Despite their curative potential, the extraordinarily high price tags of cell and gene therapies have raised concerns about the U.S. and European healthcare systems' financial sustainability. This is especially true for recently approved treatments indicated for relatively sizable sub-populations, including multiple myeloma, beta thalassemia, sickle cell disease and different types of hemophilia.

To address these challenges, researchers have suggested creating a universal benefit in the U.S., named “Part E,” specifically designed for coverage of cell and gene therapies. Part E would technically fall under Medicare, but it would not have age- or disease-specific eligibility restrictions. In other words, it would be open to all who for whom the therapies are indicated and who may not be eligible for the Medicaid-specific model the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are implementing (for information on this model, see previous microblog).

Upon the Food and Drug Administration approval of an eligible cell or gene therapy, Part E coverage and pricing would be determined centrally by CMS, whose mandate it would be to consider whether such products are deemed “reasonable and necessary” to treat the affected population, as CMS already  does when it conducts National Coverage Determinations. Part E would be financed by an earmarked tax.

Any decision to cover a product would include outcomes-based agreements, in which the net price would depend on a product's performance over time. Alternatively, CMS could negotiate subscription-like payment models as some Medicaid programs have done in the hepatitis C space. Here, CMS would be responsible for a fixed payment regardless of the number of patients treated or the volume of a drug or therapy dispensed. In other words, unlike traditional payment arrangements, payment would not scale with volume.

In negotiating pricing and reimbursement for cell and gene therapies, CMS would establish a national risk pool across the Medicare, commercial and (part of the) Medicaid markets. In turn, this would decrease the level of financial risk borne in the system.

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The Lyfegen Library offers you access to one central resource with more than 4,500 public price-based agreements and 20 innovative pricing models (including subscription-like payment arrangements) which can form the basis for outcomes-based agreements to be signed under an eventual Medicare Part E. This invaluable resource has all the market research in one place to gather intelligence on novel ways to establish innovative payment systems that are uniquely designed to suit business needs of key stakeholders such as drug manufacturers and health insurers.

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Newly approved gene therapies for hemophilia A and B, beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease come with multimillion dollar price tags that could bankrupt financially strapped state Medicaid programs. In many instances, the majority of patients affected by these diseases rely on Medicaid for healthcare coverage.

Last month, the federal government unveiled a novel “access model” - the Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model- designed to mitigate the costs state Medicaid programs incur when they pay for these potentially curative treatments and allow for patient access. The announcement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services marks a significant step towards addressing the access issue.

Similar to what is currently happening with a select group of prescription drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act, CMS plans to negotiate prices of these gene therapies with drug makers at the national level for all state Medicaid that decide to participate in the model. By facilitating access to potentially life-changing treatments and supporting outcomes-based agreements with manufacturers, the model has the potential to improve health outcomes and alleviate financial burdens on state Medicaid agencies.

At first, CMS intends to negotiate pricing and rebates with the drug manufacturers Vertex and bluebird bio over the next few months on behalf of state Medicaid agencies that voluntarily choose to join the program.

Bluebird bio says it has already established an outcomes-based agreement for its SCD therapy, Lyfgenia, with commercial insurers. The product is listed at $3.1 million. The company did not divulge further details. Vertex, which priced its SCD therapy, Casgevy, at $2.2 million, has declined to discuss its plans.

The fact sheet that CMS provides contains few details as to what kinds of pricing arrangements would be put in place for products such as Lyfgenia and Casgevy. Prior to deciding to participate in the model and allow CMS to negotiate prices on their behalf, Medicaid agency directors will want to know specifically what kinds of outcomes-based agreements CMS can turn to.

The Lyfegen Model & Agreements Library offers CMS and state Medicaid agencies access to one central resource with more than 4,000 public pricing agreements and 20 innovative pricing models, including outcomes-based agreements. This invaluable resource has all the market research in one place for stakeholders to gather intelligence on novel ways to establish innovative payment models that are uniquely designed to suit the needs of Medicaid payers, CMS, and drug makers alike. To further enhance the practicality of these models, our value-based contracting platform mitigates the high costs and administrative challenges involved in managing these contracts. It equips CMS, the States, and Pharma with a streamlined, cost-effective means to implement outcome-based agreements efficiently.

Medicaid directors will also seek information on methods of evidence gathering, outcomes measurement, the length of time needed to test durability of gene therapies and how this information will be provided to CMS, presumably via a patient registry. Lyfegen offers solutions to identify the right drug pricing agreements in which evidence generation and the use of patient registries are key.

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Ostensibly, patients who have “skin in the game” through cost-sharing motivates them to be good stewards of their pharmacy benefit. But in the present system in the U.S., cost-sharing is usually not outcomes-based. It’s simply a way for insurers to defray costs onto patients, even when it poses barriers to access.

On the other hand, value-based insurance design is an increasingly popular method used by payers in which prescription drugs considered of high value have correspondingly low or no patient cost-sharing and few if any other utilization restrictions. By contrast, treatments deemed of low value are assigned higher patient cost-sharing and more conditions of reimbursement.

Optimally, this leads to greater patient adherence to high-value drugs and better health outcomes.

This method is used in the commercial sector, though until now relatively sparingly. One of the more interesting recent initiatives is the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model. Remarkably, the pilot is attracting many participants. Sixty-nine Medicare Advantage plans with nearly 9 million Medicare beneficiaries are signed up, an increase of almost 50% from 2023.

Aligning patient and payer financial incentives around the value of healthcare technologies and services implies the need to gather evidence and measure health outcomes. Broader implementation of value-based insurance design will entail the expanded use of incentive-based drug formulary models in which the most cost-effective pharmaceuticals have the lowest cost-sharing and the fewest reimbursement restrictions.

The Lyfegen Library offers you access to one central resource with more than 3,500 public pricing agreements and 20 innovative pricing models, including value-based insurance arrangements. This invaluable resource has all the market research in one place to gather intelligence on novel ways to establish innovative payment models that are uniquely designed to suit your business needs.

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The promise of gene therapy is to cure diseases associated with faulty or missing genes. Yet the high upfront costs, uncertainty surrounding long-term durability, and adverse events in some patients have often impeded market uptake.

So when the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald said it expects a “very strong product launch” of a recently approved gene therapy made by Krystal Biotech, the topical gel Vyjuvek indicated for a rare skin disease called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, it caught people’s attention.

Successful commercialization of gene therapies has remained largely elusive, in part due to access hurdles erected by insurers. The current payer system is not particularly well suited to accommodate single-dose therapies for which long-term treatment efficacy, risk-benefit ratios and safety remain uncertain.

But Vyjuvek (beremagen geperparvec) is different. Unlike most current gene therapies on the market today, it’s not meant to be a one-off cure. Vyjuvek is the first and only Food and Drug Administration-approved topical gene therapy that can be re-dosed.

Listed at $630,500 annually per patient—$485,000 after mandatory government discounts in Medicaid—it is certainly expensive. But it is not nearly as high-priced as other gene therapies that have been approved in recent years.

The manufacturer has successfully pursued coverage agreements with payers in the commercial and public spaces. Further, Krystal is using an innovative payment model with its payer clients. The company is offering them a price cap of $900,000 annually per patient to account for patients who may require large numbers of vials of treatment.

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The Lyfegen Library offers you access to one central resource with 3000+ public pricing agreements and 20 innovative pricing models—this invaluable resource has all the market research in one place to gather intelligence on innovative ways to establish innovative payment models, such as the one in place for Vyjuvek, that are uniquely designed to suit your business needs.

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Learn more: https://www.lyfegen.com/products/model-and-agreement-library

On November 16th, the UK’s MHRA approved Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) or exa-cel for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. And this month the FDA is expected to license exa-cel and lovo-cel (lovotibeglogene autotemcel), both of which attack SCD at its genetic root.

For these advanced gene therapies the challenge of access through Medicaid and other programs looms large. Medicaid will be the predominant payer for the 25,000 patients who could be eligible for these gene therapies. And it must figure out a budget-conscious way to pay for these potential one-time “cures.”

In April, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review issued a draft report on the cost-effectiveness of exa-cel and lovo-cel. ICER noted that the proportion of patients achieving treatment success was 97% for both therapies. Even at the placeholder price of nearly $2 million per dose, ICER says both treatments could be cost-effective. But ICER cautioned that a prerequisite is their durability over time and the establishment of value-based pricing agreements between payers and manufacturers.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is therefore pursuing a two-pronged approach to value-based pricing and reimbursement of cell and gene therapies such as exa-cel and lovo-cel.

First, a proposed rule would require manufacturers with the highest drug Medicaid spending per claim to turn over confidential information justifying their prices. CMS would post this information online, seek public comment, and compel manufacturers to “address” their pricing in a public forum.

Second, CMS is planning on “testing of payment models” based on outcomes-based agreements on behalf of all 50 state Medicaid programs, rather than having them done separately by individual states.

Innovative payment models such as these require the ability to analyze patient outcomes and negotiate prices based on those outcomes. Digital platforms, such as those offered by Lyfegen, are designed to implement value-based contracting models. This investment can yield operational efficiency, recovery of missed revenues, and provide critical access for patients to life-saving drug therapies.

Lyfegen offers solutions to identify the right drug pricing agreements, simulate and understand the financial impacts of those agreements, and automate the execution and adjudication of them—thus delivering a measurable reduction in administrative effort in rebate management and optimization.

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Lyfegen HealthTech AG announced today that it has raised CHF 2 million of additional capital, bringing its total funding to CHF 3 million. Read the full press release.

BASEL, Switzerland, Sept. 1, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --

- Investors back Lyfegen's mission to make innovative healthcare therapies more accessible and affordable

- Funding secures market-leading position prior to Series A opening in 2021

Lyfegen HealthTech AG, a Swiss health technology company, announced today that it has raised CHF 2 million of additional capital, bringing its total funding to CHF 3 million. The additional funding was completed by private investors and the innovation program of one of Switzerland's largest banks.

Lyfegen has developed a ground-breaking software solution to accelerate value-based healthcare contracting, pioneering in a global market that could reach USD 400 billion by 2024, according to the latest estimates by research firm MarketsandMarkets™. Some of the world's 10-largest pharmaceutical and medical technologies companies are already employing Lyfegen's platform in strategic markets in Europe and South America.

Girisha Fernando, Chief Executive Office and co-founder, said: "Increasingly, healthcare systems around the world are transitioning from fee-for-service payment schemes to value-based contracting. Our solutions support the shift towards sustainable payment models that help ensure patients get the treatments they need at prices they can afford, while healthcare companies make an adequate return on their investment. We are proud to have strong partners and investors on board to support us in this challenging and rewarding mission."

The new funding, combined with the seed capital raised in April 2019 and the founders' contributions, secures the development of Lyfegen's proprietary technology as it continues to roll out its value-based contracting solution in the U.S. as well as additional European and Latin American markets in the areas of oncology, rare diseases and medical devices.

Michel Mohler, Chief Financial Officer and co-founder, added: "We continue delivering on our ambitious goals prior to opening our Series A funding in 2021. This latest additional funding confirms the growing interest of international investors in innovative healthcare technology built for a data-driven world. The funds will be used to further strengthen our leading market position as we prepare for a strong Series A funding round."

About Lyfegen

Lyfegen HealthTech AG is a Swiss healthcare technology company that is pioneering digital value-based healthcare contracting. Lyfegen's patent-pending, ground-breaking software analyses complex healthcare data sets in order to help patients access innovative therapies that focus on the healthcare outcomes that matter most to them. Lyfegen's solutions collect the patient's specific medical profile whilst ensuring the strictest data privacy protocols. Lyfegen's founders Girisha Fernando, Michel Mohler, Nico Mros, and Leon Rebolledo have combined their expertise in life sciences and financial services to create a holistic solution that enables life sciences companies, healthcare payers and healthcare providers to develop and roll out digital value-based healthcare, a market that is set to grow to USD 400 billion by 2024.

Read the official Press Release

EGK uses the Lyfegen Platform to handle complex pricing models of on and off-label usage of more than 80 drugs

Basel, Switzerland - November 29, 2022 - Lyfegen, a global healthtech SaaS company driving the world’s transition from volume to value-based healthcare for high-cost drugs, announced today that EGK-Gesundheitskasse is joining its portfolio of insurer partners to execute all of their value-based pricing contracts for high-cost drugs efficiently, securely, and transparently.

Switzerland, with the fourth-highest pharmaceutical spending per capita, spent CHF 8 Billion (8.1 billion euro) on drugs prescribed for specific diseases in the first nine months of 2022. In an effort to combat the high drug spending, Switzerland has implemented an increasing number of discount models for on and off-label drug usage over the last five years. While intending to ensure accessibility to patients at sustainable prices, the complexity of the price models leads to millions spent by insurers to monitor and adjudicate the price models, resulting in an estimated CHF two- to three-digit million range of missed rebates.

Lyfegen's software enables EGK to identify and claim rebates from 141 drug price models with 32 manufacturers, with minimal effort and maximum transparency. This includes cases of rare or chronic illnesses, promising therapies that may be used outside the approved indication, or new drugs not yet available or approved in Switzerland. Lyfegen's platform addresses the needs of Swiss health insurers for cost efficiency and digitalization, helps solve existing complexities in the system, and does its utmost to counteract high insurance premiums.

"We are delighted to support EGK and take an active role in addressing the growing complexity of drug pricing models to support sustainable access to innovative drugs and therapies in Switzerland,” said Nico Mros, CXO and Co-Founder of Lyfegen. “By focusing on making the implementation of the platform as easy as possible and being responsive to EGK, we were able to quickly present results and kickoff the collaboration to a successful start!"

“With the Lyfegen Platform, EGK is further expanding its focus on sustainability and efficiency for the benefit of our policyholders”, said Carolina Pirelli, Head of Benefits and Deputy CEO at EGK. “The ever-increasing number of pricing models for medications poses challenges for insurance companies in terms of resources and processes. With the automated processing of pricing models through the Lyfegen Platform, we are able to perfectly meet our current needs and with Lyfegen's flexibility, focus and understanding, we see ourselves in good hands.”

About Lyfegen

Lyfegen is a global healthtech SaaS analytics company providing a value-based agreement platform for drugs, therapies and devices. Health insurances, pharma, medtech companies & hospitals use the secure platform for thousands of payment models throughout Switzerland, Europe, the Middle East and North America. The Lyfegen Platform supports the negotiation and automated execution of value-based payment models cost-effectively and at scale using real-world data and machine learning. Globally renowned health insurances, hospitals, pharma & medtech companies have already implemented Lyfegen’s patent-pending platform to scale value-based payment models for drugs, therapies and devices, improving access to treatments and patient outcomes.

Lyfegen was founded by individuals with decades of experience in healthcare, pharma and technology, pioneering the shift away from volume-based and fee-for-service healthcare to value-based healthcare. For more information, visit www.lyfegen.com.

About EGK-Gesundheitskasse

EGK-Gesundheitskasse is an SME health insurer based in Laufen (BL), Switzerland. The EGK Group comprises EGK Grundversicherungen AG (basic insurance in accordance with KVG), EGK Privatversicherungen AG (supplementary insurance in accordance with VVG) and EGK Services AG (administration). It insures around 100,000 people in basic insurance throughout Switzerland, 80% of them also have EGK supplementary insurance.

Naturalness and sustainability are part of EGK's values. It is considered a pioneer in providing unrestricted access to excellent complementary medicine. It launches and supports activities throughout Switzerland to strengthen health in a natural way.

Read on PR newswire in English

Read on PR newswire in German

Lyfegen’s value-based contracting software is used by healthcare payers and leading pharma companies, including Novartis, Roche, MSD, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and Johnson & Johnson

New York, NY - September 20, 2022 - Lyfegen, a global healthtech SaaS company driving the world’s transition from volume to value-based healthcare for high-cost drugs, today announced an oversubscribed $8 million Series A financing round led by aMoon, with additional participation from APEX Ventures and others.

Currently, less than 2% of the health insurance population requiring specialty drugs is responsible for 51% of drug spending. The cost of specialty drugs in the US is spiraling out of control, increasing 12% from 2020 to 2021 alone, with no sign of slowing down due to the increase of cell and gene therapies expected to come to market. As a result, value-based contracting is becoming a more viable alternative for healthcare payers to only pay for drugs that actually work.

By 2025, total net spending on medicine in the US is expected to reach up to $400B. Additionally, new drugs regularly enter the market, but when pharmaceutical companies fail to agree on commercial terms with payers, patients are at risk of being denied access to life saving therapies. Lyfegen’s platform helps regulators, pharma companies and payers more easily adopt value-based payment models by digitizing the end-to-end process of data collection, anonymization and contract negotiations for all parties to agree upon drug pricing and reimbursement.

“We are excited to be announcing this funding round and to have this vote of confidence from aMoon, APEX and our other investors who understand the shift in healthcare that we are experiencing, and are supporting our efforts to expand the Lyfegen platform,” said Girisha Fernando, CEO and founder of Lyfegen. “We currently work with leading government payers, health insurance companies in Europe, the US and the Middle East, and some of the world’s largest pharma companies. Our plan now is to further expand our presence in the US, partnering with both private and public healthcare insurance companies. The move away from volume-based healthcare has never been more needed, and we are happy to play an important role in the shift to value-based contracting.”

“Lyfegen is addressing a significant market need in an industry that is changing dramatically and rapidly, and we are thrilled to help validate their efforts through our investment,” said Moshic Mor, General Partner at aMoon, and former Partner at Greylock and Greylock Israel. “During a time of healthcare budget pressures and recessions, the world needs Lyfegen’s solution now more than ever. We look forward to seeing the company, led by an incredible executive team, continue to enhance access to new drugs as they drive value-based healthcare to become increasingly mainstream.”

About Lyfegen

Lyfegen is an independent, global software analytics company providing a value and outcome-based agreement platform for health insurances, pharma, medtech & hospitals around the globe. The secure platform identifies and operationalizes value-based payment models cost-effectively and at scale using a variety of real-world data and machine learning. With Lyfegen’s patent-pending platform, health insurances & hospitals can implement and scale value-based healthcare, improving access to treatments, patient health outcomes and affordability.

Lyfegen is based in the USA & Switzerland, and was founded by individuals with decades of experience in healthcare, pharma and technology to enable the shift away from volume-based and fee-for-service healthcare to value-based healthcare. For more information, visit www.lyfegen.com.

Media Contact

Yael Hart

GK for Lyfegen

yael@gkpr.com

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Read the Press Release on PR Newswire

The whitepaper is a joint initiative to share with healthcare stakeholders some of Lyfegen and KPMG’s expertise and experience in the development and implementation of value and data-driven agreements in an evolving healthcare environment.

Official Communication by KPMG on 26.10.2020

KPMG addresses the most pressing challenges the healthcare sector is facing today and in the future. Society’s desire to obtain value from the wider healthcare system is not new, however recent experience shows that there is a need to rethink and move healthcare into a new age.

Two current megatrends are: 1) the redesign of pricing for health solutions, and 2) the value of data and the importance of patient access. It is important to address both elements within the Life Sciences ecosystem, including how to innovate, how to develop successful digitalization strategies, and how to get the most out of data.

How outcome-based contracts benefit healthcare

The pricing of services and products based on outcomes or value created is another intrinsic element of the future of healthcare. Rising healthcare costs impact patient budgets and hinder access to treatments. Incentivizing positive outcomes can only benefit patients, while payers gain confidence that they are only reimbursing effective treatments. Manufacturers and providers that buy into the outcome-based model are taking an important step towards making their business more sustainable while contributing to the wider interest of the healthcare ecosystem.

One of the key issues has always been defining the factors that represent value and deciding how to measure them. To give an example, how do you measure if a patient is symptom-free and how long should the observation period last? How is the impact on those caring for an individual considered and how is the societal or economic impact assessed, e.g., can the individual go back to pursuing a career? These questions are key in any reimbursement of pricing arrangements.

Helping the healthcare community

Teaming up with Lyfegen, a healthtech company facilitating access to innovative therapies, KPMG recently published a joint whitepaper (see link below) on the application of outcome-based contracting. Girisha Fernando (CEO and Founder of Lyfegen HealthTech AG) and Martin Rohrbach (Head of Life Sciences for KPMG Switzerland) discuss how this approach can deliver value for healthcare payers, providers and patients.

The whitepaper is a joint initiative to share with healthcare stakeholders some of Lyfegen and KPMG’s expertise and experience in the development and implementation of value and data-driven agreements in an evolving healthcare environment. The combination of knowledge, reach, and technology specific to value-based healthcare, together with proven practical experience, brings unique insights into value and data-driven pricing agreements for healthcare stakeholders. The whitepaper focuses on why outcome-based contracting can address drug access and reimbursement challenges, and how such contracts can be enabled by innovative technology. There are some clear takeaways, serving as building blocks and opportunities to engage in outcome-based contracting for the benefit of healthcare systems.

READ THE WHITEPAPER

Basel, Switzerland | April 17th, 2019 – Lyfegen HealthTech AG successfully closes its seed financing round, raising a total of CHF 750‘000. The funding was led by Swiss private investors. The funds will be used to further build Lyfegen’s value-based payments platform Lyfevalue and conduct further pilots with partners in the US, Africa, and the EU, including the UK.

Lyfegen is a healthcare technology company that has developed a ground-breaking solution to accelerate value-based healthcare, entering a market set to grow to USD 390.7 billion by 2024 according to latest market research. Its platform, Lyfevalue, collects, analyses & reconciles disparate healthcare data for the purpose of automating value-based healthcare contracting. The platform enables life sciences companies, national and private healthcare payers and healthcare providers to operationalise value-based healthcare strategies whilst benefiting from a single holistic solution for their value-based healthcare operations, visit checklistmaids.com. In addition, the platform allows for personalised healthcare by enabling patient level pricing, fostering accelerated and facilitated access to innovative treatments for patients.

“Enabling the shift to sustainable healthcare is a huge challenge, giving us at Lyfegen great purpose and we are honoured to work with individuals that truly care about making a difference for patients around the world,” said Girisha Fernando, Lyfegen’s CEO & Founder.

Nico Mros, Lyfegen’s COO, explains why Lyfegen is a firm believer in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how the company works towards Goal # 3: Good Health & Well Being.

Chances are that since the pandemic hit, you have at least heard of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. But what do these mean and how does a company like Lyfegen incorporate these in their business?

The Basics

The 17 goals were set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly with the intention of reaching these by 2030. The interlinked goals are a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice.” Each of the 17 goals outlines even more specific targets, which are constantly monitored and discussed between countries.

Lyfegen & Sustainable Development Goal #3: Good Health & Well being

Ensuring healthy lives for all and promoting well being is an essential goal, even more so since the pandemic affected millions worldwide. That said, this goal aims at improving the health of millions of people, increasing their life expectancy and reducing child and maternal mortality. In addition, it addresses persistent and emerging health issues, focusing on providing more efficient funding of health systems. This in turn, enabling millions of people worldwide to have more widespread access to the medication they need.

Specifically, Sustainable Development Goal #3 outlines the following target:

“3.8 Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.”

Sounds familiar? Lyfegen’s mission is to help patients to access innovative therapies by driving value-based healthcare. In other words: Doing what’s right for patients!

The pay-for-performance model, which Lyfegen enables through their value-based contracting platform, allows for more people worldwide to have access to innovative and often expensive medication. This directly addressing the UN’s goal to “provide more efficient funding of health systems” and have more “widespread access to medication”.

With some of the leading manufacturers, payers, and care providers already using Lyfegen’s solutions, a clear step towards supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals is taken. We are proud to be a part of this journey towards a better future!

DISCOVER LYFEVALUE

To build the best software ever, you also need the best team ever. We are meticulous in our selection and delighted to announce that we have found a gem for our junior quality engineer position: Alina Bratu has joined Lyfegen to improve the quality and user experience of our platform. We sat down with Alina to learn about her experience, her goals, and her aspirations.

Hello Alina, and welcome to Lyfegen! Please tell us a little about yourself: Where are you from, and what’s your educational and professional background?

Hi! I grew up in the city of Buzau in Romania and currently live in Bucharest. In college, I studied public administration and later decided to pursue a career in analytics. With the recommendation of friends, I decided to move towards software testing – which is the best decision I’ve made!

What excites you about being a junior quality engineer?

I like to view software testing as the work of a detective who follows clues that eventually help them to solve a case. It is a challenging and ever-changing line of work, and the best thing about it is that it truly impacts the delivery of quality products in a tech-driven world.

Why did you decide to join Lyfegen?

The company’s mission to make healthcare more accessible resonated with me, and I was really excited about the opportunity to work on a project that has the potential to impact the world. Working in a start-up environment with such a motivated and talented team is an amazing chance for me as a junior QA to develop my career while applying the knowledge I gained in the past year to something new and meaningful.

What do you want to learn or improve on this year?

My main goal this year is to learn more about the healthcare industry while also expanding my QA knowledge and expertise.

How will your know-how help to improve our customers’ experience of the Lyfegen platform?

As a QA engineer, I am responsible for tracking down any defects that might affect the users’ interaction with the platform. As I enjoy doing this ‘detective work’ and challenging the software in different ways, together with the developers, I can ensure that the user experience will be pleasant and the platform will look and act accordingly.

Let’s get personal: What are your favorite things to do in your free time?

In my free time, I enjoy reading fiction and self-development books and traveling as these activities help me to gain a new perspective and relax. When I’m not engaging in these hobbies, I enjoy cooking, watching movies, and playing board games with my friends.

Is there anything else you’re looking forward to outside of work this year?

I want to achieve balance and start enjoying and practicing my hobbies more. I am also planning to dust off my driving skills as I’ve postponed this for quite some time!

We are super happy to have you with us, Alina!

MEET THE LYFEGEN TEAM

Our CEO, Girisha Fernando, gives first-hand insights to what it means to be a “Mindful Leader” and how the COVID19 pandemic has impacted his leadership style.

Admit it, you clicked on this blogpost because the question itself raises endless questions. What is mindful leadership? Is it really possible to be a mindful leader in a high-paced (stressful and sleepless) startup environment? Now add the physiological stress of a pandemic to the equation.

Recently I came across one of the live lectures of Simon Sinek (if you don’t know him: google him), focusing on the topic of “mindful meditation for focused leadership”. I was pleasantly surprised to see that mindfulness and mindful leadership is gaining well-deserved attention in the workplace. Before I dive into how I live by this leadership style at Lyfegen, let’s quickly dive into what it means:

What is Mindful Leadership (without writing a Wikipedia essay)?

Mindful leadership is leading while being aware in the present, focusing (in our case) on the road to success rather than success itself, all while interacting humbly within the team and with customers.

When confronted with challenges, a mindful leader will focus on action rather than control, remaining as agile and calm as possible. After all, you cannot always control the output but can influence how the team gets to it.

Example: It unexpectedly starts raining. A controlling leader will focus on the unforeseen rain and how the team failed to get sunshine (despite it not having necessarily been in their power), micromanaging every consequent step.

A mindful leader will stay calm, gearing up on raincoats & boots for his team, enabling and helping them to adapt their strategy in order to reach sunshine.

While this is a rather simplistic way of looking at mindful leadership, you get the overall idea and how this encourages a high confidence, creative, agile, and cooperative environment.

Mindful Leadership at Lyfegen

I am by no means an expert in mindful leadership and have made my share of mistakes. My Buddhist family background has taught me a lot about mindfulness, incorporating meditation into my daily routine.

However, one would think that practicing mindful leadership is harder in a high-paced start-up environment. I disagree: it is exactly in such an environment that, despite the 14+ hour workdays, one needs to stay present. Focus on the now and continuously fine-tune how to “reach the sunshine”, learning from mistakes on the way.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Switzerland hard in March, our team was faced with various challenges in terms of business and speed of implementation. However, team-work was not one of them and for that I greatly attribute this leadership style.

We took everyday as it came and continued, even digitally, to work together like an orchestra in perfect harmony. When comparing to the analogy above, COVID-19 was a true thunderstorm and at the same time, it gave light to a rainbow of opportunities.

My 5 key takeaways for becoming a more mindful leader:

- Focus on the now: optimize how your team works together. The goal will follow as a direct result.

- Focus on the essential: if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority. As a leader, make sure everyone is working towards the same milestones along the road rather than mainly focusing on the goal.

- Always remain humble: treat others the way you expect them to treat you (unfortunately a lot of people in other companies know this but don’t live by it).

- Never be afraid to fail. Let go of fear to unlock maximum potential.

- Always take a moment, as a leader, for self-reflection & calm. At Lyfegen, we have a little room in our office with some bean-bags where anyone can retreat and meditate during the day. If you don’t find me at my desk, this is where you’ll find me.

Lyfegen is excited to announce that co-founder Nico Mros is taking on a new role as Chief Customer Experience Officer (CXO). Until recently, Nico held the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Lyfegen. Nico gives first-hand insights on what this shift means for him and Lyfegen.

The choice to transition into this new and exciting role is a logical one as Lyfegen continues to evolve and center all decisions and platform optimizations around the customers and patients needs.

With more than 8 years of experience in healthcare, Nico is a value-based healthcare leader with a strong skill set in project and change management. He is and stays responsible for customer experience and success at Lyfegen and leads the digitization projects for value-based agreements and real-world data insights of Lyfegen’s platform. This change helps to advance Lyfegen’s mission which is to create the most disruptive health tech company by driving the world’s transition to value-based and data-driven healthcare.

What does Nico have to say about his new title and the reasons for the change? We asked our new CXO to share his thoughts with us:

“At Lyfegen, we lived customer centricity since the beginning. This change in title comes natural and underlines for everyone what our existing customers tell us regularly – they feel understood, motivated and purpose-driven when working with us.” Nico says. “As a Co-Founder of Lyfegen I gladly accept this new title, letting go of my previous title as COO which, I honestly never liked. The choice to change this title feels obvious and necessary at the same time. I would say – just right. “

Furthermore Nico sees three main reasons for the renaming of the position which are:

1. The happiness of the customers at Lyfegen is of utmost importance, it is even a key factor for success at Lyfegen. Hence, Lyfegen wants to establish a point of view that focuses unconditionally on customer happiness, allowing to establish trusted and long-lasting relationships with clear point of contacts.

2. Besides acting directly with the customers, a customer-first environment within Lyfegen is crucial. Embedding the customer perspective in every decision, beginning with product design and ending with company strategy, allows Lyfegen to be the customer-centered company we want to be.

3. Keep it simple and understandable. While a COO can have many focuses, the Customer Experience Officer has just ONE: the customer's best possible experience and success.

Further Nico adds: “It is my firm belief that helping customers to gain success and delivering superior experience in every point of contact can be a major competitive advantage, even a unique selling point. As CXO I can guarantee this kind of philosophy from the product to personal interactions. In combination with innovative technology, this is the key to sustainable success.”

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Lyfegen is proud to announce that Professor Jens Grueger, PhD, has joined the company´s Advisory Board. Jens is the former Head of Global Access at F. Hoffmann-La Roche and has led country, regional, and global health economics and outcomes research, pricing, and market access organizations for SmithKline Beecham, Novartis, Pfizer and Roche.

He is a healthtech pioneer, founding his first digital disease management start-up in 1997, has been a long-time scientific reviewer for Value in Health and is the President Elect at ISPOR, the leading professional society for health economics and outcomes research. Throughout his various roles he has been promoting value-based pricing models across healthcare systems. Jens holds a PhD in Mathematical Statistics from the Technical University of Dortmund and is Affiliate Professor at the CHOICE Institute at University of Washington School of Pharmacy in Seattle, USA.

With his vast experience and expertise in healthcare, Jens will support Lyfegen to achieve its mission of facilitating and accelerating value-based healthcare to improve the life of patients.