Sensyo Innovations

Connecting Life-Saving Ideas with the Resources to Make Them Real

Impact

What if the life-saving medical innovation that could help millions of people was sitting unused on a laboratory shelf? This reality—where 89% of potentially life-saving healthcare innovations never reach those who need them—inspired the creation of Sensyo by Sam Machour, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of the Bio Investments Group and now the Senior Vice-President, Chief Quality Officer, and Member of the Executive Committee at Samsung Biologics. By developing a digital marketplace that connects healthcare entrepreneurs and inventors with investors and service providers, my design team built a platform MVP to show how medical innovations move from concept to implementation. Through connecting key stakeholders in a unified ecosystem, Sensyo secured $5 million in investment funding and laid the groundwork for bringing an estimated three million life-saving ideas to market by 2030.

 

My Role

As Design Lead under Director Rob Thomas, I led a three-person team from concept to completion. My responsibilities included spearheading branding and design concept creation, conducting user research with healthcare innovators, investors, and service providers, designing UX/UI for all platform components to ensure intuitive experiences, and creating interactive prototypes tested with key stakeholders.

 

Confidentiality: The insights and design process in this case study reflect my perspective and approach while respecting Sensyo’s confidentiality. Specific details have been modified to protect sensitive information while showcasing my design approach.

 

Project Duration: October 2018 – January 2019
Key Partners: Harvard University, University of Utah

Problem Context

The healthcare innovation landscape has a gap between developing life-saving technologies and their implementation in real-world settings. With 89% of healthcare innovations never reaching the market, we identified a systemic failure in connecting innovators with necessary resources. This disconnect persists despite the desperate need for these solutions—nearly 2,000 children die daily from preventable diseases linked to unsafe water and sanitation issues, while 270 million children worldwide have no access to health care. Traditional pathways for moving healthcare innovations from concept to market are fraught with barriers: innovators struggle to find funding and support, investors lack efficient systems to discover promising opportunities, and service providers cannot easily connect with projects needing their expertise. This represents both a business and humanitarian challenge, where inefficiencies and communication gaps translate to lost lives and suffering. The opportunity for transformation lies in creating a unified ecosystem that bridges these divides, focusing on promising intellectual property technologies languishing in university laboratories and healthcare industry research departments.

Design Solution

Our design intervention focused on creating a digital platform that would serve the needs of three key user groups: Investors seeking promising healthcare innovations, Innovators with intellectual property looking for funding and support, and Service Providers offering expertise to help bring innovations to market. We designed Sensyo as a comprehensive web app marketplace that serves as both an incubator for healthcare innovators and a discovery platform for investors. The platform enables seamless offering and acquisition of technology and intellectual property with features specifically tailored to the unique needs of each user type. The design prioritizes efficient discovery and evaluation for investors, clear communication channels for innovators, and opportunity identification for service providers—all within a secure, trust-building framework.

My Approach

Design Process

1. Design Research & Strategy

Our journey began by investigating why 89% of healthcare innovations never reach the market. Through secondary research and stakeholder interviews, combining in-depth interviews, contextual inquiry, and participatory design sessions, we identified a fragmented ecosystem where innovators, investors, and service providers operated in isolation despite their interdependence. From university researchers to hospital innovation departments, we documented the current innovation journey, mapping pain points and opportunities. We identified distinct behavioral patterns rather than relying solely on demographics.

2. Summary of Findings

Our research with university scholars, entrepreneurs, and investors revealed that the primary barriers to healthcare innovation implementation were structural and communicative, not just financial. Our research identified three critical user needs driving our design decisions. First, investors required efficient evaluation tools for quick go/no-go decisions while providing depth when needed. This led to a progressive disclosure framework revealing information in layers matching the decision-making process. Investors needed to make preliminary decisions about innovations within two minutes—a critical insight shaping our information architecture. Second, innovators needed guidance through the commercialization process and connections to expertise, not just funding. They spent more time seeking funding than developing innovations, highlighting an efficiency gap. This inspired our ecosystem approach, connecting innovators with investors and service providers to navigate regulatory, manufacturing, and market entry challenges. Third, trust was the foundation of successful healthcare innovation relationships. This led to the development of “trust touchpoints”—micro-interactions and interface elements reinforcing credibility and security. These insights informed our core use cases: enabling investors to discover and evaluate innovations quickly, allowing innovators to present complex ideas effectively while protecting intellectual property, and helping service providers identify relevant opportunities early. Our design strategy focused on creating “innovation velocity”—reducing time and barriers between concept and implementation while balancing efficiency with thoroughness, simplicity with depth, and openness with security.

3. Prototyping & Implementation Strategy

Our prototyping process began with collaborative design studios mapping out core user journeys for each persona. Wireframes underwent multiple iterations based on stakeholder feedback, focusing on the innovation submission process and investor discovery experience. We progressed to high-fidelity mockups, refining visual design while focusing on user needs. We tested designs through multiple usability testing rounds with representatives from each user group. These sessions revealed investors valued clarity and efficiency, while innovators needed assurance of intellectual property protection. We refined our interface to streamline the evaluation process for investors while enhancing security features for innovators. Our implementation strategy focused on delivering an MVP addressing critical user needs. We prioritized features directly facilitating connections between innovators and investors, such as the innovation marketplace, secure data rooms, and communication channels. This strategy would enable the launch of an MVP platform that delivers immediate value while setting the stage for advanced features in future iterations.

4. Summary of Findings

Reflections & Impact

Short term impact

Mid term impact

Long term impact

Sensyo’s platform secured $5 million in investment funding, demonstrating market confidence in our solution. The vision for Sensyo aims to create a unified ecosystem for healthcare innovation, positioned to transform how life-saving ideas reach those in need. With growth and adoption, Sensyo could facilitate the commercialization of three million life-saving ideas by 2030, addressing critical healthcare challenges worldwide. The platform establishes a new paradigm applicable to other sectors facing disconnects between innovation and implementation. Sensyo creates a sustainable framework for ongoing innovation by connecting people rather than just ideas. As Sam, the founder, noted, “This isn’t just another platform—it’s a new way of thinking about how we bring healthcare solutions to market.”

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