He’s right in a way, though, because that’s the way that the wheels in my mind turn now. Maybe it’s because that’s the marketing and sales that I know and have done. Either way, here’s the latest rotation: CD4 rapid testing.
People with HIV/AIDS are supposed to routinely have their blood drawn to determine their CD4 cell count. Know your numbers, manage your condition better, right? Mobile clinics travel to townships and schools to try to get people to test. Local clinics and hospitals offer testing, too. In South Africa, when an individual's CD4 count falls below 200, they’re eligible for free ARVs (thanks, American tax payer!). In developed western countries, they receive critical care when the count is at or below 350.
Not enough people test, though. There’s definitely a stigma. Preliminary testing for HIV/AIDS is already hard enough. Celebrities and politicians make a big show of testing in a big publicity stunt to get more people to test. Peer educators test first at schools in hopes that more of their friends will get tested and know their status.
Once you already have HIV/AIDS, knowing your CD4 cell count is still a hassle, though. There are basically two options. One, go to a hospital/lab to have blood work done in order to determine your CD4 count, having to wait days in between getting tested and getting your result. Two, take a rapid test at a clinic, have a bunch of blood drawn, and wait around for a while before getting a result that’s not necessarily accurate. Think about that: wouldn’t you want your test to determine how your immune system is faring under HIV to be accurate? Accuracy is important, people, and there’s no two ways around that.
Holy my, diabetes testing 30 years ago. Once upon a time, diabetes testing took tonnes of blood and minutes on end for a result. Nowadays, a quick and discreet (and WaveSense-accurate!) test can be done and over with in a few seconds using half a microlitre of blood. In layman’s terms, that’s ‘wicked tiny and wicked fast.’
So why can’t we do that with CD4 testing? Sridhar?
Then I start feeling guilty because our end user is an impoverished woman in sub-Saharan Africa, but then I remember that the end user doesn’t necessarily pay for the product, the customer does. To whom would we sell in order to distribute? Governments? NGOs? Would this business venture be profitable enough to justify embarking on it?
I’m not sure, but it got me thinking. And ps, it’s my idea. I call it. Dibs.
Except for the fact that someone is already doing it. Professor Shaughnessy mentioned it in class. Obviously, I, ever the sales woman, approached him after class and explained a little of WaveSense. He said that he thought that all of the proprietary/intellectual property product was already in place, which dampened my spirits. He wasn’t sure if anything could come of putting me in contact with the entrepreneur.
So, naturally, I began to think competition. It goes without saying that the technology in our meters is awesome. I don’t know if you could really market ‘WaveSense: awesome!’ but it would work on me. I believe in the technology that we use. I wouldn’t sell a product in which I didn’t believe. I definitely am not about to lab-coat-up and jump into the lab, but if we’re already using the technology to test for glucose, then couldn’t you apply the enzyme/reagent used already in CD4 testing, scale it down to a test-strip size, and manipulate the algorithm to get it to display a result that makes sense in CD4 terms?
Certainly, it’s not quite like glucose testing. Individuals living with HIV are recommended to test every 6 months, I think. The recommendation for this kind of testing is once a week. The trend will always be down until they reach the point that they need to start taking ARVs, and then it will be way, way up until they stabilise before the final fall. It sounds pretty heartless talking about it like this.
I guess that I’ll just have to wait for market research to tell me what we should do.
finis
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