Issue 035. Get E&O weekly. | Subscribe

Digital health research from Brian Dolan.

Welcome to E&O.

Last week’s newsletter had a 62 percent open rate. Here’s what’s happening this week:

• I’m working on the definitive Omada Health report this month. Hit reply to shoot me over any questions, leads or rumors you’d like me to run down while I’m in the homestretch of the research phase here.
• The HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology posted a draft of its federal health IT strategic plan for 2020-2025. One line on page 14 caught the eye of a few people working in digital therapeutics: “Advance use of evidence-based digital therapeutics as treatment options for patients to prevent, manage, and treat conditions through smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices.”
• In other federal government news: The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) just launched a new division (more of a rebrand from “Health IT”, really) called the Division of Digital Healthcare Research.
• Noticed in a rough draft of the American Psychiatric Association’s practice guideline for patients with schizophrenia that the APA suggests providers offer patients a weight-loss program like Omada Health’s (named them specifically) to counter weight gain that results from taking antipsychotic meds. Final guidelines should publish this summer.
• Google/Alphabet company Verily made its debut at JP Morgan in San Francisco and its chief Andy Conrad reportedly overshared details about the forthcoming CGM device it’s developing with partner Dexcom. One key detail Dexcom wasn’t pleased to see shared publicly was that the device would include an accelerometer to track the physical activity of the wearer. Oops.
• Stanford published a worthwhile read on digital health trends in 2020.
• Missed this from last month: Beyond Verbal merged with fellow Israeli voice biomarker company Healthymize to form a new company, Vocalis Health.
• Medisafe added pharmacy services to its medication adherence product, which now delivers medications right to the patient’s door.
• Welldoc filed for — but has not yet received — its 8th 510(k) clearance, which would add a new Rx-only feature to BlueStar related to basal insulin titration.
• Finally, mental health services provider Modern Health raised a $31 million Series B. The company sells into employers and counts Pixar among its customers.

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Livongo pres comments on its “preferred” status in Express Scripts’ digital health formulary

The moon shooters at Startup Health put together a great lineup at their event this week, which was timed to coincide with the big JP Morgan event in San Francisco. Livongo President Jenny Schneider MD briefly commented on the importance of channel partners like PBMs, Express Scripts (ESI) and CVS. The most interesting piece she mentioned was that ESI’s designation of Livongo as being “preferred” in its digital health formulary might quadruple the chances a customer picks them over other available options:

You can watch the whole event on-demand over at the Startup Health site here.

Proteus, Otsuka break-up and Proteus says rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

STAT has an important update on the Proteus Digital Health story this week. Last we heard, Proteus had filed documents with the California state government that it was shutting down its offices and laying off the vast majority of its workforce, but those filings may have overstated the situation. According to the STAT report, which is based on an interview with Proteus CEO Andrew Thompson:

• All of Proteus’ offices will remain open and the number of employees set to be laid off is much smaller than the 292 figure that was mentioned in the state filings.
• Proteus has ended its deal with Otsuka, which resulted in the biopharma paying out Proteus to license the technology they built together for mental health therapeutic areas. Proteus will use that payment to stay afloat for now.
• Proteus will now focus on TAs it believes will lead to quicker revenue: cancer and infectious diseases.

Read the report over at STAT for all the details.

Noom revenues hit $247 million in 2019, up from $61 million the year before

A recent Forbes article shines a lot of light on fast-growing weight-loss and diabetes prevention company, Noom. Some metrics:

• Noom hit $247 million in revenues in 2019.
• That’s up from $61 million in 2018
• And $12 million in 2017.
• The company says its app has now been downloaded more than 50 million times.
• It hired 1,000 coaches in late 2019 to boost its total employee count to 1,800, but only about 100 are core employees who are not coaches. (90 percent of its employees are full-time, with benefits.)
• Noom started in 2008 as WorkSmart Labs, but its revenues only began to take off in the past few years.

Prescription Digital Therapeutics news roundup: Pear, Akili, MedRhythms, Mahana

Akili Interactive announced top-line results from a study of its digital therapeutic AKL-T01 for children with ADHD. The three-month study, which included 208 children between the ages of 8 and 14, examined how the video game DTx improved outcomes for two groups of children — those taking stimulant medications and those not taking meds. More details here but this is how Akili CEO Eddie Martucci summed up the results: “Importantly, parents see improvements in their children regardless of whether they are using the treatment alone or alongside stimulants.” This is the fifth study for Akili’s AKL-T01, which is still awaiting FDA clearance.

Pear Therapeutics inked a co-development deal with Apricity Health for as many as two digital products to manage patients undergoing cancer treatment. Pear will have the option to license two PDTs that come out of the partnership.

MedRhythms added two new targets to its pipeline beyond its initial stroke rehab digital therapeutic: multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). It also announced that the Cleveland Clinic will study its walking rehabilitation in MS digital therapeutic, MR-004, “in a pilot-scale randomized controlled trial to evaluate its safety and efficacy.”

Orion Pharma is conducting a randomized control trial with 100 participants of a VR for chronic pain DTx vs. control software (digital placebo) vs. standard of care. The study will run between six and eight weeks. Set to kick off this month.

Mahana Therapeutics is no longer in stealth mode after two years of starting up. The digital therapeutics company is focused on IBS, Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis. Following in the footsteps of Pear, Mahana has licensed an intervention from academia (King’s College London) that has already gone through a randomized control trial: “We spent over 18 years developing and clinically testing a personalized digital CBT program for adult IBS patients… We believe our multi-center, randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 558 patients is the largest clinical trial ever conducted demonstrating the clinical safety and efficacy of a digital CBT product for IBS.” Mahana is backed by Jazz Venture Partners and Lux Capital.

Finally, AppliedVR‘s SVP of Commercial, Everett Crosland has a worthwhile writeup of a panel discussion he was a part of at one of the events coinciding with JP Morgan in San Franciso this week. Crosland’s table, which charts the progress of prescription digital therapeutics, is particularly helpful here. Check it out.

Quick links to E&O research reports

The links below aim to make it easier for paying subscribers to find the long-form research reports on the E&O site:

The Google Health Report (Subscribers-only Link)
The Pear Therapeutics Report (Subscribers-only Link)
The AliveCor Report (Subscribers-only Link)
Apple’s Healthcare Work Experience (Subscribers-only Link)
Approximating Livongo’s S-1 (Subscribers-only Link)

That’s a wrap on Issue 035.