As a second state pursues legal action against makers and distributors of opioid painkillers, the focus has continued to be on overdose deaths from prescription opioids, now averaging 46 per day. Often overlooked in this conversation is the broader epidemic—the 50M U.S. adults who suffer from chronic pain, of which, more than 19.6M Americans are thought to have high-impact chronic pain (i.e., pain that frequently limits life or work activities).
The industry is at a unique crossroads: pharmaceutical and digital therapeutic (DTx) companies have begun to act on their ambition to advance digital therapeutics—but the path to successful alliances and, importantly, scale remains uncertain. As a follow up to our recent research on building pharma-DTx alliances, we sat down with two leaders to get their perspective
In 2018, digital health companies leveraging telemedicine received nearly $1.5B in investment. And although telemedicine adoption has grown across the board in recent years, the majority of users remain the urban and the young. How are different healthcare stakeholders thinking about tackling barriers to adoption, potential limitations of virtual care, and the evergreen question—how telemedicine should be paid for?
In 2017, the FDA launched its Digital Health Pre-Certification Program, also known as Pre-Cert, to work with innovators to develop a new approach to regulatory oversight for software-based medical technologies. Nearly two years into the pilot program, we wanted to get a status update and hear what’s in store for the program this year and beyond.
We've reported record levels of funding for digital health in four of the past five years. Q1 2019 shows signs that funding is leveling off compared to 2018's record-smashing $8.1B total. Here we take a deeper look at patterns in capital concentration in digital health. We line up our analysis with insights from Michael Greeley, our good friend who explored the trend towards capital concentration in VC overall in his recent blog post.
Since 2012, Podimetrics has worked tirelessly on a remote patient monitoring (RPM) solution to tackle the devastating problem of diabetic foot ulcers. With clinically validated sensor technology and care coordination, Podimetrics is now launching its product to additional commercial payers and at-risk providers. We’re thrilled to announce our participation in Podimetrics’ $13.4M Series B.
Lantern, a digital mental health company that became part of Rock Health’s portfolio in 2013, wound down its customer operations in July 2018. The startup had raised over $20M in its lifetime, and supported individuals experiencing anxiety, depression, and disordered eating. “The biggest reason we were unable to scale our services was we didn’t focus on one market,” explains Lantern co-founder and former CEO Alejandro Foung.
Our conviction that innovation requires elevating both digital health entrepreneurs and enterprise leaders is a key reason we’re thrilled to announce our newest corporate partner, Google Cloud.
Digital therapeutic and pharmaceutical companies are partnering to build, validate, and expand access to new, software-based solutions that improve patient outcomes. This is new territory with few precedents, and the strategies for building successful alliances remain uncertain. Drawing from numerous interviews with digital therapeutic, pharma, and health plan leaders, this research outlines how to overcome execution risks and build successful pharma-digital therapeutic alliances.
Coming off a record-smashing year for digital health funding in 2018, we see funding leveling off in the first quarter of 2019. Meanwhile, after a two-and-a-half-year drought, the digital health IPO market is heating up. Here’s the data and our take on how 2019 is shaking out so far for digital health.