The Debrief

Over the past couple of weeks, our communities broke down some major digital health issues and opportunities in building evidence strategies and designing clinical trials 

Every week, HealthXL communities connect to tackle the challenges in digital health. If you missed any of these meetings, here are some key takeaways from the past couple of weeks. 

Co-developing a digital therapeutic (DTx) with a drug is currently seen as a risk by pharma companies. However, DTx could actually be more threatening for pharma when marketed alone: if the DTx shows better results than a drug, it will become a competitor. If they are co-developed, they can find synergies instead.   

What we found: One of pharma’s concerns is the DTx finding more side effects of their drugs and, therefore, the pharmacovigilance implications of adding a software to the drug. Even though the combination could lead to a reduced drug dose, hence less side effects and better health outcomes, it is still hard to convince pharma. 

What makes for a successful partnership? While the value of DTx within mental health is being recognized, getting to commercialization and adoption is still to come. A recent report by Graphite and Reuters Events found that pharma’s “naturally risk-averse culture” is holding back its digital launches and 4% of pharma’s digital product launches proved successful. 

What we found: The high-level alignment of parties and their interests is vital. Success often comes from a shared common vision. Problems will arise, and effectively navigating them requires strong structures within the partnership, with clear roles and responsibilities. DTx and pharma can operate differently, but they need to find the right workflow. 

Interesting differences in the attitude of physicians to lifestyle modification based interventions was noted. 

What we found: With some evidence from the US suggesting that physicians were skeptical of how effective it can be or how well patients adhere to the guidance. In France, physicians have a bias towards the use of "day hospitals" for in person administration of lifestyle interventions leading to skepticism of virtual delivery. In Asia, the fear of losing patients from private clinics to virtual care providers can impede uptake of virtual care in cardiometabolic conditions.