The momentum behind the move to all things digital shows no sign of abating. Digital health tools were already on the rise before Covid, but it’s fair to say that the pandemic has accelerated innovation in this field and continues to have an impact on adoption of and investment in digital technologies.
Pre-pandemic, device makers that are not specifically active in digital health marketplace incorporated digital elements in their products, for example software in implants to permit remote monitoring or even reprogramming. Telehealth and disease management apps were available, but few doctors considered them as a treatment option and few patients made use of them.
Both trends have accelerated over the past couple of years. But it is not just the obvious advantages of remote monitoring or telehealth during a pandemic that have drawn investors to the digital health sector.
The speed of development and lower regulatory risk with digital health products versus conventional devices is attractive too. The biggest funding round in medtech so far this year went to the virtual care specialist Biofourmis. And Mindmaze and Viz AI both secured nine-figure investment for their digital therapeutics and AI-based diagnostic tech, respectively.
Digitisation of medical technologies promises better care for patients while simultaneously driving down costs. There are several reasons for this.
There is a growing appetite for apps. An estimated 260,000 ‘health’ apps are available on the market, and while they might not all offer clinical value, they do demonstrate the desire to empower patients to take charge of their own health. 70% of patient groups say their members use at least one app to manage their condition.
Digital tools are also making access to trials quicker and easier for participants. Home-based, remote trials are widely predicted to be a side-effect of the pandemic that is here to stay, and are a key reason why many paused trials were able to restart mid-pandemic. Not every trial can be managed remotely, but the ability to bring the trial to the patient is a step forward in the democratisation of clinical research.
Aggregating patients’ data to give them a clear view of their own health, or connecting networks of providers to enhance collaboration and innovation, is providing patients with a more holistic understanding of matters surrounding their health. Data integration (combined with machine learning) is also helping to meet those demands.
However, for the trend towards digitalisation to be successful, it will need careful management. Platforms and technologies must be altered so that they are interoperable and there is better communication between patients and doctors, as well as between healthcare workers in, for example, hospitals.
If a product cannot communicate easily with an existing system; if it fits in with one part of a hospital but not another; or it cannot work with a neighbouring hospital or the primary caregivers who refer patients to the hospital, it will bring very little to the table. Standards for the interoperability of digitised devices need to be set and adhered to by medtech, big tech, venture capitalists, healthcare providers and payers alike, in the UK, across Europe and internationally.
Integration of new technology into existing workflows must be assured to maximise uptake. If digitisation is pushed through too quickly for healthcare providers to cope with the transition, adoption of new technology will be patchy at best.
Those seeking to attract funding and to successfully bring to market commercially viable digital devices need to differentiate themselves from the competition. But they also need to ensure that they are delivering tools that will help healthcare providers improve the service they provide to patients, and help patients help themselves.
It is not just the digital health marketplace that benefitted during Covid. Diagnostic makers also enjoyed extraordinary success across 2020 and 2021. And while a decline in Covid test sales to 2023 is expected as the pandemic eases, there has still been an opportunity for the development of new assays to aid triage, the latest of which is Roche’s cobas Sars-Cov2 DuoA PCR test which measures viral load to identify infected patients earlier and aid the swift administration of antivirals.
Some areas of the medtech industry were not so fortunate over the pandemic, with makers of surgical, orthopaedic, ophthalmic and dental technologies suffering particularly badly in 2020. The good news is that these segments are forecast to pick up from this year, and grow steadily thereafter.
Indeed looking at the digital health marketplace as a whole it will soon be worth three quarters of a trillion dollars and the latest consensus forecast data to 2028 from Evaluate Vantage suggests that it’s likely to grow at 5% a year, with in vitro diagnostic technology set to be the largest segment.
By Elizabeth Cairns, Evaluate Vantage and Carolyn Hall, Director – Thought Leadership, Evaluate