When it comes to women's health, few have as much experience or passion as Allison London Brown. After obtaining her Master of Science degree in Polymer Chemistry from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Temple University, she entered the corporate healthcare sector with industry giants like Johnson & Johnson and GE Healthcare.
Working for these companies, she was able to hone her skills in research and development, marketing, sales, and product development, launching over 90 products and services throughout her career. But the allure of entrepreneurship soon beckoned, and Allison found herself drawn towards more innovative and nimble environments. Following her tenure at several startups, she co-founded Luminelle seven years ago.
Luminelle provides low-cost, easy-to-use endoscopy systems focused on uterine and urological health. Their flagship product, the Luminelle DTx Hysteroscopy System, is an innovative, user-friendly, and in-office solution. It simplifies 70% to 80% of the procedures that would traditionally have to be performed in a hospital setting, including visualization and diagnosis of conditions of the uterus, cervix, vagina, and bladder.
By enabling office-based procedures like hysteroscopy and cystoscopy, Luminelle’s system significantly reduces costs to healthcare providers and patients. It also decreases procedure times, increases patient comfort and recovery, and promotes early and accurate diagnosis of female health conditions.
Luminelle has 510(k) clearances on four devices, owns four patents, and is in a strong position to continue its commercial development.
Key Learnings From Allison’s Experience
- Lean into your strengths and weaknesses as a medtech entrepreneur. It's not about being an expert in all areas but about recognizing your own gaps in knowledge and having the guts to seek out partners or team members who can fill those.
- There’s no ‘one size fits all’ strategy for gaining regulatory clearances or approvals. Look for consultants that are experienced and accomplished in your domain, but don’t expect them to be superheroes.
- Medtech breakthroughs require funding, but it's no secret that fundraising is challenging, especially in the current economic climate. That's why you need to unleash your creative genius and come up with unique, attention-grabbing ways to captivate prospective investors.
With over 25 years of experience in the healthcare space, Allison London Brown has been involved in nearly every aspect of product development for women's health. From Fortune 50 companies like Johnson & Johnson and GE Healthcare to founding startups, she's seen it all. Now, as the CEO and co-founder of Luminelle, she's channeling her decades of knowledge into a revolutionary new device aiming to transform gynecological procedures.
Lean Into Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Being a CEO often makes you feel like you need to have a thorough understanding of every facet of your business. But let’s face it, no one can be an expert in every single area, especially in the highly-regulated and complex world of medical devices. One crucial lesson Allison shares is the idea of leaning into your strengths and weaknesses, especially when your background is in a specific area, such as engineering or marketing. She shares: "I myself do have a scientific background, but I am not an engineer, so I was fortunate to find a partner who came on later to really help design something elegant and simple."
Allison also draws attention to the value of assembling a diverse and balanced team. The essence of a successful venture, she claims, doesn't lie in individual brilliance but in collective effort.
Her own strength was in her market knowledge and the relationships she had built within the women’s health community. She leveraged these to connect the dots between different phases of her company. It takes more than a good idea, as she shares: "You need to have a commercial market, intelligence, pricing, marketing, R&D, and clinical. Everything has to be married at the very beginning."
Allison’s overarching advice here is that the reciprocity between different disciplines and the successful combination of various expertise is the magic formula when it comes to success in medtech. This doesn't only pertain to hard skills or technical knowledge but also to understanding the end customer’s needs and how to cost-effectively manufacture your product. "I think the ability to quickly tap into resources, find consultants, and bootstrap ways to get to the end result is really critical for entrepreneurs," she explains.
Domain Expertise Can Be a Double-Edged Sword
In most cases, experience is the best teacher. But there’s a dichotomy to that. As Allison underscores, domain expertise can be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to overcoming regulatory hurdles. She underlines the potential pitfall of a 'one size fits all' approach: "If you get a regulatory consultant who's already knowledgeable, they may know the people at the FDA, they may have seen things, been there, done that. But then they may apply the same rule to you that they applied to somebody else, and that might not be the right way to go."
Conversely, she also raises the risk of engaging with an inexperienced regulatory consultant in your specific area: "At the same time, if you've got somebody with no domain expertise, are they going to charge you to learn that?"
The optimal solution, as Allison herself discovered, is partnering with a firm that exhibits a broad understanding of medtech and applies a strategic approach to problem-solving versus a ‘plug and play’ approach.
Overall, Allison highlights that the decision to hire a regulatory partner should be a calculated one that balances domain expertise, adaptability, strategic thinking, and the ability to align with your company's specific needs and goals. The 'one size fits all' approach often falls short, while a nuanced, tailored strategy is exactly what you should be looking for.
Find Creative Ways to Raise Awareness
There are inherent challenges in raising capital, especially in a risk-averse economic environment where everybody is forced to play it safe. As an entrepreneur, Allison points out that you need to get creative in garnering the attention of both your target customers and potential investors.
Allison asserts that there are ways to shorten sales cycles, regardless of the business model. Her experience in various sectors, such as consumer goods, BTC, and BTB healthcare, has shaped her unique approach to generating demand. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, made it harder to get into offices and meet people, but Allison and her team figured out clever ways to promote their products, and it ended up being a catalyst for growth.
She shares: "Marketing today is not what it used to be. It is highly data-driven. It is very much about demand and revenue generation, not tchotchkes and cute little ads anymore." In Luminelle’s case, they’ve experimented with all channels, specifically digital demos, virtual meetings, and social media, to get the attention of their potential end users. They aimed to take some of the pressure off their sales team, which enabled their reps to focus more on selling. "We are spending more of our time right now talking about the top of the funnel," Allison shares. She emphasized that once your audience is aware of the product you’re building, you can help them to better understand how it can improve their workflow.
Still, Allison's experience showed her that traditional methods are not to be dismissed entirely. "Print is not dead," she declares. Old-school tactics like sending postcards and print material to offices can still elicit responses. To get their attention, she recommends offering them something valuable, such as medical education or interesting and compelling data.
On the subject of capital fundraising, while acknowledging that the environment is brutal, Allison shares her simple strategy — use your network. "I sent emails, did videos, and sent messages out to like 400 people," she says, underscoring the importance of outreach and perseverance, and concludes: "If you are an entrepreneur and you are scared to ask somebody to write you a check, find another job."
In a difficult economic environment, medical device and health technology entrepreneurs need to be proactive and creative, not just in capturing the attention of potential investors but also catering to their target audience's needs and interests. Old methods can be complemented by new ones, and consistent outreach and networking remain central to securing capital.
When it comes to women's health, few have as much experience or passion as Allison London Brown. After obtaining her Master of Science degree in Polymer Chemistry from North Carolina State University and an MBA from Temple University, she entered the corporate healthcare sector with industry giants like Johnson & Johnson and GE Healthcare.
Working for these companies, she was able to hone her skills in research and development, marketing, sales, and product development, launching over 90 products and services throughout her career. But the allure of entrepreneurship soon beckoned, and Allison found herself drawn towards more innovative and nimble environments. Following her tenure at several startups, she co-founded Luminelle seven years ago.
Luminelle provides low-cost, easy-to-use endoscopy systems focused on uterine and urological health. Their flagship product, the Luminelle DTx Hysteroscopy System, is an innovative, user-friendly, and in-office solution. It simplifies 70% to 80% of the procedures that would traditionally have to be performed in a hospital setting, including visualization and diagnosis of conditions of the uterus, cervix, vagina, and bladder.
By enabling office-based procedures like hysteroscopy and cystoscopy, Luminelle’s system significantly reduces costs to healthcare providers and patients. It also decreases procedure times, increases patient comfort and recovery, and promotes early and accurate diagnosis of female health conditions.
Luminelle has 510(k) clearances on four devices, owns four patents, and is in a strong position to continue its commercial development.
Key Learnings From Allison’s Experience
- Lean into your strengths and weaknesses as a medtech entrepreneur. It's not about being an expert in all areas but about recognizing your own gaps in knowledge and having the guts to seek out partners or team members who can fill those.
- There’s no ‘one size fits all’ strategy for gaining regulatory clearances or approvals. Look for consultants that are experienced and accomplished in your domain, but don’t expect them to be superheroes.
- Medtech breakthroughs require funding, but it's no secret that fundraising is challenging, especially in the current economic climate. That's why you need to unleash your creative genius and come up with unique, attention-grabbing ways to captivate prospective investors.
With over 25 years of experience in the healthcare space, Allison London Brown has been involved in nearly every aspect of product development for women's health. From Fortune 50 companies like Johnson & Johnson and GE Healthcare to founding startups, she's seen it all. Now, as the CEO and co-founder of Luminelle, she's channeling her decades of knowledge into a revolutionary new device aiming to transform gynecological procedures.
Lean Into Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Being a CEO often makes you feel like you need to have a thorough understanding of every facet of your business. But let’s face it, no one can be an expert in every single area, especially in the highly-regulated and complex world of medical devices. One crucial lesson Allison shares is the idea of leaning into your strengths and weaknesses, especially when your background is in a specific area, such as engineering or marketing. She shares: "I myself do have a scientific background, but I am not an engineer, so I was fortunate to find a partner who came on later to really help design something elegant and simple."
Allison also draws attention to the value of assembling a diverse and balanced team. The essence of a successful venture, she claims, doesn't lie in individual brilliance but in collective effort.
Her own strength was in her market knowledge and the relationships she had built within the women’s health community. She leveraged these to connect the dots between different phases of her company. It takes more than a good idea, as she shares: "You need to have a commercial market, intelligence, pricing, marketing, R&D, and clinical. Everything has to be married at the very beginning."
Allison’s overarching advice here is that the reciprocity between different disciplines and the successful combination of various expertise is the magic formula when it comes to success in medtech. This doesn't only pertain to hard skills or technical knowledge but also to understanding the end customer’s needs and how to cost-effectively manufacture your product. "I think the ability to quickly tap into resources, find consultants, and bootstrap ways to get to the end result is really critical for entrepreneurs," she explains.
Domain Expertise Can Be a Double-Edged Sword
In most cases, experience is the best teacher. But there’s a dichotomy to that. As Allison underscores, domain expertise can be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to overcoming regulatory hurdles. She underlines the potential pitfall of a 'one size fits all' approach: "If you get a regulatory consultant who's already knowledgeable, they may know the people at the FDA, they may have seen things, been there, done that. But then they may apply the same rule to you that they applied to somebody else, and that might not be the right way to go."
Conversely, she also raises the risk of engaging with an inexperienced regulatory consultant in your specific area: "At the same time, if you've got somebody with no domain expertise, are they going to charge you to learn that?"
The optimal solution, as Allison herself discovered, is partnering with a firm that exhibits a broad understanding of medtech and applies a strategic approach to problem-solving versus a ‘plug and play’ approach.
Overall, Allison highlights that the decision to hire a regulatory partner should be a calculated one that balances domain expertise, adaptability, strategic thinking, and the ability to align with your company's specific needs and goals. The 'one size fits all' approach often falls short, while a nuanced, tailored strategy is exactly what you should be looking for.
Find Creative Ways to Raise Awareness
There are inherent challenges in raising capital, especially in a risk-averse economic environment where everybody is forced to play it safe. As an entrepreneur, Allison points out that you need to get creative in garnering the attention of both your target customers and potential investors.
Allison asserts that there are ways to shorten sales cycles, regardless of the business model. Her experience in various sectors, such as consumer goods, BTC, and BTB healthcare, has shaped her unique approach to generating demand. The COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, made it harder to get into offices and meet people, but Allison and her team figured out clever ways to promote their products, and it ended up being a catalyst for growth.
She shares: "Marketing today is not what it used to be. It is highly data-driven. It is very much about demand and revenue generation, not tchotchkes and cute little ads anymore." In Luminelle’s case, they’ve experimented with all channels, specifically digital demos, virtual meetings, and social media, to get the attention of their potential end users. They aimed to take some of the pressure off their sales team, which enabled their reps to focus more on selling. "We are spending more of our time right now talking about the top of the funnel," Allison shares. She emphasized that once your audience is aware of the product you’re building, you can help them to better understand how it can improve their workflow.
Still, Allison's experience showed her that traditional methods are not to be dismissed entirely. "Print is not dead," she declares. Old-school tactics like sending postcards and print material to offices can still elicit responses. To get their attention, she recommends offering them something valuable, such as medical education or interesting and compelling data.
On the subject of capital fundraising, while acknowledging that the environment is brutal, Allison shares her simple strategy — use your network. "I sent emails, did videos, and sent messages out to like 400 people," she says, underscoring the importance of outreach and perseverance, and concludes: "If you are an entrepreneur and you are scared to ask somebody to write you a check, find another job."
In a difficult economic environment, medical device and health technology entrepreneurs need to be proactive and creative, not just in capturing the attention of potential investors but also catering to their target audience's needs and interests. Old methods can be complemented by new ones, and consistent outreach and networking remain central to securing capital.
