Diagnostics innovation and new business.

What the work is

For most diagnostics companies, the next growth opportunity is not only the next assay. It is also a service layer around the assay, a digital solution for the lab customer, a software-enabled business that turns existing data into a recurring revenue line, or a partnership that changes how the test is positioned and used in care. That is the work.

Where Roche shaped this

At Roche Diagnostics Deutschland (2016–2017) I led the flagship digital acceleration and innovation program. Worked directly with senior leadership and Thomas Schinecker (now CEO, Roche Group) to mobilize the organization around digital transformation, innovation, and new business creation. The program moved from workshop output to prototypes and initiatives, with working patterns between strategy, R&D, and commercial that outlasted the engagement.

Years later at Roche Diagnostics Global (2023–2025) I co-defined a new remote diagnostics and digital health offering for lab customers — across business planning, market validation, partnership scoping, clinical evidence strategy, and executive decision support.

The pattern across both: diagnostics businesses know how to add tests. Few of them know how to add categories of business around the tests. That is where the work often shifts from portfolio logic into venture building in healthcare.

Where it usually gets stuck

R&D and commercial run on different clocks. R&D plans in product cycles, commercial plans in quarters; the new-business case sits in the gap.

Clinical evidence pathways for software-enabled offerings are unclear. Nobody is quite sure if the thing is a diagnostic, a digital service, or a regulated companion — and the regulatory team needs an answer before the commercial team can build around it.

Lab customers are conservative buyers. The path from pilot to revenue is not a marketing story. It is a procurement and integration story, and that story is what most innovation programs underweight.

Internal sponsorship for new business categories is harder to secure than incremental product development. The first sponsor matters more than the first prototype.