Arlington, VA – Milan, Italy | 14 June 2022 – The Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA) and Healthware Group today announced a partnership to form a coalition convening thought leaders, policymakers, and professional and trade associations from across the European region to discuss and develop harmonised pathways for the recognition and scalability of digital therapeutics (DTx) at the local, national, and regional levels.
Developing this pan-European coalition will be a catalysing factor for the successful scaling of DTx therapies across countries. The first in-person meeting of the coalition will take place at Frontiers Health Global Conference this coming October in Milan, Italy. The coalition will focus on co-creating a vision for the future by analysing existing frameworks and infrastructure, sharing learnings, and developing recommendations to build an environment which ensures safe and effective DTx therapies can be accessible to patients regardless of where they live.
The partnership between Healthware and DTA is part of the Alliance’s Resource Partner program, a best-in-class network of leading experts in the rapidly evolving DTx industry who collaborate with DTA members to develop resources to advance digital therapeutics to transform global healthcare. Through this relationship, Healthware will also support DTA’s Europe Policy Task Group, which is focused on understanding and informing key aspects of the European policy landscape, including Health Technology Assessment frameworks, national funding, clinician engagement, and patient access and reimbursement pathways.
This announcement follows a longstanding collaboration between the two organisations, which began with DTA’s European launch at the Frontiers Health Global Conference in 2017. The development of a pan-European coalition will deepen DTA’s presence in the region and further its mission to broaden the understanding, adoption, and integration of clinically evaluated digital therapeutics into healthcare through education, advocacy, and cross-industry collaboration.
Healthware brings over a decade of experience and advocacy of digital health/digital therapeutics and an even longer history of developing digitally focused solutions for life sciences, payors and medical device companies. Healthware has also developed a corporate investment fund to support and invest in digital health companies and nurtures a vast digital health network and expertise. In the area of digital therapeutics specifically, Healthware Group supports both the research and development of DTx products as well as the go to market, access, system integration and adoption strategies in partnership with pharmaceutical companies, digital health and DTx companies and all ecosystem stakeholders.
“We have been partnering with Healthware since the inception of DTA and are thrilled to have their knowledge and expertise on board,” shared Megan Coder, DTA Chief Policy Officer. “As we jointly develop this coalition, our aim is to enable full scale access to digital therapeutics throughout Europe to transform critical aspects of patient care.”
Roberto Ascione, CEO of Healthware Group says:
“My team at Healthware has been helping shape the digital health landscape in Europe for many years, through our work with Frontiers Health and in direct support of our clients. We are excited to deepen our partnership with DTA to help shape the European policy landscape and ensure DTx companies can scale. We are huge advocates for the positive impact digital therapeutics can have on patients and believe that these solutions can help fill care gaps, augment care delivery and most importantly support patients in novel ways.”
Healthware and DTA look forward to building this coalition together and are seeking the active participation of key stakeholders across the region. Further announcements about the coalition and how to get involved will be rolling out soon.
About Digital Therapeutics Alliance
The Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA) is a global non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders with the mission of broadening the understanding, adoption, and integration of digital therapeutics into healthcare. DTA works to enable expanded access to high quality, evidence-based digital therapeutics for patients, clinicians, and payors to improve clinical and health economic outcomes. To learn more, please visit: www.dtxalliance.org or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Contact:
Hannah Fairman, Director of Communications
Email: hfairman@dtxalliance.org
Healthware Group
Healthware Group is a global health innovation and technology leader providing transformational advisory and technology services for commercial, medical, and R&D operations of life-sciences and digital health companies, combined with design and development of digital medicines and digital therapeutics products.
Proprietary software platforms, specialized media and educational assets as well as a corporate venturing arm, ensure accelerated product development, close integration within the innovation ecosystem, continuous pipeline development and superior market access capabilities.
Founded in Italy in 1997 by CEO and digital health pioneer Roberto Ascione, Healthware Group encompasses several vertical brands, including flagship commercial and medical communications agency Healthware International, media consultancy Healthware Engage, innovation consultancy Healthware Labs, and creative motion lab & virtual hybrid events specialist SWM and the digital therapeutics R&D partner and product portfolio organization, Healthware Therapeutics.
It also operates Healthware Ventures, the corporate investment arm that supports digital health start-ups with a focus on digital therapeutics and telehealth and is the co-host of the global leading digital health conference Frontiers Health.
Healthware has a team of 200+ professionals with main offices in Salerno, London, New York, Milan, Rome, Helsinki and, together with its joint venture partner Eversana Intouch, has a combined reach of 2000+ people in over 15 offices in Europe, the US, and Asia.
Additionally, the Healthware Global Network, one of the largest international networks of independent healthcare agencies, provides for deep local expertise worldwide in over 25 countries.
Healthware Group is privately owned and backed by FITEC, a leading European VC fund focusing on technology.
For more information, please visit healthwaregroup.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Contacts
Antonietta Pannella, Marketing & Communications Director
Mobile: +39 349 0648276 – Email: antonietta.pannella@healthwaregroup.com
Earlier this year, the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA) launched a series of Executive Roundtable discussions – a new opportunity for members that brings together senior leaders from member companies to discuss pressing industry-level issues. DTA Board Members Anand Iyer and Owen McCarthy facilitated these inaugural discussions with industry leaders that focused on ensuring patient centricity, driving DTx adoption, and advancing product commercialization models.
Anand Iyer, Chief Strategy Officer at Welldoc and founding member of the DTA Board of Directors
Owen McCarthy, Co-Founder and President at MedRhythms and Chair of the DTA Board of Directors
Since its inception, DTA has been the go-to place in the industry for collaborating with fellow industry leaders. In the spirit of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats,’ this new series of roundtables provides member company executives with yet another forum to convene on issues that we are collectively facing. In addition to the inherent value these discussions bring, DTA Task Group co-chairs and staff work to incorporate agreed upon outcomes directly into resources the Alliance develops for policymakers, payors, clinicians, and patients.
When DTA launched, the primary focus of our work as the DTA Board of Directors was to develop a strong foundation for the DTx industry. Our initial efforts in creating foundational pieces such as the baseline industry definition of a DTx and product quality core principles now enables us to evolve our focus into scaling the industry’s impact and leveraging digital therapeutics to directly improve care for more patients in more places. By working together, we can transform what is possible to achieve in medicine.
During our recent roundtable discussions, we focused on topics such as:
Digital therapeutics’ ability to help patients better engage with their own care and be empowered to achieve optimal health outcomes
Novel ways to leverage DTx therapies to personalize treatments for unmet needs
DTA’s efforts to further engage with and encourage clinicians to incorporate new therapies into clinical care decisions and pathways
Integrating DTx products into clinical care team workflows and distribution systems
Over the last decade, DTx manufacturers and ecosystem partners have invested considerable resources into building strong product quality and clinical evidence bases with the necessary rigor to ensure that products are safe, effective, and secure (and even enjoyable!) for patients to use. Collectively, DTA members have amassed significant clinical data, patient engagement statistics, and economic outcomes to demonstrate the tangible impact of DTx therapies at the patient and population health levels.
In an environment where patients are looking for better access to healthcare, particularly in light of clinician workforce demands and worsening shortages – in addition to the ongoing effects of Covid-19 – DTA members are actively working to develop and implement meaningful solutions. To achieve the greatest degree of impact, however, building trust with all key stakeholders is of paramount importance.
While a portion of this trust is built through DTx product alignment with privacy standards, cybersecurity certifications, and clear messaging, another portion of this trust is gained through DTx products’ ability to consistently deliver the appropriate therapeutic impact to patients. This aspect of trust is enabled by ensuring product quality and patient centricity, which are at the core of our industry principles – and to which all DTA members attest for any DTx product they manufacture or support.
Finally, a key aspect of building trust is engaging with key stakeholders to understand and address barriers to DTx integration and adoption. To bridge the divide between innovation and impact, DTA is expanding our community building initiatives to bring all necessary stakeholders to the table to garner trust and ground our efforts with transparency. Through these forms of collaboration, we will develop a shared vision for the future of medicine and healthcare delivery that reflects the needs, abilities, environments, and preferences of DTx product patients and end users that will deliver reliable and meaningful clinical outcomes.