<https://ru.coursera.org/lecture/idea-2-impact/academic-case-morgan-competition-jx2l4#lecture>
<http://schema.org/transcript>
"The current methods for treating glaucoma, there's two options. There's pharmaceutical and surgical. Those are really your only two options. Without either of those, the pressure in your eye will increase, you will sustain damage to your optic nerve. And you'll lose your vision and you'll never get it back. So pharmaceutically there are a bunch of different types of eye drops. They're almost all given as topical eye drops. In some instances you may see some injections or things like that. But far and away pharmaceuticals are going to be given as topical eye drops, because they're easy, familiar, all of that, non-invasive. And there's lots of different drugs that are offered. And it would take me too long to go into all the reasons why a patient might be prescribed one versus another. But it is something to consider and it's something that we learned we had to be aware of. Because when you're trying to sell a technology, you have to understand what, you can't say, well, we can put any drug in it. You have to say this is the drug we're using because it is formulation specific, and so that was important to understand. Surgically speaking, there's filtration devices that can be put in place to allow for a reduction in pressure basically by mechanics. And that can be offered in some patients, usually not all patients, but I would say that those are indirect competitors. So you have your direct competition, which is the clinical standard. But indirectly there are lots of minimally invasive glaucoma surgery options that are becoming available and in development. If one of those is minimally invasive enough and it offers enough benefit, it could actually start to take over some of that pharmaceutical market. It's hard to say. And then also if you look at some of the basic science research into cures. If there's a cure for glaucoma it kind of makes our product irrelevant. So I mean that would be amazing, but indirectly speaking, that is competition for us. If our technology doesn't get to the market, I do think that there will be other options for the stakeholder. So patients will eventually, I really do believe have a variety of options available to them ranging in dosing frequency and invasiveness. I think that there are lots of things that are kind of coming down the pipeline that some day will be available. I do think that there's such a need and such a demand for it, that there has to be an alternative to topical eye drops. And if it's not us, it will be one of our competitors. Understanding the competition is incredibly important, and it was something, I think that there's at least for me I was hesitant at first to fully wrap my head around who the competitors are. In an academic research, you see your competitors as the Smith lab or the Jones lab. You know the research they're doing, that's not competition. When you get to the point that you're trying to commercialize something, your competition, it's the other startups. It's the other early stage technologies and it doesn't take a lot of time to really understand who those key players are. And it's really important to know them and to be familiar with the path that they're taking, because, first of all, you can learn a lot from them. If they're making mistakes, you can learn not to repeat those mistakes. But you can also see who's acquiring them, what is their regulatory path, what clinical trials are they doing? And so having competition is not a bad thing. Without any competition there would be no innovation. So I think that it's a good thing, but you really need to take the time to understand it. And our direct competitors, it's a bunch of technologies that have originated in academic research labs. Some of the bigger ones are, they've all been, the biggest competitors have been acquired recently, like within a year or two, by large pharmaceutical companies. So there is a ring device, not device, but it's a drug, but I say device because it's a plastic ring. It is loaded with glaucoma drug, and it's put around the eyes, so like this, it's called helios. And that releases drug over time. So it is topical, but it has to be put in place by a clinician. And importantly there, when it's in place, you can see a tiny little bit of it in the corner of your eye. And that's important because patients don't like that. They don't like for anyone to know that they have something in their eye treating them. It's this bright white little line here, and they don't really like that. So anyway, which brings up another point. Not to digress too much, but you have to be willing to look at your competitors critically. And know where you're different, and where you stand to be a little better. But you also have to be willing to say, I'm biased, and I'm always going to think that our stuff is better. And you have to just look at a technology sometimes and say, man, I wish I'd thought of that. And there are some like that, where it's just they're great ideas. And so the helios is one of them. There are some implantable mini pumps, some injectable systems that are fully degradable. There's a whole spectrum of options. And where we fit in, where we are unique is that it's non-invasive, it's fully topical, and that it is patient administered. The ability for patients to self-administer this is one of the most unique things about our technology, so that's what sets us apart. And as I mentioned, the indirect competitors, they still exist. I just don't bump into them as much in the circles that you would run in for glaucoma drug delivery. It's the people working on cures. It's the people working on surgical options. But those are still things to be aware of, especially if you're pitching to investors. And they say, well, why would we pay a bunch of money for this when X Y and Z is being developed elsewhere? So it's always good to know that, because investors are going to invest in you and your idea, not just your ideas. So you have to be aware of those things. We didn't necessarily know that we would, because our idea didn't start as what we have now. So we weren't fully appreciating how saturated that market was in terms of the pipeline products. So there was a bit of ignorance there, but I think that that's kind of important. Because if you look at something, if you look at a field where there's a big need and you see all of these people working on it. It can be very easy to say I'm not even going to try, way too many people are doing this, I couldn't possibly. But you have to step back and ask yourself, well, if someone was already solving this problem, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. And the fact that it remains a problem, the fact that there remains all this interest, means that no one has addressed it appropriately. And so I think it takes a bit of ignorance like I said, maybe a bit wilful ignorance. But also the confidence to know that you can develop something and that you can design it such that it can actually be commercialized. So that translational mindedness is very important if you want to carve that space out. So it's a very competitive field. I've been shocked at times when I go to conferences. And since I've started this process, the conferences I go to are, there's purely academic ones. And then there's these other ones that are a whole different, completely different area where you're pitching and it's an audience filled with investors and your competition. And they'll put you on a panel, it's you next to your five biggest competitors and it's terrifying. And what I've noticed is that there's a lot of people who are willing to tell you everything that's wrong with your technology. So what I've tried to do is always look with an objective eye at what other people are doing. And see if there's anything that I can adopt into our own project, our own technology. But I think that if ours is adopted, I think there's going to be a lot of incredulous competitors out there. Because right now what I hear is all the reasons why ours is not as good. All the reasons why it's going to fail. And it's easy to think that way, but If one of our competitors gets to the market first, I hope that I'm smart enough to say, well, I kind of saw that coming. You have to be willing to look at it objectively, or else who are you kidding? It's never going to work out well for you if you do that."
<https://ru.coursera.org/lecture/idea-2-impact/academic-case-morgan-competition-jx2l4>