Author: Lukas Zinnagl

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The Jenny McCarthy Body Count

Lukas Zinnagl

Once in a while you discover small little gems on the web that are not existant only because of making money with them but with more sophisticated aims. One of them is called The Jenny McCarthy Body Count (by Derek Bartholomeus) and although some you might know this site already I didn’t. If you are with me then you  might ask yourself what’s up with this awkward domain name. Here’s the story: Jenny McCarthy is a celebrity from the United States. She is most well known for posing nude as aPlayboy Playmate, for picking her nose on the MTV show Singled Out, and for being the former girlfriend of actor/comedian Jim Carrey. In 2002 she gave birth to a son named Evan. In 2006 she started promoting Evan as being a “Crystal Child” and herself as being an “Indigo Mom”. In May 2007 Jenny McCarthy announced that Evan was not a “Crystal Child” after all, but had been diagnosed with autism (some people have said that there is a possibility that he may have been misdiagnosed and he actually has Landau-Kleffner syndrome). She holds on to the mistaken belief that Evan’s alleged autism was caused by his receiving childhood vaccines. […] Jenny McCarthy’s child, Evan, was not born […]

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5 Elements Of A Pharma Company 2.0

Lukas Zinnagl

In various posts we have been calling for a change within the pharmaceutical industry. Much of that is not new, yet still nothing seems to change on a bigger scale. Sure, the iPad is becoming an essentiell tool in sales, eDetails have emerged, biotech startups are being bought instead of inhouse R&D, but especially with regards to the patent cliff it’s time for a new kind of pharmaceutical copmany and we simply don’t see that happpening. Here are five parts of todays pharma business that need to be deserve attention and that need be disrupted entirely. Sure, there are many regulatory aspects that need to overcome, but a startup called help! in New York is showing how things can run entirely differently. 1. Sales – The other way round We’ve previously written about Pharma’s sales savior. Is it the iPad? Is it the Telerep? Pharma needs a radically new distribution approach and entirely new sales channel. Still, most of its sales goes through reps working closely with doctors. Showing some allegdly nifty and worthwhile graphics and trying to convince the physician of some drug. In times of guidelines and EBM those fancy graphics are not enough anymore. Sales needs to […]

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The Chopped Physician

Lukas Zinnagl

Think about how the role of the physician has changed during the last thousands of years. From the greeks to ancient egypt to modern medicine, which again, within it again has evolved extensively. In general, medicine has gotten a lot more complicated. The role of the physician has also changed rapidlly and radically. While the physician has always been a single individual, a healer, a human being capable of preventing, detecting and ultimately treating illnesses. When the world had little knowledge about medicine and conditions the physician’s job was not only far more mystic, but also a lot simpler. It really required less training, less work, less specialization. The circumstances modern healthcare indirectly created are ubiquitious and have shaped all aspects of medicine, except for the physician. The chopped physician is not existant, yet it should be. Modern medicine requires team work to function properly. People working in healthcare usually are responsible for very certain and defined tasks. Phlebologists take blood, Echocardiographers perform sonography of your heart, MTAs do this, and Y does that. Yet the physician has not “chopped” herself. If physicians were to adapt to the diversification of modern medicine, than they must do so themselves by diversifying themselves. […]

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Don’t Be Obedient

Lukas Zinnagl

If you are a physician, then don’t be obedient and question everything. It sounds trivial, yet it’s incredibly hard to accomplish in medicine. From our first days in med school to our residency at hospitals, we are taught, that science and …

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Peter Thiel on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Education and Much More

Lukas Zinnagl

The highlight of last year’s Charité Entrepreneurship Summit in Berlin has been the closing keynote of seriel entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel. Thiel, a founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook is not only a billionaire but one of the most forward thinking and disruptive thinkers out there. His conservative, or I’d rather say libertarian attitude, has brought him a quite some criticism, but at the same time he’s also widely recognized as one of the most successful entrepreneurs these days. In the following videos, you’ll see Peter Thiel talking about a variety of topics. What’s striking about them, apart from the actual content, is the strong believe and passion Thiel conveys through his keynote. He seems to be so sure about the things he talks about and so confident that you tend to agree on many aspects. The footage has not been shared publically yet and has now appeared on YouTube. It is copyrighted by the Charité Stiftung, which organizes the annual Charité Entrepreneurship Summit. Enough, sit back and no matter if you are a physician, entrepreneur or somebody thinking outside the box, you should watch those videos and dive into the following Q&A. Enjoy!       […]

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Interview With Denise Silber On European Startups, Facebook And Best Practices In Pharma

Lukas Zinnagl

As we have announced in our last post, MedCrunch will be supporting some very selected events as a media partner in 2012. One of them is Doctors 2.0 & You in Paris. An event which we have been attending last year and which nicely captured the current status of medical professionals on the web and how social media is more and more becoming a part of medicine. Doctors 2.0 & You is continuing  this year and takes place in Paris from May 23-24, 2012 (You can grab a ticket here). We did an interview with its founder and head Denise Silber, who also announced a strategic partnership with Larry Chu’s Medicine 2.0 at Stanford only recently. Here we go.   MC: Hi Denise, thanks for your time. So it’s the 2nd time you are organizing the Doctors 2.0 & You in Paris this year. What will be the main focus of the event? DS: Our focus at Doctors 2.0 & You will be Web 2.0, Social Media, and Mobile Apps for Healthcare around the World; we’ll have some truly amazing speakers from Europe, US, and Asia. We’ll be featuring practical examples and providing time for networking and interaction. MC: It’s […]

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Meet MedCrunch At Innovations & Investments In Healthcare 2012, Berlin, April 26/27, 2012

Lukas Zinnagl

It seems as if Europe is slowly but surely moving forward when it comes to digital health 2.0 – both in terms of startups and events. As a Europe-based media outlet, with a strong readership in the US though, we are happy to be able to support some great people out there, who are also aiming to disrupt healthcare in terms of a media partnership with there and have a chance to support events as media partners. When the masses will be gathering at Germany’s largest fair for healthcare IT – the ConhIT – the conaisseurs will be gathering in Berlin, Europe’s (rightly) self proclaimed hub for tech entrepreneurs. Miles away from boring panel discussions, there will be an ecclectic mix of people, who meet at the so-called Innovations & Investments in Healthcare Summit in Berlin, from April 26 – 27 2012 (It’s great to see people like Halle Tecco, CEO of Rock Health or Sutha Kamal, Co-Founder of Massive Health coming all the way to Berlin and discuss with some industry experts twice their age. It looks like the event is going to be very diverse, not only in terms of the program, but also in terms of attendees – […]

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Sabi – Solving Patient Adherence Through Design

Lukas Zinnagl

We’ve just learned that patient’s adherence is one of the biggest problems today’s healthcare system is facing – and it is clearly a neglected one. Now there are several ways how one can improve aherence and compliance. One of them is through design. As you probably know, we are big fans of design here at MedCrunch and always seek new shiny objects and concepts that are small elements of a next-gen hospital or just make our daily lives more aesthetic. Silicon Valley has always been on the verge of making great products for the world. People and startups have been ingenial When it comes to transforming ordinary objects into aesthetic game changers – this has happend from mobile phones to thermostats. Sabi, a Palo Alto based Startup, has recently emerged with a simple, clean and effective pill dispensing system, crafted by renowned designer and entrepreneur Yves Béhar who also brought us the Jawbone Up. The company has created a so-called vitality line of pill holsters and dispensers, that not only are simple to use and thus especially suited for the elderly, but also entail functional elements that are notewothy. For example, the holster only allows to dispense a maximum of a […]

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What If?

Lukas Zinnagl

For the third time, actor Ashton Kutcher has invested in a european internet startup. What might seem odd at first sight, is important. We need more people like Mr. Kutcher. People who act on the intersections of genres. Those are the people who consta…

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The Internet, Information And What It Means For Physicians

Lukas Zinnagl

Professor Gunter Dueck, is a calm and eloquent german mathematician who’s also the CTO of IBM Germany. He studied mathematics and philosophy and eventually turned out to be a great writer and speaker. Unfortunately he only does so in german, which is why it doesn’t make much sense to post a video of him here. In a recent talk he gave (German only), he talks about whether a connected and information-based world is a nightmare or a dream come true. Near the end of the talk he picks up the topic of what a connected society, what the internet and what ubiquitious information means for certain jobs, in particular for contractors or service providers like lawyers and doctors. You are more and more disapointed by professionals who live off their knowledge, whom you’ve always trusted and whose expertise you’ve considered to be untouchable. Now the internet gives everyone and extremely powerful tool to research even the most complex medical knowledge. Be it Map-Kinases or the different types of leukemia. It is simply amazing (and to some of us, slightly discomforting) that such highly specific knowledge which was only able to be acquired going through several years of med school is now […]