promoting one drug over another. So we had ads for a few months, and we took them down. They just weren’t working.
X: Do you collect any patient medical data, the way PatientsLikeMe does? And have you thought about letting your members integrate their accounts with online health record systems like Google Health or Microsoft Health Vault?
AL: We admire PatientsLikeMe, but the data they collect is very detailed, and it takes a long time to create communities like that. It’s not the model we’re based on. There are so many things we’d like to do, but our developers have limited bandwidth. You have to focus on features that have revenue possibilities. I know companies that are working with Google Health and Microsoft, and they do make it a lot easier now than it was a year ago. Maybe down the road that will make sense for us. But as a small company you’ve got to focus.
X: I imagine that from the clinical trial recruitment and revenue standpoint, it’s pretty important that Inspire gain more members as quickly as possible.
AL: The bigger the better. 80,000 is nothing to sneeze at, but we would love to be bigger. Some communities have 3,000 people and others only have 300. And our goal is to add more communities, for diabetes, oncology, et cetera. We’re only two people on the business development side, and we have a lot of work to do. But we’re having a great time.
X: “Health 2.0” has become a real buzzword over the last couple of years as people have tried to figure out ways to apply Web 2.0 communication technologies to healthcare. Do you consciously think of yourselves as part of that movement?
AL: I think we’re part of Health 2.0 without intending to be part of it, just because we fit the criteria. The way we see it, it’s really about the ability of the patient or the caregiver to take more control over their health, and making it easier to connect to institutions and to other patients.
Also, we’re a real business, not a fling. Brian and I and some of the other people in the company went through the dot-com boom and bust and got burned, so we are a little wiser and grayer, and we have to know that there’s a viable business model before we do anything.
When you read some of the things that people are writing about us, it sounds corny. But we are really helping people, and that was one of our missions, to make the world a little better. When you stop to see what you’re doing, it’s amazing. You see people with rare diseases who have never met anyone else with that condition having conversations. That makes it worthwhile. But again, if you don’t have a business model, it’s not going to help anybody.
