mr. Albert Einstein would have probably never expected - moving far beyond our expectations. Just like individuals, businesses are looking for innovative ways and solutions to comply with today’s consumers’ needs and keep up with society’s constantly changing interests. Computer literacy has become a must for any individual aspiring to get a rather basic job in literally any industry.  In fact, based on the Newly Revised Edition of the documentary  Globalization & the Information Age, created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, the top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.²

A fairly lucrative, hence competitive environment in the product/service innovations sector is with no doubt the healthcare industry.  Even though products are continually developed for infinite health-related purposes, blood testing technologies still seem rare to the consumer. But the reality is different. To our surprise, a sleeping giant is taking deep breaths to prepare for a long journey. Companies like Wellspring Clinical Lab, Inc are making great progress to make blood testing from home an affordable and safe reality.

Wellspring Clinical Lab, Inc. is a clinical diagnostic company using breakthrough technology to provide over 100 clinical diagnostic measurements from a few drops of blood for about a $35 cost to the customer- as opposed to $200 currently being paid for the same service on other labs. The price will include online, interactive, multimedia sessions of 20-30 minutes customized to the health of each consumer. This will motivate consumers to make healthier choices, have better communication with physicians, and a better understanding of their current health status before or after they visit a doctor’s office.

Because of the ingenuity and entrepreneurial profile needed from scientific innovations, the considerable Research and Development (R&D) investment necessary to develop a valuable, but practical technology like the one described above, and the senior executive mindset to get it to the consumer market, Wellspring Clinical Lab already enjoys very high barriers to entry in its industry. There is currently no other product or technology in the market that addresses the scope and capabilities of this company’s platform technologies. The maximum market potential of this product in the US alone is estimated at $9.2 Billion (285 million tests) per year for the consumer market.  However, the market potential goes beyond the consumer market alone and covers a variety of other segments, including physician’s office market, drug testing market, and insurance testing market.

Product & Service:
The blood is collected using an innovative blood collection kit that will be available at local pharmacies. The kit will contain a plastic DVD-like disc that can fit into a CD/DVD-drive bay with capillary channels for collecting the blood sample. When a finger is pricked, the blood drops are collected into a small hole on the disc and into the collection channel on the disc and put into the computer disc drive. The spinning forces the blood from the collection channel into the reservoirs that are designed to preserve the blood while the DVD is mailed to the Company for analysis. During the spinning process, the consumer will be directed to the Company’s website to the order form where it reads the registration number of the disc and collects the order and payment from the consumer.

The company is the akin to the REDBOX/ Netflix of Healthcare!

Key Advantages:
The breakthrough blood testing process is sample conserving so that hundreds of blood tests can be performed on a small blood sample, largely resistant to contamination concerns, so it can be draw at-home or at-clinic without the need for professional phlebotomy. It is also cost conserving, which means that the cost of performing these hundreds of tests ranges from $4 to $6.
Beyond this, its accuracy and reliability is better than that from the blood tests done in typical clinical labs.

Scientific Team:
This scientific and technological breakthrough is being lead by world-class scientists who also serve on the scientific advisory board.  
They include:
1.    Dr. Thomas Joos, head of biochemistry at Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tubengen in Germany.
2.    Dr. Gary Suizdak, head of mass spectrometry research at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.
3.   Dr. Richard Yost, head of analytical chemistry at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.
4.   Dr. Denise Kirschner, Professor of Immunology at University of Michigan Medical School and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

Management:
The venture is lead by Calvin Wiese, CPA, MBA, former auditor of Ernst & Whinney, and former Chief Financial Officer of Adventist Health System in Winter Park, FL, a multibillion hospital company.  He was described in the cover story of the June, 1999 issue of HealthCare Finance by Cynthia Keller from Standard & Poors as “a lot more sophisticated than most.”

There is absolutely no doubt that this technology will become one of the greatest inventions of our time. The uses and implementations of the services this company provides are infinite and will ground the way future generations access their medical history and communicate with doctors and physicians. In a few years, people will look back and say “here is where it all started…”

About the Author
Adolfo Sandoval is a Research Manager with NewGate Capital Partners. He can be contacted at adolfo@newgategroup.net

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NewGate Capital Partners is a Mergers and Acquisitions boutique firm headquartered in Central Florida. We specialize in strategic marketing consulting services and provide confidential business brokering, customized research services.