Specialist
Former Product Manager (Eng), Cloud Healthcare at Google LLC
Agenda
- Babylon Health's growth potential vs competition – Google Health (DeepMind Health) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), Ada Health, Amwell and Teladoc (NYSE: TDOC)
- US expansion and growth headwinds
- Access to patients through signed deals and global partnerships
- Regulatory headwinds and outlook in key markets
Questions
1.
Could you break down the competitive landscape for us and highlight who you think is operating as nearest competitor to Babylon as its positioned today?
2.
You mentioned quite early on that you do not consider Google a direct competitor to Babylon. Thinking about DeepMind or DeepMind Health, my understanding is that the platform is too niche to compete with Babylon. Taking into consideration the resources that Google has and its various investments in different AI projects, do you consider Google’s presence in this market a longer-term threat to Babylon?
3.
You mentioned the recent announcement around Google’s investment in Amwell. How do you think that news story impacts the competitive landscape?
4.
How might Livongo’s future growth prospects compare to Babylon’s?
5.
Babylon is trying to automate as much as possible and even on the end of the clinician, it is automating some of the time-consuming, non-clinical admin elements of appointments such as note-taking, historical assessments and the interview process. It claims it can reduce appointment times by 60% and there’s a potential cost saving of about 80% which is about 50-60% cheaper than others. Do you think barriers that will prevent rapid uptake of Babylon’s platform still exist, irrespective of the geography it operates in?
6.
Babylon, with the AI being the key component, perhaps sets it apart with some of the other players in the virtual healthcare market. The AI and it’s platform is used to support general practitioners in their virtual appointments but also as a standalone AI chatbot, which Babylon says can address roughly 40% of all user needs. As you said, there are certain conditions in which this doesn’t work out and there have been cases where clinicians have said there is fault with the AI chatbot. Can you give a brief overview of the actual underlying technology and some of the advances, and how Babylon is able to drive that 40% higher and higher YoY?
7.
The company has been speaking about some of its developments in causal machine learning where it is getting the AI chatbot to act like it has an imagination, which is meant to allow the chatbot to consider the symptoms that a patient has and apply different illnesses to it and then make considerations out of that. How important is this shift in machine learning? Is it a meaningful opportunity or innovation?
8.
Do you think Babylon has a commercial benefit or advantage vs competitors in its AI chatbot or driving people to use its platform?
9.
How do you expect Babylon’s US expansion to pan out, thinking about the foundation of Babylon and how the British National Health Service supported its development essentially by granting it access to anonymised clinical records? In total, including other health record databases and the NHS, I think it had access to about 2-3 million records early on. This was one of the main barriers to entry for healthcare software developers. How do you think the approach will vary in the US?
10.
If Babylon are able to gain access to a large dataset early on, the platform could benefit from an upward spiral, as more reports improves accuracy of diagnostics which will then further enhance its market position. Then in turn you gain more medical records which continues the cycle. Is that oversimplifying the complexity of how you scale a business such as Babylon?
11.
You mentioned one of the attractive reasons or one of the things about the US market that makes it a bit different to somewhere like the UK is there is such a large presence of big insurance players. You mentioned that Teladoc is the favoured approach when it is offering telehealth services. These insurance players already have its established customer base, but for a player such as Babylon they provide a really attractive scaling opportunity. How do you think Babylon begins to build and maintain these relationships with insurers, is it just about clinical data?
12.
You said Babylon’s main advantage, or the main differentiation, is the AI and even from the payer perspective it’s the ability to automate more, driving costs down. In Babylon’s platform specifically, where do you think its greatest potential for further innovation exists?
13.
Do you think any of the recent news surrounding some of the data issues that it has been having will in any way act as a headwind to Babylon when it considers scaling the business?
14.
re there any pending regulation changes or adjustments in payment models that you think might prove impactful to both Babylon and the broader telehealth industry?
15.
We mentioned some of the natural tailwinds but coronavirus has been a tailwind for a lot of these players, driving people to online platforms and increased use of telehealth, and people more willing to offer and use these services. Do you think that level of increased penetration is nowhere to stay or do you expect some level of reversion post-coronavirus?
16.
One of the key challenges for a lot of these players, in Europe at least, is brand recognition, such as getting people to download their app, use their content, access things through the website and people understanding who Babylon Health are. How do you think these companies can build that brand equity among patients in the short term?
17.
Are there any other players in the market that you think are worth mentioning that we have not discussed so far? I think you mentioned Kry, which is a Swedish-based company that was bought up earlier this year. What do you think about its platform and how it might compare to Babylon in the long term?
18.
What do you think are the key indicators that we should monitor over the next 1-2 years?
