Written in Partnership with Amir Bakian
Nu Image Medical, a leading anti-aging health and wellness company, has partnered with serial entrepreneur and marketing expert Kevin Harrington as they scale their business to new heights. With Harrington on board as an investor and board member, Nu Image Medical is ready to compete with companies like Hims and Roman, who have both received big funding from venture capital firms.
Thus far, Nu Image Medical has relied heavily on referrals and word-of-mouth as it built an organic following and created its proprietary broad-spectrum product line. But with well-loved programs now available to treat weight gain, hair thinning and loss, erectile dysfunction, loss of libido, and hormonal imbalances, it’s time to accelerate their growth.
Since its founding in 2004 by CEO Andreas Dettlaff, Nu Image Medical has set itself apart from the competition by embracing technology and all it can do to create efficiency within a company. Andreas Dettlaff helped pioneer telemedicine as he initially launched the business, recognizing early on that comfort and convenience were key to engaging clients. As one of the first anti-aging wellness companies to legally enter the telemedicine space, Nu Image Medical eliminated the need to travel to a doctor’s office from very early on.
In addition to their exclusively virtual visits and prescriptive healthcare, Nu Image Medical has benefitted internally from Andreas Dettlaff’s technology background. Their proprietary Nu Image platform and software function as an EMR (electronic medical record), an accounting software platform, a video platform, a billing platform, a customer service platform, a medical platform, and a reporting platform. In the five years since the platform launched, it has automated the entire company, as well as making record transfers more secure and compliant, and created the ability to communicate freely with physicians 24/7.
In Andreas Dettlaff’s words, “It’s almost like buying an EMR, creating your own FaceTime or zoom software, getting your own QuickBooks software and kind of developing all these things instead of using third-party software and trying to integrate with that. We have truly built our own platform from the ground up which allows us to do whatever we want to do that’s within our imagination without any limits of third-party software.”
Since partnering with the original Shark Tank “shark” Harrington in February of 2022, Nu Image Medical has taken a much more aggressive approach to its marketing strategy, including partnering with celebrity spokespeople and recording commercials for their products. While Harrington has a long list of successful partnerships in his 40+ year career, Nu Image Medical is hoping to create industry buzz the way that the Celsius line of fitness drinks has in their sector.
As a board member, Harrington and the rest of the board helped Celsius to raise over $500 million between 2013 and 2022; Celsius Holdings was recently valued at $7.5 billion. Much like Nu Image Medical, Celsius created a niche in an otherwise crowded marketplace of energy and fitness drinks. What sets Celsius apart is that their formulas are clinically proven to offer significant health benefits to their users, rather than just give a burst of energy on-demand.
If you’re not familiar with Celsius, it has zero sugar, no preservatives, no aspartame, no high fructose corn syrup, and is non-GMO, with no artificial flavors or colors. The entire line of products is Kosher, Vegan, soy-free, gluten-free, and low sodium. After partnering with Harrington, Celsius was able to greatly expand its presence in retail outlets, as well as increase consumer awareness of its unique benefits. Now a household name, Celsius competes with market leaders and pioneers Red Bull and Monster Energy on an international level.
Also operating in a saturated industry environment, Nu Image Medical has shied away from defining itself in the same way its main competitors have, leaving the door open for further expansion and growth. While they operate in the men’s health sector, Nu Image Medical also offers products and programs for women; and while the bulk of their programs target aging-related hormonal and physical changes, their client base includes many people in their 20s and 30s. By responding to customer requests in the creation of their formulations, Nu Image Medical stays in tune with what their client base needs most of all.
“Our ability to create these custom compounded products that are in multiple wellness categories really sets us apart from anyone else because we’re creating medications and compounds that assist a multitude of health and wellness issues for individuals,” Andreas Dettlaff says.
Nu Image Medical offers products and programs that differ from others on the market, having been formulated exclusively for the company. Their team of concierge doctors, formulary pharmacists, and quality assurance pharmacists work together to assess the spectrum of medications that are currently available to the United States market. Then they can determine which ones work synergistically together, and what the benefits are of taking them together. Once a new formulation is created, months of testing follows; Nu Image Medical does not release a product or program until it meets its stringent requirements of efficacy and safety.
But what really sets Nu Image Medical apart, in the way that Celsius provides health benefits in addition to a burst of energy, is their early and continuous adoption of new technologies. Under Andreas Dettlaff’s leadership, IT solutions that provide technical and operational improvement are not just another tool to Nu Image Medical – they are at the very heart of what the company provides to its clients. More than just another outlet for prescriptive healthcare, Nu Image Medical seeks to elevate the entire experience of healthcare. Comfort, convenience, and patient interaction are all fundamentals of their business model, rather than secondary benefits.
While telemedicine is not a new concept in 2022, and in fact is expected on some level in many situations, Dettlaff’s early adoption of the technology in the 2000s was revolutionary. Telemedicine has opened doors to clients that were otherwise unreachable and created incredible opportunities for patient feedback and quick response times to questions and complaints.
Especially in the sensitive field of age-related physical and hormonal changes, telemedicine has eliminated much of the embarrassment felt by those who are experiencing these uncomfortable changes. And while many of their clients report feeling depressed, anxious, and stressed about their conditions prior to treatment with Nu Image Medical, the emotional and physical benefits of Nu Image Medical programs are very real and are impacting clients around the country. The tactful and respectful handling of these conditions by medical providers via video and phone calls streamlines the entire process for those seeking treatment.
Telemedicine has also resulted in more engaged patients who are likely to keep their appointments and be actively involved in their medical care. Having such frequent access to providers also means that patients can ask questions, report concerns, and schedule follow-ups and treatments that may otherwise have been overlooked. Telemedicine has created opportunities for patient interaction that previously never existed.
It’s Nu Image Medical’s focus on technology that really caught Harrington’s eye: “I became an investor and partner of the company because I see the huge upside and opportunity in the Telehealth Space, especially with Nu Image Medical having its own compound pharmacy and tech platform that was built from the ground up. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m excited for what’s to come,” he has said.
With a rock-solid team in place, a clear vision, proprietary programs and products, and an exclusive technology platform, Nu Image Medical is poised for the same explosive growth as Celsius has enjoyed in the last 5 years. After building a strong foundation rivaling any of their competitors’, Nu Image Medical is now creating the partnerships that will propel them further into the public eye. By keeping its company private, Nu Image Medical has been able to keep major decisions in-house, relying on its tight-knit executive team to guide them in the right direction.
If you’re watching technology-based wellness companies, you’d be wise to put Nu Image Medical on your list.
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