Just as I expected!

I was intrigued by the notice today that Nestle is buying the company Prometheus. This really is what I would be expecting from an intelligent company trying to make moves in creating a new industry.

It is ironic that about 4 years ago, while I was with Pfizer, I was asked by the Business Strategy group to be involved in a due diligence of a visiting company, Prometheus. I heard their presentation and was very enthusiastic on their strategy. I pushed Pfizer to invest but it was to no avail. Would have been a great return.
But this is very exciting news. The link is:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F05%2F24%2FBUOV1JK5EI.DTL

This is a move for Nestle to enter health care. This is not necessarily the best move for establishing personalized nutrition. But it is clear that the Nestle strategy on personalized nutrition is unclear.

But it is very encouraging.

Australian Health Care Industry

I have been back in Australia for about 10 months now. Worked and networked with a lot of people from academic, government and private sector. It really isn't an industry rather a collection of companies and attempts at companies. There is a constant remark that tries to compare to the Israeli biotech/medtech community. No comparison. It really is a cultural thing!

Their is a lot of nice technologies here but there is a sense of trying to model on the US system. There is a genuine recognition that the Australian population is on a whole too small to make a financial success so the successful companies generally revolve around considerable accrual of frequent flyer miles!

It is unfortunate that this is the situation. It tends to inhibit the ability of obtaining an Australian "brand" in this space. The big three, CSL, Cochlear and ResMed are always referred to but this does not make an industry. There is no continuity and it consequently makes a hard sell of Australian biotech/medtech. Difficult situation.

Australia needs to develop its personality as a player in the global health care world.

More to follow on this in future blogs.

Back on line

It has been a turbulent few years for me. Moved from the pharmaceutical industry to the molecular diagnostics industry to the diagnostics industry and the Health IT industry. It taught me a lot. By "living" in these health care sectors, it made me realize and understand even more why the health care sector is broken. The business models for all these industries are out of synch with the payers, providers and patients. It is a product push approach working in a service industry! I left the US for personal reasons and moved back to Australia after 35 years. Australia is so much easier than the US and is financially in a better place. It is not as I remembered. There is more tension in the major cities but certainly far less than the US. The health system here is supposedly better as you hear that it is free. It is free if you are out of work! But for those employed it is a percentage of your income and then there are costs for services and products above this. Still trying to learn the system.

But I do consider Australia to be "the greatest clinical trial in the world"!

More on this, just wanted to get back on line.