Digital Therapeutics

Digital health products are becoming integral to the

• prevention,
• diagnosis,
• treatment, and
• management of health and disease.

Not all digital health products provide the same benefits and fall in the same category though, and there is some confusion about the new terminology, such as Digital Medicines and Digital Therapeutics (DTx), which are an emerging class of digital health products with clinical evidence and real-world outcomes. These DTx have the potential to significantly improve many medical conditions, both in mental health as well as physical health.

Although there are only few reimbursed DTx products in Europe so far, there is now a clear acceleration of the demand for this type of solutions; it is a very fast-growing market, with an expected CAGR of 21% just before the Covid area – which has in the meantime considerably accelerated the demand and clearance for such products.

DTx would in theory benefit all stakeholders

• patients who could better manage their condition and be effectively treated remotely while in some cases being monitored 24/7,
• physicians could better follow-up with their patients and access relevant structured medical data,
• payors could ensure that patients get better outcomes while overall reducing healthcare costs.

However, there are still challenges ahead as they require doctors to be convinced of their benefits in order to prescribe them to their patients. We will have a closer look at these systems and present some of the best use cases.