GTM strategy for a Cambrigde-based medical startup developing novel Parkinson's diagnostics.

The brief: how should it be priced, and who actually buys it? Answered through lots of interviews with clinicians, academics, patients, pharma and investors across the UK, US and China, supplemented by desk research.

The value driver wasn't the obvious one

We assumed the pitch was "diagnose it earlier." Clinicians kept pointing somewhere else: telling apart conditions that look identical in the clinic but behave very differently over the following years. Earlier is nice; which one is it changes what happens next.

Price is set by the buyer, not the product

The same test lands in three different worlds: one where you must prove system-wide savings, one where an insurer covers most of it in a crowded market, one where the number has to be far lower and entry runs through local partners. The spread between markets barely tracked what the test costs to run.

Evidence is the product

Good tech with no clinical or commercial "so what" attached is an expensive hobby. Building the thing turned out to be the shorter half of the job; proving it earns its place is the longer one.