Deep Dive #12: Digital Therapeutics
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Overview
The Digital Therapeutics Alliance defines digital therapeutics (DTx) as “evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients that are driven by high quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a medical disorder or disease.” Digital therapeutics fit into the larger umbrella of digital health, which includes all tech-enabled health and wellness companies. DTx is the subset that typically focuses on one indication and requires strong clinical evidence for regulatory approval. Major indications currently being targeted include chronic illnesses that are metabolic, respiratory, neurological, and musculoskeletal in nature. Diabetes and mental health are two leading indications with the most DTx treatments currently emerging.
Delivery of DTx depends on the function. They can be entirely software based or include a hardware component. Many platforms provide software-based coaching such as cognitive behavioral therapy combined with health tracking dashboards. Digital therapeutics are not meant to replace physicians or pharmaceutical medicine, but instead function to augment them and provide patients with more personalized treatment.
Innovation in digital therapeutics is increasing at a massive rate; investments in the field alone have grown by 40% each year for the last seven years. Overall, DTx is an attractive market for investment given the range of diseases that new companies can target, low costs for software development, and rapid evolution of healthcare technology. The shift to digital health coupled with advances in consumer technology support rapid growth and will push DTx to become a standard therapy that is increasingly patient-centric.