Injecting marketing to your invention
The life of Marc Koska changed the day he read that HIV would spread via unsafe injections like wildfire and he decided to do something about it. That was back in '84. It seemed to him that if injections were the cause, then the spread was preventable. Today his invention, a low-cost non-reusable syringe, is being widely used. And, more importantly, his campaign to raise public awareness about the dangers of reusing syringes have even led India to change national policy.
"The quest was to develop a syringe that could be made of the same materials... tooling and assembly equipment and used in exactly the same way as a conventional syringe – but with one minor, negligible cost modification that would make re-use impossible. The K1 was the result. And today, 17 years later, literally millions are used every week. Once only, so that every injection with a K1 syringe is sterile and safe".
If you want to see the syringe, watch this video.
When you read his story, there are many lessons to learn. First, his invention was not completely new. There are many other syringes in the market that come with the same feature: they become unusable once they are applied. His real innovation was that he studied the market and he provided a syringe that could replace the existing ones at a competitive cost. He added price into the equation, because he knew that otherwise adoption would be impossible. So there might even be some better and smarter syringes in the market, but the one he created can compete against the one to that is now being used in public health systems in developing countries.
A second very important lesson: marketing, marketing , marketing. Or if you don't like that word: awareness, awareness, awareness. It was not until he devoted resources and energy to a big public campaign that he enjoyed real triumph. You can call it Marc Koska meets Michael Moore, but the thing is that he even filmed nurses in public hospitals in India that were reusing syringes--they were using the same syringe up to six times. He proved that there was an institutionalized unsafe use of injections. The amount of press, tv programs and reactions that this campaign sparked led the government to make the use of Auto Disable syringes mandatory in all public centres starting April 30 this year. Some have argued that this campaign services his own interest (since the company he created to distribute the K1 Auto Disable syringe is for-profit) so there's a financial bottom line that he benefits from by pushing this political agenda. That might be an interesting debate. The fact is that his invention helps save lives.
Are there risks inherent to this model? Or is it beneficial for the sustainability of the endeavor? How would you draw a line between financial interest and social impact?
