Pharma Digital Health: A Rapid Review of 2024 Trends

As we wrap up another year, it’s clear that pharma and digital health have made significant strides. Below are six key trends shaping the future of this industry, illustrated with several key examples for each one

1. Expanding Role of Digital Therapeutics (DTx) and Companion Apps

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly focusing their DTx solutions on supporting existing drug therapies and enhancing patient adherence, rather than pursuing standalone reimbursement. This indicates an opportunistic stance in adopting the tech, tempered by a reticence to radically shift their business model:

• Sanofi's recent expansion of its partnership with BrightInsight, will accelerate the development and scaling of companion drug apps, for various major specialty therapies.
• Bayer's acquisition of Cara Care for IBS, a holistic digital therapeutic addressing diet, mental health, and physical symptoms, very much aligns with their gastroenterology expertise and medicinal products
• Otsuka Precision Health and Click Therapeutics launched Rejoyn?, an FDA-cleared digital therapeutic for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). And not so coincidentally Otsuka have a clinical focus on MDD, developing at least one drug in this area

2. Pharma is Going DTC (Digital-to-Consumer)

Some pharmaceutical companies are moving closer to direct relationships with patients, offering telehealth services, prescriptions, and in some cases, home delivery of medications. This navigates a fine line between providing accessible care and avoiding conflicts of interest. We are likely to see more companies do this in 2025:

• Eli Lilly launched LillyDirect?, a 'Digital Health' experience.? The initiative offers US patients with diabetes, obesity, and migraines access to healthcare providers and home delivery of Lilly medications. And in December they partnered with telehealth firm Ro to offer a seamless 'Diagnosis to Delivery' model for weight loss drug, Zepbound, integrating LillyDirect with Ro's platform for virtual consultations, prescriptions, and home delivery
• Later in the year Pfizer launched PfizerForAll, a digital platform to simplify healthcare access in the US by offering telehealth visits, prescription deliveries, vaccine appointments, and patient support services.? The platform aims to streamline the patient experience for conditions like migraines, COVID-19, and flu?

3. Increased AI-Powered Diagnostics & Imaging Partnerships

Certain Pharma and Medtech collaborations are leveraging AI-based imaging tools to bolster diagnostic accuracy, speed, and accessibility. These solutions directly support both diagnostic and therapeutic areas that the companies are involved with. Again another example of Pharma leveraging tech to optimize their existing business model:

• Bayer is Big Pharma but also has a big radiology division and have been very actively partnering, recently with Envisionit Deep AI to enhance radiology diagnostics and with Subtle Medical, using AI to reduce MRI contrast doses. They also partnered with Alara Imaging to standardize CT scan radiation doses to help minimize unnecessary exposure. Oh and Bayer and Rad AI partnered on generative AI radiology workflow solutions
• This year Roche expanded its digital pathology platform with 20 AI algorithms from eight partners to improve cancer detection for prostate, breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, enhancing pathologists' workflows and supporting precision medicine
• Bristol Myers Squibb and Carebot announced an AI-powered pilot for lung lesion detection on chest X-rays at hospitals in the Czech Republic

4. AI in Drug Discovery & Development Becoming Increasingly Specialized

Pharma companies have long used AI to identify new drug targets, accelerate compound screening, and streamline drug development. However, the focus is growing more specialized, targeting rare diseases, genetic markers, and complex biological treatments. If this works out it could mean more treatments, for more diseases, delivered faster:

• Sanofi and Healx collaborate using AI to identify new Rare Disease targets for a specific drug asset, leveraging Healx’s Healnet platform to analyze biological data
• Tevogen Bio partnered with Microsoft to develop targeted HPV cancer treatments by leveraging AI to train immune cells to destroy infected cells
• AstraZeneca partnered with Immunai to enhance cancer drug trials using its AI platform, which maps the immune system to improve clinical decision-making and accelerate immunotherapy development
• Servier and Aitia expanded their collaboration to develop new treatments for Glioma using Aitia's Gemini Digital Twins, which use AI to simulate disease progression and drug responses based on multi-omic data, enabling high-throughput virtual experiments

5. Growing Emphasis on Real-World Data (RWD)

Pharma companies are using real-world data to refine clinical trial design, personalize therapies, and validate effectiveness beyond controlled clinical settings. This data from actual clinical practice can offer richer insights into treatment outcomes, informing drug approvals and reimbursement strategies

• Takeda expanded its oncology collaboration with Tempus AI to leverage Tempus' real-world datasets and AI biological modeling capabilities, to accelerate Takeda's cancer therapy development
• Regeneron joined Koneksa’s LEARNS trial to access real-time data on digital biomarkers for Parkinson's disease, using smartphones and wearables to track disease progression and support therapy development
• Otsuka Pharma and Verily launched "My Mental Health Journey," a longitudinal real-world digital study to better understand depression, aiming to advance personalized treatments for depression

6. GenAI & Large Language Models are Transforming Pharma Processes

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly adopting generative AI platforms for content creation, regulatory document generation, internal collaboration, and patient recruitment. AI could drastically shorten clinical timelines while improving business efficiency and more importantly effectiveness

• Sanofi in collaboration with OpenAI and Formation Bio introduced Muse, an AI tool to streamline patient recruitment for clinical trials by identifying ideal profiles, generating materials, and ensuring regulatory compliance
• Pfizer developed a new generative AI platform called ‘Charlie’.?It is being used to help with content creation and editing, fact-checking and legal reviews and to support employee collaboration?
• Moderna expanded its partnership with OpenAI to provide its employees with ChatGPT Enterprise, enabling the creation of customizable GPTs to enhance and overhaul various business processes, with plans to extend this to 3000 employees to further drive an AI-centric culture

In Summary

Pharma is accelerating its push into digital therapeutics, with a heavy focus on companion apps that enhance existing treatments. Direct-to-consumer approaches are gaining momentum, and in 2025, we’re likely to see more companies aiming to own the entire care journey, from telehealth consultations right through to home medication delivery. Artificial Intelligence continues to be a major focus, in streamlining diagnostics, making drug discovery more targeted, and fueling new real-world data applications aiming to reshape clinical development. Meanwhile, the hope is that generative AI will transform business processes and speed up patient recruitment.

The ultimate objective is clear: better patient outcomes and experiences, along with a more efficient back office. And if even only part of this vision takes hold, pharma’s profits are set to grow even larger in the short term, although their unwillingness to radically shift their business model may bite them in the long term.