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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

1.5K+

CEOs/Founders

in our health tech network

400+

friends of the health tech network

(investors, incubators/accelerators and corporates)

200+

projects completed

over five years

9.4K+

early-stage health tech companies

in our database

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 Partner, Southern 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
Partner, Berlin
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.
Gila Tolub
Partner, Tel Aviv
Focuses on healthcare and its role in improving society through innovation across the value chain of health organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers
Alexandra Zemp
Partner, Zurich
Focuses on supporting biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and healthcare organizations on accelerating performance across the entire value chain
Fangning Zhang
Partner, Shanghai
Serves leading pharmaceutical and medtech companies across Greater China and leads R&D and the biotech service line for the region
See More

Featured insights

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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Article

Digital health ecosystems: Voices of key healthcare leaders
– COVID-19 has made it more pressing than ever to integrate online and offline offerings and to establish integrated health ecosystems. We asked key healthcare leaders about their views to make this change happen.
Article

Telehealth: A quarter-trillion-dollar post-COVID-19 reality?
– Strong continued uptake, favorable consumer perception, and tangible investment into this space are all contributing to the continued growth of telehealth in 2021. New analysis indicates telehealth use has increased 38X from the pre-COVID-19 baseline.

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