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Squint Metrics

Performance

Revenue is estimated at $15 million

Plans

“We will expand our leadership in electronic patient-reported outcomes with the addition of six new disease categories, and validate our predictive-response algorithm”
— Marc Porter

Prediction

“The U.S. healthcare market continues to shift from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance models, the impact of which will be huge in 2017”
— Marc Porter


Formerly the health-care focused portion of Iomedia, Squint Metrics became a freestanding unit in 2016 when the ticketing and e-commerce side of the business was sold off, along with the Iomedia moniker, to an undisclosed suitor. However, it was probably the least disruptive corporate divorce of all time, as the two sides of the business operated independently and with no overlapping clients.

“We’re still the same people in the same location with the same capabilities,” says managing director Marc Porter. “We just have a different name now.”

Marc Porter

managing director: Marc Porter

Squint Metrics was chosen as the firm’s name as it reflects the company’s focus on data-generation and communication via its proprietary software and outcomes platforms, which already account for 60% of revenue. Company revenue is estimated at $15 million.

The remainder comes from digital-AOR-type business and the creation of one-off tech solutions for pharma clients’ commercial programs.

“We’re a tech company that does some commercial marketing, as opposed to an ad agency that tries to develop technology,” Porter explains. “We have 12 people in strategy, content, or design roles. The rest are tech people — coders, programmers, data scientists, and deep learning engineers.”

Over the past two years, Squint has been experimenting with two basic types of platform programs: ones built with and for specific pharma companies, such as the Gut Check app for Janssen, and ones that capture data directly from patients and physicians, which is then licensed back to pharma, pharmacy, or payer clients.

MS Care Connect, which launched in December 2016, is an example of the latter. It’s an app-driven program that includes 23 validated patient-reported outcome surveys and nine performance metrics that assess cognitive, visual, and physical function. Porter describes it as a joint venture between InterPRO Bioscience and Squint, led by doctors who treat MS patients.

“The InterPRO model engages physicians and patients directly. We market it to doctors and patients to drive adoption, rather than working with pharma directly,” Porter says. “The licensing model is less restrictive for us to develop independently from pharma and directly with pharma’s ultimate customers.”

New business last year included work on Biogen’s MS portfolio, Cerevast’s e-stim device Neuros, Pacira’s Exparel, and ZS Pharma’s pipeline hyperkalemia product. Squint also began building a platform to analyze the impact of various treatment paths on outcomes.

“The aim is to apply large-scale retrospective cohort analytics to diagnosis and treatment decisions,” Porter explains. “It will have enormous positive implications — not only for patients, but also for physicians and other HCPs and payers.”

The platform will launch next year and Squint plans to continue to invest heavily in developing these types of data-driven offerings. 

“Our revenue ultimately goes into R&D,” Porter says. “We invest first in what we think will be valuable technology for the healthcare market. Then, if we can prove we can do it, we look to partner with the industry.”