Why early clinical input is so important for businesses, and how we at Medical Consulting Group deliver it

As someone who works to support early-stage startups in the health and technology sector, there are times when I have been surprised to find businesses that have not sought clinical advice and input at an earlier stage. In particular, I feel early clinical input triggers vital questions that allow businesses to manage their potential future risks, significantly increasing their chance of success. Whether this is for concept validation, commercial strategy, regulatory support, health-tech specific financial modelling assistance – there are some areas that just need early advice.

Even before establishing Medical Consulting Group, I have always advocated that appropriate early clinical involvement can save huge amounts of time, money, and headaches. Whilst there are many different ways of getting clinician input early on, the most common one I have witnessed across numerous projects is where someone at the business has a friend or contact who happens to be a doctor. This has the benefits of inherent trust and knowledge of each party, but can contain specific risks to each side. In particular, issues around indemnity, a lack of understanding of clinical skill levels, and difficulties with scalability as the work grows.

These complications can cause enough tension for businesses and clinicians to consider other options. Myself and colleagues went out to solve these tensions and our end result was Medical Consulting Group, aiming to reduce friction and benefit both sides. 

We specifically address three key areas of the working relationship to maximise the upside for both parties.

Project clarity: We work with businesses to clearly define their requirements, allowing us to deliver a clear proposal to clinicians with time requirements, requisite tasks, and remuneration clearly laid out. Only work that clearly fits into the clinician’s workload and wheelhouse will be discussed.

Employment risk & indemnity: We have a fully indemnified consultancy team to provide medical experts as a flexible resource. If a business requires a chief medical officer for a funding round, or for a few days per month for strategy advice or board meetings – we are able to provide this rapidly. This allows us to deliver the expert input our clients need.

Operational experience mismatch for doctors: Our experience is that clinical and operational expertise are the bedrock to early-stage healthtech companies’ success, but are not necessarily a common clinician skillset. We use these combined skills to provide clinical strategy and operations support, including clinical costing models, commercial strategy, and regulatory guidance. 

We think we have created a better model to assist in creating and delivering efficient growth-oriented clinical solutions for businesses. We would love to hear your thoughts or experiences on first-time clinical hires, the good the bad, and the ugly!