Pharma Marketing Network shares some thoughts on the first DH4P Conference.

On April 30, I proudly kicked off the inaugural Digital Health for Pharma (DH4P) annual conference on behalf of Evolution Road.  In the early days of digital marketing I had the pleasure of chairing the ePharma Summit which was a great way for the life science industry to come together and learn, share and connect with one another.  With so many similarities between the evolution of digital marketing and the current and likely future path of digital health, we believed there was a need to create the first conference specifically focused on how life science companies can drive commercial value through digital health. 

The speaker faculty was unparalleled, particularly for a first year conference.  Many Pharmaceutical manufacturers attended including Pfizer, GSK, BMS, Celgene, Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, Bayer, UCB, Boehringer Ingelheim, Ferring, Lifescan, Novartis, BTG, Irwonwood, Abbvie, Roche, Adhera Therapeutics and others.  We also gained diverse perspectives from healthcare provider and payer organizations such as Humana, Highmark and Jefferson Health as well as from digital health companies such as Akili, Propeller, Click Therapeutics and PackHealth. 

We created the conference to support the dialogue about digital health value models for life sciences.  Here is an overview of the different types of value models that we shared at DH4P:

INVEST: Equity investments in digital health companies via corporate pharma venture or innovation funds, Acquisition (i.e., Roche’s acquisition of FlatIron), Joint Venture (i.e., Sanofi + Verily forming Onduo)

INCUBATE / ACCELERATE: Internal efforts to support digital health startups (i.e., JLABS, Novartis Biome, Bayer Grants4Apps) or support of digital health companies via external organizations (i.e., Matter + Novo, J&J + Plug & Play)

COMMERCIALIZE: Typically BD&L partnerships with digital health technology organizations that leverage the life science organization’s commercialization capabilities to help bring the digital health technology to market (i.e., Novartis/Sandoz + Pear reSET-O)

COLLABORATE: Life science collaboration with digital health companies to leverage their technologies in an effort to achieve brand and customer goals (i.e., Boehringer Ingelheim + Propeller Health)

CO-DEVELOP: Jointly developing a digital health solution, utilizing an existing platform/asset from a digital health company and the R&D capabilities from a life science organization; typically includes governmental regulatory approval (i.e., Otsuka + Proteus, Pear/Thrive + Novartis in Schizophrenia)

If you would like additional perspective on these value models or Evolution Road’s point of view on driving commercial impact for pharma with digital health or digital marketing, “ask an expert” below.