As part of the startup Interview series, we are going to interview Mr. Gareth Shaw from Doceree, the first global network of Physician-only platforms for programmatic marketing.
Gareth, thanks for taking the time to catch up with us. Can you briefly outline the company’s story? What is Doceree’s key goal? Who are the founders, and how did it all become what it is today?
Pharmaceutical marketing was nowhere close to the way consumer marketing evolved remarkably in the digital realm over years and that constantly hit the founder Harshit Jain MD. In his previous work stint at a renowned healthcare advertising company, he gained tremendous market exposure while serving in India, the UK, and the US. And when he drew parallels between where consumer marketing stood vis-a-vis pharmaceutical marketing in the digital arena, the latter was a total laggard. It was striking that the picture wasn’t much different as different markets were compared; it was quite the same globally. The only bottleneck turned out to be the mental block pertaining to regulations that stopped Pharmaceutical brands from taking the big digital leap, opposed to what their counterparts in the consumer world did.
This pushed him to plug the ‘global pharma marketing’ gap. The determination to take up the cause got strengthened when he realized the acute problem of the rising cost of healthcare could be addressed by bringing in ‘efficiency and effectiveness’ in Physician marketing with methodical use of data and creativity.
With Doceree, we aim to make pharma marketing measurable
The goal is to reduce the cost of healthcare. We believe that by helping pharmaceutical brands break the digital barrier, their marketing investments can be cut down substantially. By introducing effectiveness and efficiency, Doceree can reduce that cost by about 18-25% which would eventually reflect on the pricing of drugs.
Harshit Jain MD is the Founder & CEO of Doceree. He studied medicine and went on to do MD. For a few years, he practiced Internal Medicine and then jumped to healthcare advertising. He worked with a renowned global healthcare advertising company and had stints in India, the UK, and the US at leadership positions prior to founding Doceree.
What kind of products and services does your company offer?
Digital Marketing products and services for Life Science companies and their agencies.
What’s the latest progress in the project, and what are you focusing on right now?
We are launching the business in Europe (currently established in India and the US).
What pain of your customers are you helping solve? What is your company offering, and what kind of customers and partners are you looking for?
We are giving Life Science companies digital marketing tools comparable to consumer marketing verticals. Our customers: Life Science brands and specialist Healthcare and Pharma agencies.
What differentiates Doceree from its competitors?
We are the world’s first global programmatic platform for physician marketing!
Do you use AI technology in your product? How does it work for you?
We use AI and Machine Learning to create media planning, execution, and measurement tools.
What is your business model, and how are you planning to get early customers onboard? Have you already raised money for your operations and building the platform?
We are a privately funded SaaS business.
What milestones have you had in fundraising, and where are you now?
We are at the pre-Series A stage.
What was it like growing your team? What were the challenges and surprises you encountered? What tips do you have for building a solid team?
Talent is hard to find when you are disrupting an industry and creating a new market. You need to bring together a team from multiple backgrounds to tie everything together.
What are your company’s plans for the future, your major dream in 2022?
We are aiming to continue scaling the business across the US, Europe, India, and other markets.
To summarize our interview, I would like to ask your opinion about the future of the HealthTech industry, especially considering the impact of the pandemic and all this economic turbulence.
The pandemic accelerated the shift to leveraging digital, and the genie is not going back into the bottle. The pandemic has been a challenge but also a major opportunity as Life Science brands, payers, providers, and patients all reassess how to best take advantage of technology to improve outcomes.
