In this article, Chris Gale, vice president, Greentarget, talks pharma, wearables and the necessity of community to make it all work.
Digital health
Pharmaceutical makers have a patient engagement problem. Wearable makers have a user engagement problem. Each could be the other’s solution. But first they need to understand exactly what they need to offer patients. It may be heresy, but clinical outcomes may not be the top priority. Studying employer driven programmes suggests wearable adoption today is not necessarily driven by clinical results, but rather for engagement. And the foundation of engagement is community.
Adherence software company Adherium’s vice president of marketing, Vik Panda recently noted: “Combining community and technology to support health goals is not a new discovery, as the combination deserves credit for the massive success of fitness companies like Strava, Aaptiv and Peloton. Data about your health is good, but you need a community to put it to work.”
New or not, community needs to be central.
Pharma hungers for wearables’ engagement and data
For drugmakers wearables are a tantalising option to address adherence. In industrialised countries therapy adherence can average at about 50%. Non-adherence represents an estimated $100 to $300 billion annual burden on the US healthcare system alone and according to the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union it is estimated to cost the EU €125 billion per year.1
Pharma companies also want access to patient data in as many forms as are available, beyond clinical trials. But therapy makers have historically been the furthest away from patients and their data, trying to peer over the heads of providers and payers in the front row seats. Roche’s $2 billion acquisition of Flatiron Health takes this on, acquiring a sophisticated data team working with 265 cancer clinics and six research centres.
Connected devices are of special interest. In clinical trials Adherium’s Hailie asthma and COPD solution — based around a sensor and nudges that integrate with inhalers — was found to support improved adherence by children by 180%. Overall an 80% reduction of acute asthma attacks was achieved.
This can represent a boon for drug companies, but wearables have many suiters.
Providers enter the wearables market
Klue, a software company focused on behaviour tracking and change, recently announced a partnership with Crossover Health in the latter’s clinics. Klue’s new Mindful Eating Messenger shows the power of artificial intelligence by recognising when, how fast and how much a person consumes through the nuanced movements of their wrist. Personalised, actionable micro-nudges to adopt specific consumption behaviour can be offered to empower users to create and hold onto new habits.
The ability of hospitals to manage this kind of data is turning a corner. Gray Matter Analytics announced the launch of its CoreTechs Analytics as a Service solution for providers. It leverages advanced machine learning to continuously improve data quality and allow providers to work with clean, dirty, structured and unstructured data — accelerating innovation.
….and then the payers
Most important are carriers. Insurtech startup Zipari has launched an insurance member Mobile App to enhance the health plan onboarding experience with biometric login verification, reduce administrative costs with chat-bots that guide members through a rich self-service user interface, help members find doctors and hospitals with integrated geo-location, and drive wellness initiatives. The core of Zipari’s software uses predictive analytics to provide customer profiles based on consumer interactions including through wearables.
Spurring this along is an effort to build a standard data ecosystem for insurance — including for formularies and potentially extending out to wearables data. Vericred is a healthcare data services company serving as a data translation layer between insurance carriers and insurtech companies. Today, they deliver plan design, rate, provider network and key formulary data for medical insurance product lines. As health insurance formularies become more restrictive, knowing if a drug is covered and how much a consumer will pay for that drug, is critical when shopping for a health plan.
Pharma companies have to work to collaborate from a position of strength. Wearables are the unique thread through it all with their ability to provide live streams, sitting on the wrist throughout the day. But wearable makers are having some difficulty keeping wearables on wrists, and they are looking to health.
Wearable makers see health as the solution
Wearables businesses are working to be more than providers of novelties that are used for a few months and then end up in the gadget drawer. Some have seemed nervous about health, Nokia sold its digital health business back to its founder. But many more are noting the enthusiasm of employers for building wellness programmes around wearables.
According to consultancy Endeavors Partners, this year it’s believed US employers will integrate more than 13 million wearable devices into wellness programmes and even in light of updated privacy laws in Europe there is still growth in workplace-based fitness tracking. When employers prioritise goals for wearables, 77% said they want to increase employee engagement with their health, a close second is the lower bar of wanting to add a fun element to a wellness programme, coming in at 74%. After that 62% said they want to see improvements in employee health, which is a higher expectation with the potential for clinical measures.
The problem of wearables’ waning novelty seems to recede when integrated into a community like that of a workplace. Fifty-four percent of employers said the majority of employees were using the wearables they were provided six months after programme launch and 95% said they would continue offering wearables.
On demand like this, the smartwatch market is expected to hit nearly $18 billion in 2020, according to IDC. Fitbit recently unveiled health-focused features with a heart-rate monitor and a sensor to estimate blood oxygen levels. It is launching audio coaching sessions and virtual trainers that can organise personalised fitness routines. The company has also expanded toward guided wellness programmes that counsel users to eat and sleep healthier. Apple and Xiaomi, plus Alphabet’s Android are making aggressive moves in health as well.
The shifts are dramatic. But in the end if drugmakers, wearables makers, providers and payers are to succeed, as the employer data shows, community will be key.
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