How We Help Clients

Digital Health and Health tech

Making healthcare more effective, efficient, equitable and sustainable

Healthcare innovation is happening at a rapid pace. While there’s immense demand for digital health solutions, there is a need to scale the positive impact digital health solutions can have. Health technology continues to push the boundaries of how healthcare is delivered and has the power to create breakthroughs in understanding diseases.

McKinsey helps health tech businesses across the entire value chain, from start-ups in the initial stages of fundraising to established companies expanding into global markets. We also drive transformations by bringing together the capabilities needed to help organizations grow and thrive in the digital age.

What we do

Developing corporate strategy & equity stories and helping prepare financing rounds and IPOs
Help health tech companies develop their corporate strategy and craft compelling equity stories to prepare for financing rounds and IPO

Business-building and scaling support
Our proven Leap by McKinsey methodology and global digital health hub help health tech companies rapidly and successfully build and scale business. The hub includes 15 digital assets, a team of 20 digital health specialists, and ten external partners and vendors who have been involved in building digital health businesses around the world

Investing our people to build the next generation of healthcare innovators
Align with clients to ensure there are shared objectives and KPIs. We invest our human capital—our capabilities, databases, people, and tools—to help health tech companies scale and achieve high ambitions and share the financial risks and upsides with health tech companies from the start

Portfolio strategy and asset optimization
Maximize R&D platform and portfolio value with unrivaled expertise in portfolio strategy, clinical development strategy, study design optimization, and clinical operations acceleration

Launch and go-to-market
Assess launch readiness and design differentiated go-to-market models, such as access, commercial, and medical, while we develop commercial organizations and build roadmaps with clear value propositions in market and competition

Operations
Build the manufacturing plant of the future and integrate digital and analytics to achieve world-class productivity and quality

Strategic partnerships
Support strategic partnerships by evaluating portfolio, value chain strength, geographic trends, and strategic fit to inform partnering options and craft value proposition stories

Future-proof organization
Develop the organization of the future by considering rapidly evolving and growing organizational changes in external competition and commercial environments

Examples of our work

Digital healthcare ecosystem build

We applied our proven Leap by McKinsey business-building methodology to help a leading healthcare provider in India develop an omnichannel patient ecosystem covering five core healthcare offerings: at-home diagnostics, condition management, health records, medicine delivery, and virtual consultations.

The platform brings distinctive and unique propositions like hyperlocal express-medicine delivery and leverages physical networks and assets. It has since become the fastest-growing omnichannel ecosystem in India with over ten million users registered within 15 months from launch.

International market expansion and launch

A small health tech start-up with a proprietary diagnostics platform, commercialized with a small academic customer group, was ready to launch its products to a broader market. We supported the organization by developing an international expansion strategy and creating a financing strategy to fund its expansion plans.

As a result, the company hit its growth targets through a successful international launch using our proprietary model to focus on high-potential markets. Using the newly developed strategy and a three-year implementation plan, the company was able to triple its valuation and raise significant new financing to support further expansion.

Co-designed robot for minimally invasive surgery

Distalmotion, a Swiss medical-device start-up created its own surgical robot to address challenges faced in todays robotics surgery. After several years of working on the concept, Distalmotion reached out to our McKinsey Design colleagues to help bring the concept to life in a way that would optimize the user experience. Read the full scale of our impact here.

Design of an intuitive experience to democratize mental health assessment and peer support

We teamed up with a start-up with the mission to improve the ecosystem of mental health care to improve the experience of the online service and peer support for patients. We conducted an experience audit and walkthroughs with users to suggest an improved design for mental health digital assessment and patient community. We also brought to life concepts to make the start-up’s digital therapeutics vision more tangible for investors.

Knowledge partnerships

McKinsey is a knowledge partner for key industry conferences, including BioCentury in China and BioEquity Europe. We convene experts across the world to share the latest thinking and research at hosted events, including our annual Early Stage Investor Conference, quarterly health tech CEO and founder sessions, and regular investor sessions.

We collaborate with BioCentury and the BayHelix Group as an insights partner for the annual BioCentury China Healthcare Summit, where we help produce a report on the latest developments in China’s hHealth tech, biotech, and medtech industries. We are also a knowledge partner with BioCentury on its bioequity event in Europe.

Featured experts

Olivier Leclerc
Senior PartnerSouthern California
Serves a large range of pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical-products clients, from multibillion-dollar corporations to pre-IPO start-ups, on strategic and operational improvement opportunities
Tobias Silberzahn
PartnerBerlin
Has dedicated his career to advancing health and wellbeing. Serves healthcare and life sciences organizations with a focus on healthcare innovation and health tech business-building.
Alexandra Zemp
PartnerZurich
Focuses on supporting biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and healthcare organizations on accelerating performance across the entire value chain

Featured insights

The Rise of Health Technology
Collection

The rise of health technology

Health technology continues to push the boundaries of how healthcare is delivered and has the power to create breakthroughs in our understanding of disease. This collection of articles and interviews explores the evolving role of health technology in the life-sciences sector and implications for key stakeholders. Contact us to learn more about our work in this field.
Close-up of a doctors hand looking at blood sample test tube in a machine
Article
Digital diagnostics: A path forward for IVD
-
In vitro diagnostics players are being tested as their offerings are increasingly commoditized. Digital diagnostics offers a path to growth.
Woman in white overcoat working on desktops
Article
Closing the data gaps in women’s health
-
Life sciences innovation and healthcare advancement depend on data. Today’s data fails to offer a complete picture of women’s health. What can be done?
""
Article
Accelerating growth in medtech: The next surge in portfolio moves
-
Large medtech companies are struggling with growth challenges and stagnant valuations. Could M&A and divestitures reset the trajectory?
phone
Article
Germany’s e-health transformation makes uneven progress
-
Our eHealth Monitor report shows solid uptakes of telemedicine and consumer health apps. But e-prescriptions, health data exchange, and patient use of electronic health records are lagging behind.
People working with technology
Article
Five ways that life science companies can build tech talent
-
For life science companies to meet their digital ambitions, they must strengthen their technology skills. In a challenging market, the industry is uniquely positioned to shine.
How the medtech industry can capture value from digital health
Article
How the medtech industry can capture value from digital health
-
Medtech companies could play a major role in the digital transformation of healthcare that is under way, but they will have to make some big changes to the way they operate—and fast.
Using digital tech to support employees’ mental health and resilience
Article
Using digital tech to support employees’ mental health and resilience
-
Poor mental health takes a heavy toll on individuals and businesses. New digital solutions can help employers provide personalized support and make well-being a strategic focus for their organization.
How could gene therapy change healthcare in the next ten years?
Video
How could gene therapy change healthcare in the next ten years?
-
Cell and gene therapies are at the forefront of innovation and transforming how we treat and potentially cure certain diseases. What will the next decade hold for these life-changing therapies?

Related practices

How We Help Clients
Education
Improving student outcomes, increasing access and affordability, and enabling new academic research that advances society
Healthcare
Improving the affordability, accessibility, quality, and experience of private and public healthcare
Life Sciences
Learn how our consultants work with innovators in life sciences to ask the right questions, provide insights, and deliver results.
McKinsey Digital
McKinsey Digital
We help our clients create change that matters—transformation, enabled by technology and sustained through capabilities.
Public & Social Sector
Public & Social Sector
Bettering the lives of citizens worldwide by helping solve the most pressing economic and social challenges

Connect with our Life Sciences Practice

Contact