Sci-dip

Sci-dip is a digital health platform aimed at making the latest research in the health sector accessible to worried patients and their family members. We do so by providing lay rewritings of academic publications aka the wikipedia for health. We also offer to put patients in contact with researchers who hold cutting-edge scientific knowledge on their diseases. As a matter of fact, including PhDs to existing medical care is our main innovation, as classic approaches only focus on MDs. In short, we give patients and their entourage more information on their condition and we help them understand what to expect and how to deal with it. 

There is a gap between a growing interest in health & science, and a lack of accessible and reliable information in the field. On one hand, scientific publications are not open nor accessible to non-experts through existing general audience science media. This means that a curious reader or a worried patient cannot have access to the latest research discoveries regarding one specific disease; they can only find mainstream (and often inaccurate) information. On the other hand, researchers are not reachable through classical digital health platforms. Hence, a worried patient or members of their family find themselves facing busy (and often not fully informed) medical doctors, without being able to contact researchers holding the sharpest and most advanced knowledge on their disorders. We want to transform the typical patient journey by making medical science and researchers accessible to patients, so basically to everyone as we are all bound to get sick one day.

Our digital health platform provides content (lay rewritings of academic papers) and access to researchers, a category of health experts that is not reachable through other telemedicine structures. Other companies have been focusing either on MDs / physicians or on para-medical experts such as life coaches but no one is returning to the root of cutting-edge knowledge: PhDs.

Our communication and consultation services target B2C users (worried patients and their families) as well as B2B customers (pharmaceutical and biotech companies who want to communicate their science to patients).

Although our approach is human centered, data and technology play an important role on two aspects:

- we are developing an algorithm that will help experts "translate" an academic paper into lay terms

- we are also developing an algorithm that will improve the match between patients and health experts.

The main innovation in our platform is how we include PhDs / researchers in medical care. Worried patients usually contact their medical doctor in their local clinic or through emerging digital health platforms. We break the model by adding PhDs to the mix thus giving patients the possibility to better understand their condition and the treatment options by contacting researchers who have in-depth knowledge on their disease.

Although our platform targets all patients, we specifically address the most googled and most worrisome diseases as well as diseases that are prone to medical wandering (that is, diseases where the diagnosis is hard to find, with important costs on the health system). We have thus listed 10 categories of pathologies that form our core audience and include mental health, heart conditions, hormonal symptoms, maternal disorders and immuno-oncology.

Our competition offers to put users in contact with MDs that is, medical doctors who work in the clinic. While we do have this option at Sci-dip, we can also put users in contact with PhDs/researchers who have spent years studying one particular disease. Researchers spend most of their time working in labs, trying to better understand the symptoms of a given illness or striving to find a cure to the toughest diseases out there. Their knowledge takes 5 to 10 years to reach medical doctors, the patients and the clinic. Sci-dip wants to bridge this gap. We give users the possibility to contact not only MDs but also PhDs and to ask them the questions that bug them the most about a given disease. It is Sci-dip's main goal: to include researchers in classical healthcare systems to improve in fine a patient's journey. Why would a patient wait >5 years to get answers to their pressing questions?
With Sci-dip, health information will be accessible and reliable, thus reducing misinformation, increasing patients' informed decisions, and reducing in fine the cost of medical wandering.

We are at a very early stage, we launched a beta platform early this year and it is being used by >350 health experts as well as by a segment of our beachhead market (approx. 2K monthly users). Among these 2K, more than 50% are recurrent users. Around 10% has contacted us for specific tailored needs. Medical errancies and expert parents (worried about a sick child) have been our most valuable users/customers to date.

We are working on our first raise for equity this fall.

The main innovation in our platform is how we include PhDs / researchers in medical care. Worried patients usually contact their medical doctor in their local clinic or through emerging digital health platforms. More than 65% of the time, this is not enough. We break the model by adding PhDs to the mix thus giving patients the possibility to better understand their condition and the treatment options by contacting researchers who have in-depth knowledge on their disease.

Researchers spend most of their time working in labs, trying to better understand the symptoms of a given illness or striving to find a cure to the toughest diseases out there. Their knowledge takes 5 to 10 years to reach medical doctors, the patients and the clinic. Sci-dip wants to bridge this gap. We give users the possibility to contact not only MDs but also PhDs and to ask them the questions that bug them the most about a given disease. It is Sci-dip's main innovative goal: to include researchers in classical healthcare systems to improve in fine a patient's journey. Why would a patient wait >5 years to get answers to their pressing questions?

We also innovate in our hybrid human-tech approach. We favor a human-centered approach, one which is highly enriched and supported by a smart platform that 

1) allows health experts to translate science more rapidly

2) improves our matchmaking between patients and health experts

Current users: 2K monthly (among which approx. 50% recurrent users)

Year 1: 50K 

Year 5: 10-20M

- number of users

- number of recurrent users

- number of health experts

- number of affiliated hospitals

- number of academic partners

- % of medical wandering reduction

- patients satisfaction

- cost of worrisome disorders

- cost of late diagnosis

2 full-time: 

Laura-Joy Boulos, co-founder and CEO

Alexandre Mendes, PhD, co-founder and CTO

2 part-time:

Communication Director

Content manager

Sci-dip has two co-founders: Laura-Joy Boulos (CEO) and Alexandre Mendes (CTO). 

We are PhDs at the intersection between academia and the industry, with a strong desire to translate fundamental discoveries from the former into concrete solutions developed by the latter.  

We have known each other for more than two years now. We met at onepoint, a french consulting firm where we successfully created together an intrapreneurial project: a mobile app called i-decide (i-decide.fr) that managed to become revenue positive in 18 months.

We have a broad and useful academic network in the health sector as well as solid expertise in project development, go-to- market and scaling strategies, neuromarketing and data science.

In addition to being an R&D consultant, Dr. Laura-Joy BOULOS is an associate professor at Saint-Jospeh University (Beirut). She has recently obtained the 2020 l’Oréal-UNESCO for women in science award. This makes her an excellent CEO.
In addition to being an R&D consultant, Dr. Alexandre MENDES is a data scientist with strong expertise in machine learning. This makes him an excellent CTO.

As a POC, LGBTQ woman co-founder, it is extremely important for me, Laura-Joy, to have an inclusive approach in every step of our business building.

This includes having a team that sees diversity as a quality.

This also means making sure that we listen to silent / invisible handicaps of our team members, our health experts and our users /patients.

Finally, having a team that advocates for equity makes it easier /more natural and honest to be inclusive with our users too, and this is a priority to us, as we believe that science belongs to all. As such, we do not want to exclude poor patients who can't afford to pay our fees. We have thus put in place a series of measures that allow patients who can afford our fees to sponsor another patient with a similar condition but from a poorer background. The sponsor doesn't have to pay extra fees, all they have to do is to accept that the treatment that they get will also be given to someone else who suffers from the same illness. We also offer to put these two patients in contact, something that is already done by some patient associations and forums but we add the PhD layer to it.

One difficulty will be to reach the approximately 1B of people who do not have access to internet. We are thinking of partnerships with institutions such as Medecins du monde, Doctors without borders etc.

Research centers (the Broad Institute, Dana Farber, BIDMC, NIDA), hospitals (MIT medical, MHG, BWH, AHA) and patients associations.

Sci-dip promotes equity by design. Our motto says that science belongs to all and we believe that it should be made accessible to everyone. We have thus put in a place a sponsorship system that allows patients who can afford our fees to "sponsor" patients who can't. The former do not have to pay any additional fees, they only have to consent that all the work that Sci-dip does for them will be shared to less privileged patients.

Sci-dip promotes equity by design. Our motto says that science belongs to all and we believe that it should be made accessible to everyone. We have thus put in a place a sponsorship system that allows patients who can afford our fees to "sponsor" patients who can't. The former do not have to pay any additional fees, they only have to consent that all the work that Sci-dip does for them will be shared to less privileged patients.

In addition, our co-founder and CEO Dr Laura-Joy Boulos comes from Lebanon, a country that has a history of welcoming refugees (Palestinians in the 1970s and Syrians in the 2010s) as well as a big diaspora in the USA (2M) and in America (16M). It holds dear to her heart to include them in the healthcare system. She is thus putting in place partnerships with associations that could reach out to this population (through non-digital channels) and integrate them to the Sci-dip solution.

One of Sci-dip's main focus is women health and mental health. As a matter of fact, we are working on a collaboration with the Brigham and Women's hospital to specifically target hormonal, maternal and other women health issues.

In addition, Sci-dip's co-founder and CEO, Dr Laura-Joy Boulos, was recently named one of the 15 most promising women researchers by the L'Oréal-UNESCO foundation.