i3 - May/June 2018 - 33

THE DIGITAL THERAPEUTICS
MARKET IS FORECAST TO
GROW FROM $1.7 BILLION
IN 2016 TO $9.4 BILLION
BY 2025.

-Grand View
Research Inc.
care people expect from physicians and their
health care team," Hodgkins says.

is to make the data they receive work with their
existing technology, and to help them wring
meaning out of vast piles of information.
Amar Kendale, senior vice president of product
management and design at Livongo Health, says
it takes doctors about 10 years to publish scientific
results and adopt new solutions as part of clinical
practice. The products need to be designed well
enough to keep chronic disease patients' interest
over the long haul, Hodgkins says.
But people from the technology and health
worlds believe digital therapeutics can change the
face of medicine. "The episodic care people get
from the current health care system is "sick care,"
whereas what people really need is "well care" -
that will keep them healthy in the real world and
the time between [doctor] visits," says Kendale.
But the market needs to find ways to get their
offerings covered by insurance and employers,
make them technologically accessible to both
patients and doctors, and get the medical community to buy in to their benefits. Showing scientific outcomes for the effectiveness and value
of digital therapeutics will be key for winning

DIFFICULTIES

For digital therapeutics to reach its potential,
innovators need to overcome a few challenges.
The biggest is: Who pays both for the devices and
for time to review the data?
Gavish predicts that businesses will spring up
to analyze the data for doctors. In January, the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
(CMS) began offering reimbursement to doctors
with Medicare and Medicaid patients for reviewing data from digital therapeutics.
Insurance companies also are beginning to
offer incentives to patients for using technology
to improve their health. But CMS has not done
the same for the devices themselves. Without a
code from CMS for the software and devices,
patients often can't get reimbursed by their
insurance companies. Buyers of RESPeRate, a
blood pressure device made by the same people
as 2breathe, generally pay out of pocket, though
some Veterans Affairs hospitals cover it.
User friendliness is another challenge. Touch
and voice improvements in technology have
helped, Kvedar says, but the industry needs to
continue to make the products easier for patients
to use, Hodgkins adds. For doctors, the challenge

C TA . t e c h / i 3

MAY/JUNE 2018

http://cta.tech/i3

i3 - May/June 2018

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