Heart Health Intelligence scored $2.2 million in seed funding to develop its connected toilet seat aimed at collecting cardiac data points.

This new infusion of cash was led by Bemis Manufacturing Company, with participation from LaunchNY, RIT Venture Fund, Tech Coast Angels, Excell Partners and Impact Capital of New York. Bemis Manufacturing will be teaming up with the startup to produce the seats.

WHAT THEY DO

The Rochester, New York-based startup is focused on developing the Heart Seat, which combines a toilet seat with a cardiovascular monitoring system. Patients can use the tech and have their heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, ECG and blood oxygenation checked.

The tool is designed to go into homes, but the data can be used in various ways. The data can be sent to families, caregivers and healthcare providers – or to patients with heart failure. Additionally, the seat can detect deterioration and send out alerts.

Currently the tool is still under development. However, last year the company teamed up with the University of Rochester Medical to test the tech. The results from this study were published in JMIR and found that, over an eight-week period, the system demonstrated clinical-grade accuracy for measurements of blood pressure, stroke volume and blood oxygenation when compared with their respective gold standards.

WHAT IS IT FOR?

The new funds will be used to help the technology go through the process of FDA clearance, then get it up and running for commercialization.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Individuals are increasingly beginning to monitor heart health outside the home. One of the most popular ways to do this is through wearable technology. In 2018, Apple landed FDA clearance for both an atrial fibrillation-detecting algorithm and an ECG that will be built into the company’s Series 4 Apple Watch.

In terms of clinical-grade technology, just last week Swiss startup Aktiia scored $6.1 million to bring its continuous-blood-pressure-monitoring bracelet to market.

ON THE RECORD

“We are going to make a tangible difference in the lives of patients and healthcare providers,” Nicholas Conn, Heart Health Intelligence CEO, said in a statement. “The strong partnerships we are forming now continue to add to our momentum and I’m incredibly excited for all the good that our technology has the potential do.”

Pear Therapeutics announced this morning that Somryst, its prescription digital therapeutic for adults with chronic insomnia, has received marketing authorization from the FDA.

The treatment provides cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) alongside personalized, algorithm-generated sleep restriction recommendations. The digital therapeutic was reviewed through the agency’s 510(k) pathway and, notably, is also the first product to pass through the FDA’s experimental Software Precertification Pilot Program.

Somryst’s tailored CBTi is delivered over the course of nine weeks through a smartphone, tablet or similar device. It is intended to treat the symptoms of patients aged 22 years or older with chronic insomnia, and is only available by prescription from a licensed healthcare provider.

Pear’s regulatory submission was accompanied by two randomized controlled trials of the digital therapeutic, the company said in its announcement. The first, published in JAMA Psychiatry, measured six- and 12-month insomnia symptoms among 303 patients assigned the treatment or an active control. The second, published in Lancet Psychiatry, involved 1,149 patients, and demonstrated benefits over controls persisting as long as 12 months among those assigned the 9-week treatment.

While the company doesn’t yet have a time line for when the product will hit the market, Dr. Yuri Maricich, Chief Medical Officer at Pear, said that Pear’s goal is to follow a commercialization and distribution model roughly similar to those of its other two products, reSET and reSET-O. In this approach, a provider would send the prescription to Pear’s “Patient Service Center,” which staffs specialists who guide the patient through downloading the app through the App Store or Google Play Store, entering their prescription access code and then using the app-based therapy itself.

WHY IT MATTERS

CBTi is a listed as a first-line treatment for chronic insomnia in clinical guidelines from the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine alike. The downside, Maricich said, is that the demand for these behavioral health treatments greatly outstrip the 500 clinicians certified to provide CBTi in the U.S.

“The majority of patients aren’t able to get treatment,” he said. “Even if you are lucky enough to get [it], we often hear both from the clinicians, as well as patients, that they have a waiting list that oftentimes stretches beyond a year. So there’s a really huge need.”

As a digital treatment, Somryst can be easily scaled and delivered to patients who otherwise might have been prescribed a more traditional drug for their medication. With this in mind, he said that the company will be focusing on raising awareness of the product among a broad range of providers, and primary care doctors in particular.

“Primary care clinicians in general actually treat the bulk of chronic insomnia by volume, but typically because they haven’t had good treatment options … they’ll just say, ‘Well, why don’t you take this pill for a little bit?’ because they just don’t have access,” Maricich said. “I think the main point here is that there is going to be a broad group of clinicians who will now have something they can actually provide, that they know is the recommended [treatment]. That will just be part of [Pear’s] overall approach: How do we make sure clinicians across specialty types know about it and have access?”

For Pear, Maricich said that Somryst clearance represents a major portfolio expansion beyond addiction treatment and into the broader neurobehavioral intervention space. For digital health at large, the digital therapeutic is now the first and only product put through the ringer of the Precertification Program’s 1.0 Working Model.

Maricich spoke at length about what the Pre-Cert process was like for Pear and what others might expect when the pathway is opened to the public (check back with MobiHealthNews tomorrow for a full Q&A write-up). While the prescription digital therapeutics company’s experience with the early Working Model and a simultaneous 510(k) was certainly atypical, he did note that the program’s “Excellence Assessments” will likely be more expansive than some might be expecting.

“If a company was getting ready to go to an Excellence Appraisal and thought, 'Oh, we just need our quality people to show up, this is just an overview of our quality systems,’ it was much larger than that,” he said. “It was, writ large, what does high-quality software that impacts health look like? And, how do we think about that, not just from a quality perspective, but from a clinical perspective, from an organizational level around monitoring and refining our actual development process in an agile way to make the software better over time.”

THE LARGER TREND

Pear announced that Somryst would be putting the FDA’s experimental framework through its paces back in July, and was tapped to participate in the pilot as far back as 2017. The program itself was scheduled to conclude its one-year trial of the Working Model with the new decade, although the last update from the agency came with its six-month check-in during the summer.

Pear itself went through a bit of a shakeup last fall when its digital-therapeutics commercialization arrangement with Novartis’ Sandoz came to an abrupt end. However, the company has been steadfast in its ability to commercialize and distribute its product without the pharma’s support, and even announced a flurry of tech acquisitions around the start of the new year.

ON THE RECORD

“The FDA’s authorization of our third PDT, Somryst, demonstrates our ongoing commitment to redefine disease treatment through the development of PDTs,” Dr. Corey McCann, president and CEO of Pear Therapeutics, said in a statement. “Now, more than ever, easily-accessible treatment options are imperative for patients suffering from chronic conditions. Pear has built the capabilities, pipeline, and platform to allow us to build PDTs that help patients across a variety of disease areas.”

• Volunteers from Amazon, Alphabet, Apple and other tech companies worked every night for a week to make a website called covidnearyou.
• The team collaborated closely with epidemiologists, including John Brownstein from Boston Children’s Hospital.
• covidnearyou.org asks healthy and sick people to share their symptoms.

In the last week, a group of thirty volunteers from tech companies like Apple, Amazon and Alphabet put together a website called “covidnearyou” that aims to track the coronavirus as it spreads.

The idea started when Prem Ramaswami, the head of product at Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs, and his wife, started feeling sick more than a week ago. When he tried to get a test for the coronavirus, his doctor told him that would not be possible. According to Ramaswami, he was denied access to the test because he hadn’t been in touch with anyone who had tested positive.

Ramaswami, who previously worked on health projects at Google, wondered how he could help others in the same boat. So he got in touch with John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, to volunteer his services. Brownstein is well-known to the tech world as he has consulted with companies like Google and Uber on public health projects for years, including the Google Flu Project, which tracked the spread of the flu.

Once they jumped on a call, Brownstein informed him about a website that was already underway to monitor influenza, called “flunearyou.” The pair decided to co-opt the underlying technology for better COVID-19 monitoring, given the current gap in testing. That led to the idea of developing “covidnearyou.”

But Ramaswami realized he couldn’t do it on his own. So he pulled together a group of friends and acquaintances from the tech world to help out. Employees from Apple, Amazon, MongoDB, CloudFlare, Alphabet and other tech companies agreed to build the site, but defer to the public health experts on the content.

“I’m a tech guy, not a doctor,” said Ramaswami, who is more focused on civic-tech these days at Sidewalk Labs. “We are here to help the medical experts and take their direction.”

After a week of work, the team, which includes designers, engineers and marketers, are now ready to go live with covidnearyou.org. The site is recruiting people from across the U.S. to share whether they’re experiencing symptoms or not, as well as some demographic information.

If they can get enough people to use the site – and the goal is to reach 100,000 users – they hope to fill in some of the gaps in reporting due to the lack of testing.

“Without widespread testing, we don’t have a clear picture of where the illness is, ” Brownstein explained. “We are basically flying blind.”

Healthy individuals who participate are asked to fill out information about their gender, age and zipcode, and whether they’ve received a flu vaccine. The site also includes a map of the various states and shows where the outbreaks are.

Those who are feeling sick are prompted to describe their symptoms, such as fever, a cough, or shortness of breath. They are also asked if they’ve traveled recently, and if they’ve been in direct contact with anyone diagnosed with COVID-19.

In future iterations, the team plans to add more symptoms as medical professionals release more information about the coronavirus. For instance, some doctors are now saying such as digestive ailments and lack of smell should be added the list that the public should know about, alongside fever and respiratory issues.

According to Brownstein, the data will be shared with public health groups and not with the various tech companies.

As of this morning, about 10,000 people had provided their health status to covidnearyou, said Brownstein, and the majority of them are healthy. If usage keeps growing, he believes that the data-set will be large enough to be useful to public health officials.

The project’s volunteers say they are continuing to work on the site while juggling their day jobs.

“Many of us are working on this from 3pm to 9pm after work, and our spouses are helping take on the load with childcare,” said Ramaswami. “But people in tech are hungry to help out right now.”

Evidation Health, a technology company that generates insights from real-world behavioral data collected through devices, has kicked off a new effort to better understand individuals’ health behaviors and concerns throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yesterday the company announced that it has recruited 100,258 people living in the U.S. into a longitudinal survey through the Achievement app, Evidation’s patient engagement and rewards product for health organization customers.

These participants – a subsample of the app’s nearly four million users who live in all 50 states and the District of Columbia – will be regularly providing their COVID-19 perceptions, changes in their behavior and any device-tracked activity data that is synced with the app.

“One of the great things about Achievement is our ability to layer permissioned data from connected devices and apps with self-reported outcomes we capture through surveys,“ Ernesto Ramirez, senior data scientist at Evidation Health, told MobiHealthNews in an email. "The trust and transparency we build with our members allows us to conduct novel research into the relationship between person-generated health data and important health conditions and outcomes like influenza and COVID-19.

The digital survey has already collected some baseline data in its first few days, the company wrote on its website. For instance, of respondents answering between March 12 and March 15 fewer (23%) said they believed that the U.S. was prepared or very prepared for the outbreak (23%), while roughly half ( said they believed that the virus represented a major threat to public health. Respondents said that they were generally washing their hands more frequently during the previous seven days (64%), but less often reported that they were avoiding large gatherings (34%).

There were also differences in replies between participants who did or did not have health insurance. The latter group more often said that they would not seek care if they developed coronavirus symptoms (8% versus 21%), and those who would more often said that they would most likely go to an emergency room (19% versus 26%).

A state-by-state breakdown of participant responses also illustrated differences in opinion among the populace. Here, Evidation highlighted the contrast between Washington, D.C. and Louisiana, which as of March 15 had the third- and fourth-highest number of cases per 100,000 residents. The former’s respondents were the least assured in the country’s preparedness for the disease and most often reported preventive behavior changes, while the latter’s residents were among the most confident, and did not change their behaviors to a similar extent.

WHY IT MATTERS

The COVID-19 pandemic is escalating at a rapid pace, with the CDC disclosing thousands of new cases reported within the last day alone. Evidation’s approach to polling can quickly yield a large quantity of information from generally decentralized responders, and complement those qualitative responses with quantitative activity data collected by their devices.

"Our ability to tap into a large virtual cohort of Americans shows the potential for leveraging new models of engagement and data collection not only for research purposes but meaningful and rapidly scalable public health surveillance,” Ramirez said. “And because we’re able to communicate with our members, we can track how behaviors and attitudes change over time as social and health dynamics shift in the future.”

With that being said, the strengths of these types of large, app-based studies can come at a cost. According to a recent meta-analysis of eight digital studies with similar designs, these approaches are often subject to low retention rates and participant samples that often skew younger and whiter than the general population.

THE LARGER TREND

Even in the earlier days of COVID-19’s U.S. spread, health organizations and startups alike had developed a number of data-driven tools to track the outbreak. In February, Boston Children’s Hospital’s John Brownstein and Buoy Health’s CEO Dr. Andrew Le described one such example that combines the former’s data science tools with the latter’s triaging chatbot.

For its own part, Evidation Health has a hefty collection of app-based health studies both logged and ongoing. Some of these have also been conducted in collaboration with big names. It was just a few weeks ago that its name was attached to Apple and Johnson & Johnson’s Heartline Study of Medicare seniors.

Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb has become the latest large drugmaker to team up with a maker of digital therapeutics, with an aim to create programs for cancer patients.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Voluntis said Tuesday that it would work with New York-based BMS to use its Theraxium Oncology system to create and investigate the programs, centered on a mobile app for patients, with the goal of supporting management of symptoms and remote monitoring by healthcare providers. The app would use algorithms that would provide patients with real-time recommendations for self-management of symptoms related to therapy. The companies also plan to investigate how it would allow patients to communicate more effectively with their providers, keep track of their symptoms and receive personalized care plans.

In a phone interview, Voluntis CEO Pierre Leurent declined to disclose which BMS drugs the partnership will focus on. “But this partnership is pretty broad, and our platform is applicable to a variety of assets,” he said. “The goal we have with this platform is to accommodate these different use cases.”

BMS has a diverse portfolio of oncology drugs, especially since its acquisition last year of Celgene. Key components of that portfolio include the PD-1 inhibitor Opdivo (nivolumab), the CTLA-4 inhibitor Yervoy (ipilimumab); and the immunomodulating drugs Thalomid (thalidomide), Revlimid (lenalidomide) and Pomalyst (pomalyst). Therapies in development include CAR-T cells like lisocabtagene maraleucel for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and idecabtagene vicleucel for multiple myeloma, the latter of which is under a partnership with bluebird bio.

Voluntis has existing partnerships focused on oncology with AstraZeneca and Novartis, as well as partnerships outside of oncology with AbbVie, Roche and Sanofi. The digital therapeutic it developed with AstraZeneca, eCO, is designed for women undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer in clinical trials of Lynparza (olaparib) combined with cediranib. Voluntis and AstraZeneca won a Prix Galien award in 2018.

Partnerships between biopharma and digital therapeutics companies have not all been smooth sailing. In October, Novartis terminated a partnership with Pear Therapeutics, while Proteus Digital Health and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals ended their partnership in January.

However, COO Romain Marmot pointed to the company’s success with CoaguChek Link – its partnership with Roche on coagulation – as demonstrating its experience with operating on a large-scale basis.

“We have had to face our share of challenges, but we have learned through these collaborations what works and what doesn’t,” Marmot said in the phone interview.

Ride-hailing titans Uber and Lyft have each launched a suite of new services aimed at addressing social determinants of health (SDOH), according to Forbes. For context, SDOH refers to health-influencing factors outside clinical settings — such as access to transportation — that drive 80% of health outcomes.

Here’s an overview of the new services and what they mean for each ride-hailing giant’s healthcare play:

• Uber rolled out new patient-centric features, like multilingual notifications, opening up its nonemergency medical transportation (NEMT) services to a wider swath of patients. Uber’s new features aim to improve the NEMT patient experience, and include enhancements such as designated pickup spots, multilingual notifications, and scheduling for landline users. These updates expand the ride-hailing titan’s potential pool of users by making them available to patients who may have declined to use Uber due to cost or accessibility concerns in the past — such as the elderly or those without access to the Uber app or a smartphone.
• Meanwhile, Lyft is diversifying its SDOH-focused offerings through its tie-up with social care coordination startup Unite Us. Lyft’s partnership with Unite Us — a startup whose platform links healthcare organizations with social service providers — aims to make it easier for care providers to connect their patients with social services that impact an individual’s overall health. For example, if a physician connects a patient with a job recruiter and that patient lands a job interview, Lyft could be called on to provide this patient with a ride. The tie-up with Unite Us enhances the scope of Lyft’s SDOH-focused efforts by closing the gap between access to healthcare and access to social services — factors that both influence patients’ health.

And as Uber and Lyft continue proving that their services can help reduce transportation and care costs, we expect to see both brands secure more provider and insurer tie-ups. CareMore Health System — which manages Medicare Advantage and Medicaid populations in select states — partnered with Lyft to enable caregivers to schedule rides for their patients and saw savings of more than $1 million in one year by switching from traditional transportation services, such as taxis.

And Boston Medical Center experienced a similar result, reporting $500,000 in transportation savings by leveraging Uber’s NEMT services. As the ride-hailing titans continue proving the value of their services in reducing transportation costs, we expect to see insurers also pursue tie-ups with the likes of Uber and Lyft in an effort to ensure greater appointment adherence among their members. That’s because payers will likely be looking for ways to slash their share of costs stemming from poor health outcomes due to missed appointments — which cost the US healthcare system $150 billion annually.

Best Buy Co. is well-known for bringing computers and other gadgets back to life. Now, it wants to take care of its shoppers’ health as well.

The retailer’s strategy to beef up its fledgling health-care business will be a key focus of its investor meeting Wednesday in New York. The plan includes selling everything from fancy fitness machines to health-monitoring services for seniors. It could help Best Buy grab some of the $3.5 trillion market for health spending in the U.S. – while offsetting sluggishness in its main business of selling laptops, TVs and phones.

Best Buy Co. is well-known for bringing computers and other gadgets back to life. Now, it wants to take care of its shoppers’ health as well.

The retailer’s strategy to beef up its fledgling health-care business will be a key focus of its investor meeting Wednesday in New York. The plan includes selling everything from fancy fitness machines to health-monitoring services for seniors. It could help Best Buy grab some of the $3.5 trillion market for health spending in the U.S. – while offsetting sluggishness in its main business of selling laptops, TVs and phones.

The health-care push is an opportunity for new Chief Executive Officer Corie Barry to put her own stamp on the company and step out from the sizable shadow cast by her predecessor Hubert Joly, who brought Best Buy back from the brink seven years ago. Barry is betting that Best Buy can thrive as digital-health technology migrates from hospitals to homes, but she’ll have to move fast since the retailer is just one of many companies looking to capitalize.

“I am not saying we will own the whole health-care experience – we don’t want to,” Barry said in an interview. “But we are uniquely well-suited to be in people’s homes with technology. We can help with the tech side of health.”

Best Buy shares rose 1.5% to $68.41 at 9:42 a.m. in New York. The stock had gained 27% this year through Monday’s close, outpacing the increase of the S&P 500 Index.

Competition

Best Buy’s move into this space comes as Walmart Inc. has also stepped up its health-care ambitions, introducing low-cost medical clinics that offer primary-care services and also mental-health counseling. Another rival, Amazon.com Inc., paid $753 million for mail-order startup PillPack to get into the pharmacy business.

Best Buy wants to boost the revenue it gets from services like health care

Best Buy’s focus, meanwhile, is less on flu shots and more on the technology that underpins health-care services. There it faces challenges from tech giants including Google, Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., which are typically Best Buy’s partners.

The retailer has even hired a chief medical officer to spearhead it efforts, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. Daniel Grossman, a physician and veteran of medical-product maker Medtronic Plc who also practices at the Mayo Clinic, will join the company Oct. 1 and report to Asheesh Saksena, the president of Best Buy Health.

In the past year or so, Best Buy has spent upwards of $1 billion on acquisitions in the health space, most notably the $800 million purchase of GreatCall Inc., which sells mobile phones and emergency-response systems for older Americans. At the time, Joly called the senior market “white space waiting to be captured.” The number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to nearly double to 95 million by 2060 from 52 million in 2018.

Best Buy followed up this year with two more tuck-in deals, buying senior-focused health-services company Critical Signal Technologies as well as a small engineering group in Watertown, Massachusetts, that designs wearable sensor systems that can help seniors live longer in their homes by predicting when they’ve fallen and need medical assistance.

“It’s all about Grandma,” Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc., said in an interview. Because the company already is known as a seller of technology to consumers who need help figuring it all out, “it makes sense for Best Buy to offer this.”

The service part of the equation dovetails with Best Buy’s broader desire to expand its services revenue and lessen its dependence on products like video-game consoles, where demand can fluctuate and much-hyped gadgets can flop. The company now offers an annual service plan that promises to fix any product you own, no matter where it was purchased.

Services made up 6% of Best Buy’s U.S. revenue in its most recent quarter, up from 5% at the end of its last fiscal year. But it’s still a small slice of the overall business.

Simplicity, Trust

“People are spending less money on stuff,” Brian Owens, an analyst at Kantar Consulting, said. “Retailers need to invest in alternative revenue streams that provide services and experiences. As you evolve into health care, the big opportunity is simplicity. And people trust Best Buy.”

Products will also play into the strategy: Best Buy will put internet-connected fitness devices from brands like NordicTrack and ProForm into just under 100 stores in time for the holiday shopping season. Like other retailers, it also sells fitness trackers and products like the Owlet Smart Sock, which wraps around infants’ feet and tracks their sleep patterns and heart rates.

Not everything has worked so far, however. A Best Buy pilot program called Assured Living, which aimed to outfit seniors’ homes with a complex network of smart-home gadgets and sensors that caregivers could monitor, was deemed too difficult to sell in retail stores and has been reconfigured. Best Buy will also need to find more partners, like health-insurance companies, that can help promote the retailer’s offerings to their existing customers.

Investors will look for more details at the presentation, particularly a sense of how big this business can be – and how much it can help offset any slowdown in electronics sales.

“We think the market doubts the durability of its core business,” Morgan Stanley’s Gutman said. “A next big thing is necessary.”

• Amazon just launched Amazon Care, a virtual primary care clinic with an option for nurses to visit employees in the home.
• It’s described as a new benefit for employees that offers “the best of both virtual and in-person care.”
• The company says it’s a pilot for employees in the Seattle area.

Amazon has launched a virtual health clinic with in-home follow-ups for employees in Seattle, dubbed Amazon Care.

The company announced the program on a web site, Amazon.care, that is currently publicly accessible but did not formally announce the news outside the company. “Amazon Care is a benefit being piloted for Amazon employees and their families in the Seattle area,” the website reads.

CNBC previously reported that Amazon was working on an employee health clinic for its Seattle-based employees. Those discussions kicked off last summer with a few hires, including a top Seattle doctor who ran a network of health clinics.

The clinic offers a combination of telemedicine and in-person services.

Its virtual offering includes an “in-app video visit with a doctor, nurse practitioner, or registered nurse … for advice, answers, diagnosis, treatment or referrals,” according to the web site. Employees will have an option to see a health provider via a mobile app or website, and they can text a nurse on any health topic in minutes. If an employee needs follow-up care, Amazon Care can arrange for a nurse to pay a visit at home.

Amazon will also prescribe medications via Amazon Care within a few hours, or offer a way for employees to pick them up at a preferred pharmacy.

Health care represents a $3.5 trillion sector for Amazon, which is looking at ways to bring in technology ranging from cloud computing to medical record technology.

The company in 2018 joined up with J.P. Morgan and Berkshire Hathaway for an effort, later called Haven, to explore how to move the needle on health-care expenses, without compromising quality, for their combined 1.2 million employees. It has a pharmacy group under PillPack, a company it acquired in mid-2018, and a research and development group sometimes referred to as Grand Challenge or 1492. CNBC reported earlier this week that the company is working on wireless earbuds with some health and fitness-tracking features, representing its first foray into the wearables space, and could introduce them as early as Wednesday.

CANNES, FRANCE—As Lions Health wrapped up another year, attendees sifted their notes and pulled out a few common threads. Technology, for one, but not just for the sake of using a shiny new tool. Or as one Sanofi exec put it, “Technology in the service of creativity.”

Marketing for good was another: aka, applying sharp communications brains to thorny public health problems. And then there were what Leigh Householder of Syneos Health called “secret messages,” exemplified in one campaign using crossword puzzle clues to spread the word about elder abuse in a way abusive family members might not catch—but their puzzling seniors would.

Overall? It’s a big world out there, but while appealing to global markets is key for pharma success, sometimes scaling up a creative local campaign is the way to really reach consumers and their doctors. Read on for more.

Tuesday

Doctors aren’t robots. Forget the charts and graphs, sales reps. Lead with your heart instead. That’s the message from Attila Cansun, a chief marketing officer at the newly rebranded P&G Health. Adapting a consumer marketing framework dubbed LoveBrands, Cansun and his team use a similar evaluation-and-revamp for the company’s doctor relationships. Story

The trust tour. GW Pharmaceuticals’ strategy for promoting its new cannabinoid drug Epidiolex to doctors sounded simple—earn their trust. But that’s easier said than done, no thanks to Kim Kardashian and her CBD-themed baby shower. So the company decided to take physicians to the source, namely its massive marijuana greenhouse, and show them cannabis-derived drugs are the real deal. Story

Get out the tissues. In the U.S., when seasonal sneezes come on, there’s no mystery about what to do next: Go to the drugstore for allergy medication. But what if that decision weren’t automatic? For Sanofi, as it launched its drug Allegra over the counter in Brazil, the answer was a mobile, augmented-reality campaign that could outfit users with red noses and watery eyes, similar to a Snapchat filter. It even animated sneezes, complete with droplets on the phone screen. Story

Hemophilia, humor and a hipster host. A reality show about hemophilia? And it’s a comedy? That would be Roche’s Genentech and ad agency 21 Gram’s new YouTube series called “Challenge Accepted.” Each 15-minute episode of the show, which premiered last week, features a different patient, coach and lesson targeting boys and young men with hemophilia. And it gets that lesson across using humor—and some magic tricks. Story

Monday

Big winner. It’s been a long three years since a pharma jury here handed out Grand Prix honors. But Monday night, GlaxoSmithKline and its ad agency McCann Health broke through with a mobile app called Breath of Life, used to detect chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in older adults in China. Eli Lilly, ViiV and Merck were among the other pharma winners. Story

No-ad advertising. Marketers need to think big. Like saving-the-world big. That’s the advice McCann Health’s global chief creative officer, Matt Eastwood, offered up to kick off the Cannes Lions Health confab Monday. And what that means to Eastwood is advertising that “may not look like advertising,” he said. “It’s advertising while doing good.” Story

New light on MS. Multiple sclerosis symptoms can be confusing: They differ person to person and even day to day for the same patients. Roche’s Floodlight Open app aims to clear that confusion for individuals by gathering personal health data every day and delivering real-world evidence for broader understanding of the disease. Story

Procter & Gamble showed up for Cannes Lions Health—and no wonder. The consumer packaged goods giant recently bought Merck KGaA’s consumer health division and rebranded it as P&G Health. Now, with teams of brand managers and concept demos on display here, it’s serving notice—at least to consumer healthcare companies—that it’s in play. Story

Sunday

Shorted shortlist? The Pharma Lions shortlist for 2019 lives up to its name. Just 31 entries cleared the finalist bar this year, down from 53 last year. But it’s still good news for the 12 multinational pharmas in the running—and for the pharma marketers looking to eye the industry’s best at Monday night’s awards. Story

Breakout scouts. As Cannes Lions Health kicked off its sixth year Monday, attendees were looking for some breakouts. As in breakthrough technology, creativity that breaks barriers, groundbreaking global ideas and a chance to finally break with the backhanded compliment that Lions Health work is “good for pharma.” Story

Escaping the same-same. Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s roster of literal A-list clients—Audi, Absolut and AstraZeneca—earns it center stage at Lions Health with a consumer-to-pharma creative crossover pitch. Hint? Brand differentiation is job one, and to do that, drugmakers need to pull cliché imagery out by the root. Story

Heard around the Palais

Winning outside the pharma and healthcare box. Johnson & Johnson and partners picked up the Grand Prix for Entertainment on Tuesday night for the film “5B.” The film about the nurses who founded and opened the first AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital, called Ward 5B in 1983 was picked up in May by Verizon for broader distribution and officially debuted June 14.
“5B” was created by Oscar-nominated director Dan Krauss and Saville Productions, known for its branded ad and film work. Saville tweeted in May after Verizon picked up “5B”: “The film is an HIV/AIDS crisis doc, commissioned by Johnson & Johnson, & shows how brands can authentically get behind global issues.” The film also won a Lions Health & Wellness silver statue on Monday night.

Stand up for nontraditional creative. Getting the green light for a brand film targeted at physicians at a pharma company is not for the faint of heart. Even the best ideas face multiple hurdles. AstraZeneca’s Lions Health award-winning “The Attack” film from last year highlighted the risk of repeat heart attacks, but was “that close” to being killed, said Kyriakos Konstantinidis, global strategy director at AstraZeneca. That’s what his boss told him later after winning four more global awards and industry impact, feedback and successes rolled in. It helped that Konstantinidis understood the vision that ad agency Havas Lynx brought with its ideas—his father had worked in the film industry and he grew up in and around it. Konstantinidis and Havas’ perseverance not only led to the creation of “The Attack,” but another new disease awareness film about cardiovascular risks around Type 2 diabetes that debuted recently. That patient-targeted film features a fisherman talking about the dangers of heart disease for Type 2 patients while his boat engine stalls, noting, “That’s how dangerous Type 2 diabetes is. It can cause your heart, your engine, to fail.” Konstantinidis urged the audience and pharma in general to take risks, albeit calculated ones with a strategy meets creativity foundation. “When you’re working in the pharmaceutical industry which has a very conservative approach to these sort of ideas, and you have your colleagues and peers coming to you (after the campaign) to say, apart from congratulations, ‘How did you do that? We want to copy that, we want to do the same brief. … What is the direction I need to take internally to make this a success in order to get the buy in?’ Then you know you have created a new area,” he said.

Fighting fake news. Panelists from Johnson & Johnson, McCann Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tackled the thorny problem of combating disinformation about vaccines. “It won’t be a TV campaign,” said Seema Kumar, J&J’s vice president for innovation in global health and science policy. Social media might play a role, but it’s really peer-to-peer and face-to-face that’s most important, the panelists decided. How to make that happen? “I’m challenging you,” panel moderator Rajesh Mirchandani, chief communications officer of the UN Foundation, told the audience.
In another session moderated by Conde Nast’s health chief Jen Mormile, Self editor in chief Carolyn Kylstra said their research found that while fake health news is not new—snake oil has been around a long time—it’s an issue because of social media and the rapid way disinformation now spreads, exacerbated by the lack of trust in authority figures. To combat it, Self is doubling down on health news editing, fact checking and vetting sources including celebrities. Meanwhile, co-panelist physician Esther Choo said doctors can do their part by going beyond traditional journal model of publish-and-done model. Today physicians need to follow up and make sure other scientists are misusing or misconstruing their work, she said.

VR for VR’s sake. Too many pharma marketers are making the mistake of recruiting tech tools for jobs they can’t do, or just using those tech tools poorly, said Sam Glassenberg, founder and CEO of LevelEx, which makes mobile games for physician training. For example, method-of-action presentations that used to be on big screens have moved into virtual reality. But zooming around a molecule in the virtual world while sitting still in the real one tends to make people nauseous. “The last thing you want a doctor to associate with your drug is nausea,” Glassenberg said. The moral of the story is to use VR only when it’s the only way to tell a particular story—and when you do, make it a spectator sport, he said.

Real-world evidence and technology are natural partners, said Alex Gilbert, head of partnerships at app developer Medopad, as he ticked off the ways his company’s working with life sciences companies such as Novartis to help collect the sort of patient data that can help drugmakers add new indications to existing drugs. “We’re now creating a living, breathing document of a patient,“ Gilbert said. “Your health record doesn’t have to be in the hospital. It’s here, created by you.”

Spending on real-world evidence has hit $1.48 billion, according to Simone Seymour, founder and CEO of the biometric textiles company Supa. Real-world evidence is “really hot right now” for personalizing products but “also for understanding how drugs are actually working.” Companies are tapping Supa’s tech—and its network of app users—to monitor and recruit patients for real-world evidence trials.

A GlaxoSmithKline toothpaste made to alleviate bleeding gums served as an example of why design should be at the heart of marketing in one session led by GSK’s vice president of design and innovation Andrew Barraclough. "It’s all about spitting blood,” he noted, and blood imagery appeared on everything from the platelet-like motif on the toothpaste tube to the smartphone screen that started bloody and cleared from there. Then, in the Czech Republic, GSK flipped the idea to promote blood donations. “Don’t spit blood, give blood” was the tagline for GSK’s #bloodforgood campaign there.

Dr. David Feinberg has spent his entire career caring for people’s health and wellbeing. And after years in the healthcare system, he now leads Google Health, which brings together groups from across Google and Alphabet that are using AI, product expertise and hardware to take on big healthcare challenges. We sat down with David to hear more about his pre-Google life, what he’s learned as a “Noogler” (new Googler), and what’s next for Google Health.

You joined Google after a career path that led you from child psychiatrist to hospital executive. Tell us how this journey brought you to Google Health.

I’m driven by the urgency to help people live longer, healthier lives. I started as a child psychiatrist at UCLA helping young patients with serious mental health needs. Over the course of my 25 years at UCLA, I moved from treating dozens of patients, to overseeing the UCLA health system and the more than a million patients in our care. Then, at Geisinger, I had the opportunity to support a community of more than 3 million patients.

I recall my mom being very confused by my logic of stepping away from clinical duties and moving toward administrative duties as a way of helping more people. However, in these roles, the impact lies in initiatives that have boosted patient experience, improved people’s access to healthcare, and (I hope!) helped people get more time back to live their lives.

When I began speaking with Google, I immediately saw the potential to help billions of people, in part because I believe Google is already a health company. It’s been in the company’s DNA from the start.

You say Google is already a health company. How so?

We’re already making strides in organizing and making health data more useful thanks to work being done by Cloud and AI teams. And looking across the rest of Google’s portfolio of helpful products, we’re already addressing aspects of people’s health. Search helps people answer everyday health questions, Maps helps get people to the nearest hospital, and other tools and products are addressing issues tangential to health—for instance, literacy, safer driving, and air pollution.

We already have the foundation, and I’m excited by the potential to tap into Google’s strengths, its brilliant people, and its amazing products to do more for people’s health (and lives).

I believe Google is already a health company. It’s been in the company’s DNA from the start.

This isn’t the first time Google has invested directly in health efforts. What has changed over the years about Google’s solving health-related problems?

Some of Google’s early efforts didn’t gain traction due to various challenges the entire industry was facing at the time. During this period, I was a hospital administrator and no one talked about interoperability—a term familiar to those of us in the industry today. We were only just starting to think about the behemoth task of adopting electronic health records and bringing health data online, which is why some of the early projects didn’t really get off the ground. Today we take some of this for granted as we navigate today’s more digitized healthcare systems.

The last few years have changed the healthcare landscape—offering up new opportunities and challenges. And in response, Google and Alphabet have invested in efforts that complement their strengths and put users, patients, and care providers first. Look no further than the promising AI research and mobile applications coming from Google and DeepMind Health, or Verily’s Project Baseline that is pushing the boundaries of what we think we know about human health. And there’s so much more we can and will do.

Speaking of AI, it features prominently in many of Google’s current health efforts. What’s next for this research?

There’s little doubt that AI will power the next wave of tools that can improve many facets of healthcare: delivery, access, and so much more.

When I consider the future of research, I see us continuing to be deliberate and thoughtful about sharing our findings with the research and medical communities, incorporating feedback, and generally making sure our work actually adds value to patients, doctors and care providers.

Of course, we have to work toward getting solutions out in the wild, and into the hands of the pathologist scanning slides for breast cancer, or the nurse scanning a patient’s record for the latest lab results on the go. But this needs to be executed safely, working with and listening to our users to ensure that we get this right.

Now that you’ve been here for six months, what’s been most surprising to you about Google or the team?

I can’t believe how fantastic it is to not wear a suit after decades of formal business attire. When I got the job I ended up donating most of my suits. I kept a few, you know, for weddings.

On a more serious note, I’m blown away every day by the teams I’m surrounded by, and the drive and commitment they have for the work they do. I’m thrilled to be a part of this team.

What’s your life motto?

I know this sounds cheesy, but there are three words I really do say every morning when I arrive in the parking lot for work: passion, humility, integrity. These are words that ground me, and also ground the work we are doing at Google Health.

Passion means we have to get this right, and feel that health is a cause worth fighting for, every day. We need humility, because at the end of the day, if we move too quickly or mess up, people’s lives are on the line. And integrity means that we should come to work with the aim of leaving the place—and the world—better than when we found it.

Healthcare Chatbots market has shown strong growth pattern in recent year’s majorly due to growing internet connectivity and rising adoption of smart devices, limited availability to council huge patient population, technology advancement in artificial intelligence, chatbots to reduce the healthcare cost, and increasing demand of virtual health assistance. In addition, social media supporting chatbot platforms, and integration of chatbots with the IOT further boosts the growth of this market during the forecast period.

Meticulous Research® in its latest publication on healthcare chatbots market states that the global healthcare chatbots market will increase at a CAGR of 25.1% from 2019 to 2025 to reach USD 703.2 million by 2024. Wherein, geographically, Europe commanded the largest share in this market followed by North America. The major share of Europe is mainly attributed to rise in awareness, investments in AI technology, conducive investment environment for AI startups working on development of AI-powered chatbots, and growing adoption of chatbots among healthcare providers.

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The report provides meticulous analysis of global healthcare chatbots market by segmenting it on the basis of component (software, services), mode of deployment (on premises, cloud), application (symptom checking, medication assistance & guidance (consultation), coverage & claims management, appointment scheduling), end user (patient, healthcare providers, healthcare payers). Wherein, among mode of deployment, on premise segment commanded the largest share in this market. The largest share of this segment is primarily attributed to ease of implementation and minimizing data breach.

The key players analyzed in the global healthcare chatbots market are Infermedica, Sensely, ADA Digital Health, Babylon, HealthTap, Your.MD, Baidu, Buoy Health PACT Care, Woebot Labs, and GYANT.

Browse in-depth Report on https://www.meticulousresearch.com/product/healthcare-chatbots-market-4962/

Key Topics Covered in This Report:
1. Introduction
1.1. Market Definition
1.2. Market Ecosystem
1.3. Currency and Limitations
1.3.1. Currency
1.3.2. Limitations
1.4. Key Stakeholders

2. Research Methodology
2.1. Research Process
2.1.1. Secondary Research
2.1.2. Primary Research
2.1.3. Market Size Estimation

3. Executive Summary
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Market Analysis, by Component
3.3. Market Analysis, by Mode of Deployment
3.4. Market Analysis, by Application
3.5. Market Analysis, by End User
3.6. Regional Market Analysis

4. Market Dynamics
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Drivers
4.2.1. Growing Internet Connectivity and Rising Adoption of Smart Devices
4.2.2. Limited Availability of Healthcare Resources to Address Growing Patient Population
4.2.3. Technology Advancements in Artificial Intelligence
4.2.4. Chatbots to Reduce Healthcare Cost
4.2.5. Increasing Demand of Virtual Health Assistance
4.3. Market Opportunities
4.3.1. Social Media Supporting the Chatbots Platform
4.3.2. Integrating Chatbots with the Iot
4.4. Market Challenges
4.4.1. Data Privacy Concerns
4.4.2. Lack of Expertise for Chatbot Development
4.4.3. Lack of Awareness and Misconceptions

5. Global Healthcare Chatbots Market, by Component
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Software
5.3. Service

6. Global Healthcare Chatbots Market, by Mode of Deployment
6.1. Introduction
6.2. On-Premise
6.3. Cloud-Based

7. Global Healthcare Chatbots Market, by Application
7.1. Introduction
7.2. Symptom Checking
7.3. Medication Assistance & Guidance (Consultation)
7.4. Coverage & Claims Management
7.5. Appointment Scheduling

8. Global Healthcare Chatbots Market, by End User
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Patients
8.3. Healthcare Providers
8.4. Healthcare Payers

9. Global Healthcare Chatbots Market, by Region
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Europe
9.2.1 UK
9.2.2. Germany
9.2.3. France
9.2.4. Rest of Europe (ROE)
9.3. North America
9.3.1. U.S.
9.3.2. Canada
9.4. Asia Pacific (APAC)
9.5. Rest of the World

10. Competitive Landscape
10.1. Introduction
10.1.1. Market Ranking Analysis
10.1.2. Growth Strategy Analysis

11. Company Profiles
11.1. Your.MD Limited
11.2. Baidu, Inc.
11.3. Sensely, Inc.
11.4. Babylon Healthcare Services Limited
11.5. HealthTap, Inc.
11.6. Buoy Health, Inc.
11.7. Infermedica
11.8. Ada Digital Health, Ltd.
11.9. PACT Care BV
11.10. Woebot Labs, Inc.
11.11. GYANT.COM, INC.

12. Appendix
12.1. Available Customization
12.2. Questionnaire

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