Most life sciences innovations are highly regulated, often taking a decade or even decades to come to market. That makes the Fear & Greed of different audiences highly sensitive to the type of innovation. It also should make you highly sensitive to selecting the right audience.

The table layout highlights:

• First bullet in each row: How I think in general about reducing Fear for a given question and audience
• Second bullet: How I think about increasing Greed
• Bolded text: How I tweak the F&G for different audiences

Licensable Technologies

For innovators who want to commercialize a therapeutic molecule, the multi-billion dollar price tag for go through the entire drug development pipeline including clinical trials is often unrealistic. Instead, the focus is on having a multinational pharmaceutical company obtain a license for your molecule once efficacy has been established.

Coming soon:

Diagnostics

Diagnostics are a two-edged sword: point-of-care and low-cost solutions can attract attention, but well-publicized failures (e.g., but not only, Theranos) make many investors very cautious about investing in them.

Medical Devices

Medical device innovations are challenging to commercialize because they often face similar risks due to regulatory barriers as drug molecules, but they rarely have as much potential upside.

HealthIT

The entire health industry is slowly and painfully going trying to catch up to modern technology. The opportunities are enormous BUT the industry is conservative. No one wants to spend money changing the way practitioners manage their patients, especially given the privacy issues and the risks to the patients of any errors in their records.

Neutraceuticals

The barriers faced by nutraceuticals depend on just how great the claims are. If you promise health benefits, you must go through FDA procedures (or whatever regulatory agencies are present in your country). That is a long, slow and expensive process, so many choose to avoid specific claims initially to try to get revenue in the short terms while pursuing regulatory approval in parallel.

Cannabis & CBD Oil

Cannabis remains a hot and growing industry, albeit with more legal and regulatory issues in many states and countries than almost any other type of therapeutic. It's also a crowded and noisy industry with a reputation that varies with your target audience. Differentiating your approach and reducing the varied risks from your audience's perspective should be top of mind when answering the 10 Questions.