About the Founder
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" Winston Churchill.
Dave Shanahan's career to date spans three decades in multinational and domestic pharma, in healthcare delivery and government agencies. He supports government innovation policy development in Life Sciences and is a proponent of Irish innovation in medtech and pharmaceuticals.
Life sciences product commercialisation is one of the slowest and most challenging business models due to the regulatory and capital requirements presented.
Dave's motto is "Biology bites" - therefore, in investing, one must understand the uncertainties, capital requirements and timelines involved. Any technologies addressing aspects of human biology are inherently uncertain - the greater the novelty, the greater the risk. Changing clinical practice and product adoption is also extremely slow and labour and expertise intensive. For that reason, biological based investments must be targetted at very large addressable markets - preferably in the billions of value per annum.
For Digital Health products, the large will eat the small, but the swift may eat the slow. In digital innovations, product and service models when agile, innovative and bestowing great customer and user experience, can scale quickly and attract acquiror and investor interest. Digital has many niches where small players can win.
Successful Healthcare Products or Service, usually need to displace incumbents. This means proving superiority and addressing cost impact appropriately. Also, as more and more government procurement and purchasing defines the market, success in reimbursement, market access and pricing are critical success factors for investment returns.
For all of these reasons, healthcare investing should only be undertaken by experienced and patient investors, those who can tolerate risk, persevere through ambiguity and sustain their interests and participation over a medium and long term horizon.
The financial returns for success can be very lucrative. The emotional rewards of truly making a difference in the lives of other people, is inspiring.
Contact dave@adagiov.com