Digital Therapeutics Partnerships with Pharmaceutical Companies Panel Discussion Giant Health 30th November, 2021

On the morning of Day 1 of the Giant Health Conference following the key note address, the main stage action kicks off with a very relevant and timely panel discussion. Our expert panel will look at the deployment of Digital Therapeutics (DTx) partnerships that are striving to go beyond the pill from the perspective of Pharma. This session will be curated by Research2Guidance and moderated by Anton Kannemeyer, Partnerships Manager at Research2Guidance. On our expert panel to discuss this fascinating topic will be Dr. Nikos Green, Senior Venture Architect at RoxHealth, Johannes Munding, Associate Director of Digital Health Solutions at Novartis and Susanne Gruber, VP Pharma Partnerships at Sidekick Health.

This is a timely session given the current context where Healthcare Provision, Digital solutions and Pharmaceutical companies have never before had so much public expectation laid at their feet. The pandemic has been the world’s most disruptive force in many decades. It has revealed the degree to which states and healthcare systems were ill prepared for a pandemic of such complexity and scale. A heavy price was paid for the disinvestment in healthcare capacities that had been going on for many years.

The pandemic has left in its wake very vulnerable healthcare systems in most developed countries, even where vaccination has slowed down the virus advance, at least for the time being. Tough challenges remain for the short, mid and long terms.

For a start, there are severe medical, paramedical, pharmacy and caring staff shortages, those most exposed throughout the pandemic. In the UK alone, there is a doctor shortfall of almost 50,000. (British Medical Association). It is important to note that estimates of how many healthcare workers lost their lives from Covid run anywhere between 80,000 and 180,000. So apart from the tragedy of those numbers, the situation renders attracting and retaining staff a difficult task.

Another challenge for healthcare is how to deal with the huge backlog of non-coronavirus cases postponed during the pandemic that cannot be put off for much longer. With large swathes of the world still unvaccinated, and the threat of vaccine resistant virus variants an all too plausible scenario, the worst is far from over for healthcare systems. Many experts in pandemics talk of the next one being a question of when, rather than if.

Pharmaceutical companies, despite facing huge pressure to produce successful vaccines and having to manage the considerable constraints of major global supply chain crises, have weathered the storm, with most seeing robust profit lines and better public profiles. (Economist Intelligence Unit).

But as with all disruptive forces, the pandemic also brought with in higher levels of innovation, accelerations in innovation and R + D scalings, and much increased adoption of digital solutions across sectors. With regards to pharma companies, according to Mckinsey & Co, bio-pharma advanced more in the last 10 months than in the last 10 years, showing that where there is a will, there is a way.

It is thus timely to explore to what extent the deployment of Digital Therapeutics can mitigate, or even resolve, some of these healthcare challenges and to what extent partnering with pharmaceutical companies, and others, can accelerate larger scale and better scoped adoption of DTx geared to impact.

Ecosystems and partnerships not bogged down by excessive regulatory limitations are hailed by many experts as the way to go in creating the optimum conditions for faster resolutions to meet the challenges faced by global healthcare in the present, and also in the future. The success story of the mRNA Covid Vaccine development whose lab to jab times were sped up exponentially by multilateral facilitation and collaboration, in particular with states and regulators, is a salient example of what can be achieved when working together.

It is hard to imagine going back pre-pandemic scenarios so what exactly are pharmaceutical companies going to change going forward to ensure faster development and delivery to market of solutions? What will be the nature of collaborations and partnerships for the coming future between pharma companies and digital therapeutics innovators? How will forthcoming regulations on data and digital impact adoption?

Join us for this fascinating discussion on Monday 30th November, 2021 at 9.50 am.

Teresa Murray for Giant Health