Clarkston Consulting Manager Idoia Hidalgo Featured in S&P Global on Consumer Healthcare Trends

March 12, 2021 | Durham, NC

Manager at Clarkston Consulting, Idoia Hidalgo, featured by S&P Global. The article shares information on digital DTC companies transforming healthcare. An excerpt from the article is included below:

A growing reliance on telehealth and wearable tech during the pandemic has created opportunities for ambitious direct-to-consumer digital health companies looking to take market share from more established healthcare rivals.

Direct-to-consumer, or D2C, companies send products directly to consumers instead of through a middleman. According to data firm CB Insights, D2C companies are able to sell products at lower costs than their competitors by controlling the marketing and manufacturing of their products from beginning to end.

Consumer healthcare businesses have typically focused on over-the-counter medications, dental products and skincare, but over the past few years digital health startups have begun adopting the consumer model. The D2C capabilities of these new entrants can span telemedicine, health and fitness watches and, in some cases, even shipping generic medications directly to consumers.

COVID-19 creates consumer interest

Idoia Hidalgo, consumer healthcare industry lead at Clarkston Consulting, said in a consumer healthcare trends report that 2021 would see growing interest in people tracking their own health data and wellbeing, with the pandemic helping to bolster this trend.

According to Rock Health’s Digital Health Consumer Adoption Report 2020, 43% of consumers surveyed had a telemedicine visit in the past year, up 11% from 2019, while 54% said they had tracked at least one health metric.

“You see a lot of companies [where] there are more offerings and more ways to be able to take control of digital health in ways that weren’t possible in the past, whether it be in digital wearables or personalized products that companies are coming up with, or even the ability to do allergy tests at home,” Hidalgo said in an interview.

Start-ups have been particularly successful at taking away some of the business of traditional healthcare models because they are so consumer-centric, Hidalgo said. Many founders of D2C healthcare companies were responding to problems they had experienced themselves in accessing healthcare, and these entities are therefore often focused on creating an ongoing relationship with the consumer.

“They’re fast and agile; they test with the consumer, [and] they get that feedback.”

Read the full article here.