The Challenge

ARTIDIS, a Basel-based biotech company, had developed a ground-breaking nanotechnology platform for cancer diagnostics. Their technology could analyse tissue biopsies at the nanomechanical level, potentially transforming how breast cancer is diagnosed and treated. But ARTIDIS needed to bridge the gap between laboratory innovation and real-world patient value. They needed to understand the breast cancer diagnosis journey from the patient perspective — the fears, the waiting, the information gaps — to position their technology in a way that genuinely resonated.

The Approach

Merakoi conducted patient-led research on a scale rarely seen in diagnostics: interviews with 60 patient online influencers and community managers across Germany and the US. These were not randomly recruited participants; they were deeply embedded voices in the breast cancer community who could articulate both their own experiences and the patterns they observed across thousands of patient interactions. The research was designed to surface not just unmet needs, but the language and framing that patients themselves use when talking about diagnosis.

The Outcome

The insights uncovered a unique selling proposition that ARTIDIS had not anticipated: patients cared less about the nanoscale mechanics and more about the promise of faster, more personalised treatment decisions. This patient-derived USP resonated far more strongly than the technology-first messaging the company had been using. It guided ARTIDIS’s commercialisation and go-to-market strategy. CEO Marija Plodinec described the experience as “an eye-opening approach to market research: patient-led!”