Those of us with experience in various differentiated electrical stimulation devices (esp. Class III devices supported by randomized clinical trials and scientific data) that were prescribed & used by surgeons, in competition with surgical procedures (for which the surgeons were much more generously compensated) see the analogy in the ECOR situation. ECOR is addressing MD's who are trained and experienced with medication and for whom electrical stimulation seems to be an undifferentiated junk therapy. The pharma approach by starting to build a broad base of users by first targeting high volume headache clinics and by relying on clinical data and publications is inappropriate for this device and this company.
ECOR should acquire management talent (sales, marketing & product design) with successful experience in establishing new markets for new categories of devices. Instead of focusing on clinics with large patient populations as the primary initial sales target selection criteria (which are undoubtedly the targets of extra pharma marketing attention), one should focus on the early set of high prescribers and help them build their practice & prescription base. Then, leverage these pioneer and early adopter converts with MD statements of experince to their peers + clinical publications to the next level of users. Academics are often the last to consider this type f therapy for several reasons. Peer recommendation by successful clinicians based on experience in their hands will lead new prescribers to try gammaCore and is more effective than are publications and advertising for this class of products.
This is a fudamentally different business than pharma. The science may be overlapping, but the business is different. Based upon my experience in this area, I doubt that the pharma model will work. At best, it will take so long that direct competition will arrive & muddy the waters, obscuring the value of conducted clinical research and publications.
ECOR soon pivot clearly and soon.
Of course, I could be wrong. I have no monopoly on analysis, but I do have experience in this sector, as do others.
