Pointellis™
Streamlined workflow processes and improved data visibility for clinical drug manufacturers in an emerging medical space
Overview
Pointellis™ is a suite of applications that manages the manufacturing of clinical drugs for cell and gene therapy (CGT).
Cell and gene therapy (CGT) aims to treat diseases by replacing, inactivating or introducing genes into cells.
Problem
Our client is a biopharmaceutical company in the clinical stages of CGT development, looking to commercialize and scale drug production. Institutional knowledge, decentralized data, and manual processes made it difficult for our client to scale from low-volume manufacturing processes.
My Contributions
Fully owned features from 0-1 as one of two designers on the team, the other being my design manager.
Took on product and research responsibilities as our team operated as a small but scrappy start-up. I ran workshops, conducted user-testing/reviews, helped shape the requirements of the tools we were building, and was involved in the strategy of the project.
Fostered team culture by running team-builder events a sense of community and camaraderie amongst our team
Challenges
Emerging field of medicine meant a lack of industry standards we could refer to as our north star. This was a 0-1 endeavor
Ever changing requirements from our stakeholders made it challenging to drive towards a northstar vision
Limited access to users meant we had to rely on subject matter experts and our own research to validate assumptions
Lack of proper a design system and branding resulted in visually restrictive user experience.
Building to speed, Each application was built as an MVP hat we could prove out the concepts to secure funding and quickly demo to potential clients/collaborators.
Logistics Organize
The goal of Logistics Organize is to efficiently plan and coordinate the movement of blood, from raw material to the end consumer as a medical product.
Outcome
Reduced number of applications needed through consolidating temperature and logistics data in one, central location
Printing & Labeling
The goal of P&L is to print a FDA approved final product label from specialized, thermal printers.
Outcome
Reduced # of steps needed to print a label in competition with user's current process and with a competitor product, Vineti
Conclusion
While Pointellis™ was never fully realized as a product due to various reasons outside of our team's control, my time on this project was fundamental to my growth as a designer.
Our client stakeholders felt heard and we maintained a fantastic working relationship with them. While they weren't the patients or clinicians themselves, they were strong advocates for them and considered them the end-user of our efforts.
With more time, resources, and a branding system which was in the works, we projected to have saved our users a monumental amount of time in their responsibilities while reducing the margin of error as they scaled production to reach a wider patient population.
Takeaways
Something is better than nothing
Advocate for your designs
Users might not know what they need
Ask better questions
Updated 07.2024
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