Ann: Microba Launches Next Generation Healthcare Testing, page-4

Hmmm ... not sure about this one. I suspect they are hoping that by selling a showbag of tests they might overcome the yuk factor. Maybe it will work.

The yuk factor is the unsurprising reality that most people aren't that keen on handling their own crap, and are even less keen to put a container of it in their fridges. Rhythm Biosciences is a local medtech that is trying to get approved a blood test for colorectal cancer that would replace a faecal test and they have stats on the yuk factor in their recent presentations. The yuk factor is one reason why I doubt faecal tests will become as common as blood tests, at least in their current form.

The showbag effect is my take on a situation where by bundling a bunch of products together which by themselves are not compelling to purchase you end up with a product that is just attractive enough to push you into buying (in other words your want to buy things is arithmetic rather than geometric). Everyone knows that inside that batman showbag is a bunch of plastic and sugary rubbish but combined their ridiculously over-the-top price is somehow acceptable. Maybe the Microba tests will be used as a point of reference test, when someone comes into a gp with symptoms that don't point to a specific ailment, and the gp can order a test to rule out a range of conditions but as such would be one-off testing rather than regular tests.

Anyway the proof of the pudding will be in the take-up.