Over the coming months, these topics will be translated into meetings where our community will discuss the questions and provide feedback and insights.

We broke the conversation down into several topics, with each led by an advisory board member.

DTx: a Service or a Product?

Led by Edward Kliphuis, partner at Sofinnova Ventures. 

As the digital health market matures, the question of the right business model is still a tricky one to answer. At the core of that is the service vs. product debate. As with much of modern tech, almost all DTx are a service. Within health, traditional therapies are generally products.

The terminology and analogy between DTx and traditional Rx products create issues, particularly when it comes to sales channels. We have to revisit what a DTx is to understand the differences so we can play to its strengths rather than trying to square a circle. DTx - a service or a product? You can join the conversation here. 

Investments & Partnerships 
Led by Edward Kliphuis, partner at Sofinnova Ventures, and Francesca Wuttke, founder of nen. 

With more companies competing in digital health and the tech market predicted to be heading to a downturn, founders need to be sharper than ever when looking to raise capital. You can join our meeting on the do’s and don’ts when seeking capital for DTx here. 

A key roadmap to getting a DTx to market has been through collaboration, particularly with pharma and payers. This path, however, has rarely been straightforward. In a DTx-pharma partnership it is important to create parallel paths of procurement, legal, data privacy, compliance, etc, so how do you get there? We will break down the steps at our meeting on the Partnership Roadmap for Pharma - DTx Collaborations and another looking at Payers Partnerships for DTx,

But is this the right approach? In September, we dig into whether entering pharma partnerships is the wrong strategy for DTx Companies?

Evidence & Outcomes

Led by Owen McCarthy, co-founder of Medrhythms 

The broad definition of DTx isn’t just an issue with business models, it also makes it difficult to define the evidence generation standards. At some point, the industry may have to start segmenting and doing things differently depending on the solution, therapeutic area, etc. So how do we do that? We will be looking into evidence requirements for DTx payer adoption compared to drugs, which you can join here. 

HealthXL will also be hosting a meeting to see what we can learn from the pharma and medical device industries, which can be joined here. What works for companion DTx may not for a standalone therapeutic, where proving the clinical and health economics data can be hard. We will break down that and more as we look at evidence generation for standalone DTx. 

Adoption & Incentive Models

Led by Ronny Hashmonay, global head of business transformation at Novartis 

Getting the right business and evidence models ultimately needs to lead to people using a DTx. This, however, is much easier said than done. So how can we overcome the blockers to DTx adoption and measure success? In August, we will look at what successful adoption looks like and the use of data and analytics to define and measure adoption success in DTx. 

We will also be holding meetings to break down sustainable business models for DTx and the potential for new distribution channels. Our community will also be breaking down an intriguing question: If DTx companies operated like pharma companies, what would we have? 

Regulation 

Led by Anish Shindore, founder of GSD Health. 

As the DTx industry matures, regulation is becoming increasingly important. New models are emerging, but the approach remains open to interpretation depending on the therapeutic type, geography, and user group. This is a particular challenge for younger companies which may have limited resources.

So what label claims can you make about your DTx? We will be looking into that in July. 

We will also be holding two masterclasses, one on the regulation of DTx in the US and another on the approach in Europe.

Do you want to be part of the conversation and connect with other leaders in the DTx industry? Join the community here.

Are these the key topics that matter to our community? We would love to hear your thoughts.