WEGO Health Experts home page
WEGO Health, a social media and crowdsourcing platform with roots in life sciences, has introduced a new website to match healthcare organizations with patient community leaders and consultants. The new WEGO Health Experts is meant to extend the Boston-based company’s reach beyond pharma and life sciences.
“Our legacy business is profitable, but narrow in its focus,” David Goldsmith, chief strategy officer for WEGO Health, told MedCity News.
WEGO Health experts debuted Wednesday after about 90 days in beta. “Already, we’re seeing a number of use cases that go beyond just gleaning patient insights,” Goldsmith reported.
Instead of just looking for clinical trial participants, early users have been able to find what the company called “hyper-connected” patients who can introduce healthcare companies of all kinds to wider communities. This is particularly helpful when trying to find people with rare diseases as well as related caregivers, Goldsmith explained.
“One trusted patient within a community helped [a healthcare organization] recruit 25 people for research,” he said. “It’s very much in line with what we envisioned.”
“Health conditions are incredibly relevant,” Goldsmith said. “But the other things they bring to the table can be incredibly relevant as well.” He said patients might have backgrounds in marketing or copy writing that can assist healthcare companies in further outreach, engagement and adoption.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Case studies already on the WEGO Health Experts site include a specialty pharma services firm finding patients to speak on a conference panel and a company offering continuing medical education identifying more than 30 patients taking immunosupressants a year after kidney or liver transplants.
The site also allows consultants and other experts to register for free as they seek new clients.
“It’s helping to extend [consultants’] practice and skill set into healthcare systems in a meaningful way,” Goldsmith said. “It’s a great way for them to get consulting gigs.”
Photo: WEGO Health
