183: Communication is Part of the Treatment. Florian Semler, Formel Skin

“Communication is so important for us because communication is part of the treatment. What we don’t want to do is take an old, grumpy doctor and sit him in front of a camera and treat our patients,” says this week’s guest Florian Semler, co-founder and CEO of Formel Skin. 

Formel Skin is a telemedicine scale-up that treats skin conditions. They are on a mission to make medicine approachable and accessible thanks to digitalisation and state-of-the-art communications between doctors and patients. 

Florian founded the Berlin-based company two and a half years ago with Dr Sarah Bechstein, a trained dermatologist, and product and marketing expert Anton Kononov.

Formel Skin’s success formula? “We want to provide our patients with a dermatology 3.0 experience where doctors are very friendly, thoughtful and approachable - a combination of a digital patient experience and a physical patient experience with a doctor.” 

This hasn’t always been straightforward. “It was a journey for me and Sarah how to communicate to the patients and how to develop these skills. Also from a company perspective. It is much more sophisticated and much simpler today.”

The interaction between doctors and patients is the key to Formel Skin’s success. “We have a training curriculum for all doctors on how they communicate with a patient. The most important thing is that you are honest with the patients and that you communicate with the patient.”

Research suggests that patients can only remember 30% of what their doctor shared with them and don’t dare to ask many questions. “This is something we want to change. We want patients to remember 100%. And we want to take their fear of asking questions.”

Formel Skin has already raised over 35 million from well-known VCs and has now set its sight on the Brazilian market.

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