RamaOnHealthcare February 21, 2022
Ariel Katz discusses with RamaOnHealthcare: A beginner’s mindset and a single source of truth. Why healthcare needs real-time insights for a better and more equitable healthcare ecosystem.
Ariel Katz, Founder & Ceo, H1
Most clinical trials take 10 years and 2.3 billion dollars to complete. Trials do not fail because of bad science. They fail because of bad operations. So, we saw these things and thought: what if we built a product to highlight doctors, clinical trials, research, and academics—in other words, all their work in one place? We wanted to build a single source of truth for this data that was easily accessible and usable.
Most clinical trials take 10 years and 2.3 billion dollars to complete. Trials do not fail because of bad science. They fail because of bad operations. So, we saw these things and thought: what if we built a product to highlight doctors, clinical trials, research, and academics—in other words, all their work in one place?
RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): What observations or challenges did you see in the healthcare industry that moved you and the other founders to start H1?
Ariel Katz (AK): There were several observations. The first that the broken medical research process that often results in reduced or diminished funding. The second thing we noticed was the way the industry funds medical research has blind spots and disconnects. It is difficult to find out who is doing research, where, and in what therapeutic area.
The data management for these initiatives can be resource taxing, expensive, and exists in spreadsheets and silos across pharma and life sciences organizations. There has not been a sound and more importantly, intuitive way to pull this data together, making it almost impossible to understand the impact of the research. It is a broken process with broken information.
Those observations are what drove us to build what is now the leading global ecosystem of healthcare knowledge and source of truth for the industry. We maintain and update information daily on more than 10M+ HCPs, billions of claims, and more. This ecosystem is the foundation for a portfolio of solutions that delivers relevant, real-time insights for life sciences, pharma, med devices, and the entire healthcare ecosystem. This manifests for our customers in being able to recruit for and run more equitable and efficient clinical trials and bring more lifesaving therapeutics to market.
Most clinical trials take 10 years and 2.3 billion dollars to complete. Trials do not fail because of bad science. They fail because of bad operations. So, we saw these things and thought: what if we built a product to highlight doctors, clinical trials, research, and academics—in other words, all their work in one place? We wanted to build a single source of truth for this data that was easily accessible and usable.
ROH: How did innovation play into the discovery of H1?
AK: I follow two mental models for innovation. First, if you take all the competitors in your market and assess where they are good and bad and take the average value, you can win market share. The second is: innovate by coming in with a beginner’s mindset.
When we started, because we knew so little, we looked for market conditions and did what we thought made sense. We found a gap in the market. Now we can dig deeper into understanding the problems and market dynamics. Sometimes the best innovation comes by being in the right place at the right time.
ROH: Why did something like this not exist before?
AK: A company like H1 would not have been possible years ago without the availability of the data. In some industries, regulation stops innovation. In healthcare, it drives it. After the Affordable Care Act, data became more open and shareable. What allowed us to scale so quickly is how rapidly the data went global. While we did not realize the full potential at the time, when healthcare data became available more openly worldwide, we jumped on the opportunity. We walked into innovation and then ran with it. The availability of data allowed us to bring claims to medical affairs within pharma to find key opinion leaders (KOLs) around the world.
In some industries, regulation stops innovation. In healthcare, it drives it.
ROH: Shifting gears a bit—since the onset of COVID-19, the healthcare industry has placed a heightened focus on health equity, diversity, and inclusion to reduce and address health disparities. How does this apply to clinical trials?
AK: There is a lack of diversity in clinical trials is because 10 years ago, it was not a priority for pharma or the government or really for healthcare. Therefore, there is perhaps residual distrust that has built up among minority communities, and a lack of faith in healthcare institutions and big pharma. But we cannot create new drugs, therapeutics, or med devices if we do not make trials accessible to all patient populations. The way to do that is to have more diverse physician populations conduct the research, build trust among diverse patient communities, and make trials and they drugs they test more accessible. Studies have shown that patients are more likely to take a drug recommended by a physician of the same or similar ethnic origin. We want to make the landscape of clinical trials diverse and inclusive to lead to more inclusive medicine and better patient outcomes. Our core mission is to provide data on 50% of clinical trials in two years and make sure we provide diverse and inclusive data on physicians conducting research and the patients enrolling.
We want to make the landscape of clinical trials diverse and inclusive to lead to more inclusive medicine and better patient outcomes.
ROH: Where do you see H1 in two years?
AK: We hope to provide information on every doctor in the world to facilitate connectivity across all of healthcare. We want to be that connective tissue and backbone for all information on physicians. From hospitals to payers to digital health and continue to expand in pharma, life sciences, and medical device companies. For doctors, we want to be the source of truth to keep their information up-to-date and learn what their peers are doing. We believe this will help with most of the inefficiencies plaguing healthcare today. We do not pretend we can solve all the problems of healthcare, but we believe it is a good place to start. From cost to access to innovation, our mission is to create a healthier future for all and keep driving healthcare forward.
About Ariel Katz
In 2017, Ariel Katz co-founded H1 with his colleague, Ian Sax.H1 connects the entire healthcare ecosystem through real-time data and clinical findings. Ariel and team work directly with clients to help them apply healthcare data to solving vexing issues such as which treatments are the most promising, and which experts influence a particular market.