Team:BGU Israel/Human Practice/Project Assessment

Introduction:

We found it very important to think of all aspects of the Inner Doctor through, so we met with the CEO of a strategic consultant firm – "Triger Foresight" of Delloitte, who helped us identify the key factors in the project. We reviewed the projects risks, feasibility, security aspects and practical options. Due to the natural uncertainty in the process of developing a medicinal treatment, a business plan was not included, however an analysis of economic potential and how the project will affect stake holders was made.

Risk:

The Israeli Diabetes Association Chief Executive recommended that regarding health risks we consult with the most prominent figure in the field of metabolic disorders in Israel – MD Prof. Jacob Bar Tana. We arranged a meeting and discussed the current situation of the problem, the up to date treatments for Metabolic Syndrome and what unsolved problems still remain. Prof. Bar Tana explained how today's treatments treat every symptom independently, and many times lead to conflicting medications, treating one aspect of the disorder while having a negative effect on another aspect. As he said: "sometimes what is good for one problem makes some other problem worse". He was glad to hear that like him, we wish to address the big picture of the Metabolic Syndrome, and that we understand that there is dependency and relation between all symptoms. We chose to treat the Metabolic Syndrome so it can truly treat all the symptoms in a better way than various other existing treatments. Prof. Bar Tana also reviewed our methods, pointing out more efficient ones and places where we might have some problems, this helped guiding our laboratory work very much and also gave us professional support and assurance. (More about The Inner Doctor treatment healing capabilities and risks here)

Feasibility:

A little about the Feasibility of the Inner Doctor treatment - There are medicines with the goal of reducing insulin resistance or to improve metabolism. However they all lack intrinsic self-regulation mechanisms which could limit side. We work to avoid them and that is one place where we fit in. The bottleneck of developing and producing effective Inner Doctor like treatment is the development of efficient drug delivery systems, specifically for nuclear acids.

Stake Holders:

When dealing with a health problem of such a wide scope, it is necessary to analyze how it will affect various Stake Holders. It will hopefully prevent pre-Diabetes people from developing full-blown Type 2 Diabetes, thus improving their lives, improving their and their families future work capacity and decreasing their dependency of health and medical care. We hope our treatment will significantly improve the lives of people suffering from the Metabolic Syndrome, to a level they will stop using certain drugs, visit the doctor less often, be able to work more productively and live a happier life with fewer side effects. Healthy lifestyle, and nutrition professions such as Diet experts, sports trainers might see a small decrease in demand however there will still be work for them because prevention will always be the better option, better than getting sick and receiving treatment.

In our vision, doctors will have less work and more time to spend on other patients. The medical insurance companies will save money, the Health Ministry will save money on facilities and services that will not be necessary anymore, plus the government will gain more money from the rise of production level in society. Biotechnology research will become very desirable and even more prestigious, new jobs for biologists and people in charge of producing the Inner Doctor treatment will open, and generally funds with flow in greater amounts to Synthetic Biology projects.

Product Price:

Product Price development analysis is quite tricky to do in this early stage of the process. Of course price will include DNA & RNA synthesis – salaries, lab equipment and materials, delivery method development, clinical experiments, developing several prototypes, official regulation approvals, and also it is hard to approximate how much time research will take until ready. All these uncertain factors make is too presumptuous to calculate a price. On the bright side, what we do know is that when it becomes FDA approved production costs will decrease as the quantity of production will increase. Plus when it starts working governments will be happy to invest in this treatment so it will save the lives of their citizens and much money for the country.

End User:

An important question to ask was “How the Inner Doctor would be used by the patient or the End User"? We reflected on our experiences with the diabetics we met. Although we call our product an Inner Doctor and it does replace the treatment and monitoring of a doctor, it will of course not replace the doctor's diagnose. First of all a person will have to be diagnosed by a doctor who will then recommend the Inner Doctor treatment. For treating Obesity via the Fat Burning strategies it will be enough to receive treatment once in a few months. For the Diabetes treatment via the insulin sensitivity strategy, the patient would probably need to receive daily treatments. Treatment will be given at hospitals, in the form of an injection. We hope to do the impossible with the Inner Doctor treatment and set an opportunity to heal from chronic diseases.

Security Risk:

Our product poses no Security risk. As a medicine, it would be no more risky than the absurd notion of someone maliciously "attacking" someone else with insulin. Even then, the Inner Doctor' s fat burning strategies have starting and stopping mechanisms measuring fat in the body so it will never work on someone who's body doesn't really need the treatment. Furthermore as previously said it will be supervised and regulated by hospitals which will make sure proper use will be made.
We would like to also to note the outer circle of security relevant to the project through research, which is that during the project and while ordering special genes from companies we had to fill in a form and state if the gene came from a Pathogen or is toxic, plus go through a similar process with university channels.