From MIT to MDaaS - Meet the couple who are working to solve Nigeria medical diagnostics crisis
From MIT to MDaaS: Meet the couple who are working to solve Nigeria's medical diagnostics crisis
Oluwasoga Oni made a decision in 2015, and it was a big one. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was enrolled in a Systems Engineering and Management master's degree program that challenged him and his classmates to create a business that could have an impact on a billion lives. He graduated with honors.
Having come from a medical background, he took advantage of the opportunity to develop an innovative solution to a problem he had firsthand experience with: a lack of access to high-quality medical equipment in Nigerian medical facilities. Founded in January 2016, MDaaS Global was created with the goal of resolving a problem that thousands of health establishments in Nigeria were experiencing.
As Oluwasoga explained to TechCabal, "the business idea had been percolating for a while because I grew up in the health-care industry." “My father is a medical doctor who has been in charge of a hospital in a small town in Nigeria for more than 35 years, and I have witnessed firsthand the difficulties he has had in obtaining medical supplies. Consequently, the challenge of obtaining high-quality medical equipment is one that I am familiar with.”
As a result of his personal experience and extensive research across Nigeria, Oluwasoga identified a massive social and business opportunity to improve the care of patients from lower and middle-income families.
Opeyemi Ologun, Joe McCord, and Genevieve Barnard Oni were among the co-founders of MDaaS, which was founded by a multidisciplinary group of individuals. In that MIT class, he met McCord and Genevieve for the first time.
Olumide Oluwasoga, a Systems Engineer who began his career in Software Engineering before transitioning to Systems Engineering, says that the experiences of the founding team helped them prepare to build their startup from the ground-up. When it was really just the four of us in the beginning, our diverse backgrounds, experiences, and strengths proved to be extremely beneficial.
In his previous life, Ologun worked as an engineer in Nigeria, where he gained extensive operational and sales experience. While Joe does not have a Master's degree in Supply Chain Management, he does have extensive experience managing supply chains in 11 African countries such as Nigeria.
Geneticist Genevieve has a Master's degree in Business and Public Administration and a background in public health and international development, as well as previous work experience in the countries of Uganda, Malawi, and Ghana.
The majority of her work was done in public health facilities in rural areas. However, she, like Oluwasoga, witnessed the difficulties doctors faced when operating with limited resources in the context of other inefficiencies in the medical equipment industry.
When Genevieve first met Soga, they spent their first date talking about medical equipment in rural and peri-urban areas, according to a 2019 interview with the author.
At the time, she was employed as a teaching assistant in the Global Healthcare Entrepreneurship program at Babson. A number of social organizations that are transforming Africa's healthcare industry were introduced to her as part of the program.
When Genevieve and Oluwasoga went on their second date, she was treated to a demo of an early version of MDaaS Global. She eventually became a member of the team.
Running a multimillion-dollar startup as a couple
Oluwasoga and Genevieve Barnard Oni have been married for more than three years and are also co-founders of MDaaS Global, which they founded. Some couples would find the concept intolerable because they desire a clear separation between work and home life, while others would find it appealing because they dream of working alongside their life partners.
Finding a balance between work and family life is critical for Oluwasoga and Genevieve's well-being. “As any founder will know, it can be extremely difficult to refrain from working on your company around the clock, and being married to your co-founder can make this even more difficult,” he said.
So, how do they achieve this delicate balance? Last year, during one of the Covid-19 lockdowns, Oluwasoga and his wife began verbally informing each other when the office was "closed for the day," he explained.
Despite the fact that our closing times do not have to be the same every day, and the office may even remain open on some days, he believes that it helps to establish some boundaries between work and home.
The Onis have also begun a number of new non-work activities together, such as brewing beer, running, and taking French classes, among others.
In addition to being extremely entertaining, these new activities encourage us to be more intentional about spending quality time together outside of the workplace.
The MDaaS evolution
Following the formation of his startup from his MIT class, Oluwasoga was able to secure some funding from an angel investor and return to Nigeria to work on his healthcare idea full-time after graduating.
MDaaS is an abbreviation for "Medical Devices as a Service," which refers to the company's first iteration as a medical device service provider.
As a start-up in its early stages, the company focused on direct sales (as well as service support) of secondary medical equipment from the United States to Nigerian hospitals. The majority of their clients, on the other hand, had difficulty affording the tools. Following the failure of the leasing program, MDaaS attempted a third time with a purchase program.
Our initial focus was on providing small and medium-sized hospitals with refurbished medical equipment for purchase, lease, or repair. “However, we discovered that the majority of our target hospitals lacked the economies of scale necessary to justify these capital expenditures, even at our reduced prices,” Oluwasoga explained.
MDaaS then decided to implement its current asset-sharing model, which is currently in beta. In order to avoid the high cost of equipping individual health facilities, MDaas installs and operates modern, technologically advanced diagnostic centers that aggregate demand from small and medium-sized healthcare facilities in underserved areas.
Using its centers, MDaaS provides imaging, cardiac, and laboratory services to identify life-threatening diseases, particularly non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and to treat them at an earlier stage than otherwise possible. This organization's services assist in addressing the lack of access to diagnostics and preventive care for Nigerians, which is one of the significant issues that have long plagued the country's underfunded healthcare system.
According to Oluwasoga, operating on a high volume, low-cost model allows MDaaS to provide excellent clinical quality at prices that patients can afford while still remaining profitable. One of the most common procedures performed by the startup is an obstetric ultrasound, which can be performed for as little as 1,200 (around $3), compared to the usual charges of $20,000 ($12) to $50,000 (around $3) at traditional clinics and hospitals.
However, even though MDaaS services are offered at a low cost, some patients in low-income communities are still unable to pay, according to Oluwasoga.
Growth across board
MDaaS opened its first diagnostic center in Ibadan in 2017, and since then, it has expanded to six more locations across the country, including Lagos and Ogun State.
MDAAS secured a $2.3 million seed round extension in June to expand their physical presence in Lagos, Oyo, Kwara, Edo, Kogi, and Kaduna states, as well as other parts of Nigeria. They intend to increase the number of virtual and home-based care options available in order to make their services more accessible.
The startup has experienced rapid growth across a wide range of metrics and metrics. Examples include the fact that it has performed over 80,000 diagnostic tests, grown from a four-person founding team to a team of more than 70, partnered with over 500 health facilities and ten HMO networks, and expanded its referral network to include more than 750 clinicians.
Oluwasoga's dream is to create the largest network of physical and virtual diagnostic and primary care facilities in Africa. He is working toward this goal. “We are currently working to achieve this significant goal through our network of technology-enabled diagnostic centers, BeaconHealth Diagnostics, as well as our new virtual-first preventive care product, SentinelX.” he says.
MDaaS received a one-million-dollar seed round of funding in 2019. They have now raised a total of $3.7 million, which includes other funding they have received over the last five years.
