Author: Matt Arnold, Principal Analyst
- Quantified Selfers got a shock as a major study of the effects of fitness trackers found that those who used them lost less weight than those that did not. Researchers studied 500 young and overweight adults, ages 18-35, over two years and found that subjects wearing activity trackers had lost 8 pounds, on average, while those recording data manually had lost 13 pounds. That’ll cast a shadow on the use of fitness trackers in beyond-the-pill efforts to promote health and wellness. Is “moral licensing” to blame? Regardless, observers who’ve long pooh-poohed the notion that gizmos could solve complicated health problems are saying “I told you so!”
- Walgreens launched a “teledermatology” service, DermatologistOnCall, which offers consults with board-certified derms in the US through Iagnosis. Patients can upload photos of their skin condition to a secure platform and get diagnoses and treatment plans for $59 per consult.
- Not to be outdone by Watson for Oncology, Microsoft is working on Hanover, an AI that aims to help with prescribing decision-making.
- Novartis is testing app-based digital coaching as a means of improving adherence in clinical trials. The apps, serving as a kind of virtual study nurse, are being incorporated into three-to-five clinical trials to test impact on adherence. Novartis has found that coaching programs in diabetes increased HbA1C 2%-3%, and coaching apps are not subject to logistical and data privacy concerns, since data is only shared with a coach – not a health system.
- Uber and Lyft are vying to dominate the business of getting patients to clinical trials. Both companies see medical transportation as a growth area, and execs from each appeared at a digital clinical trials conference to pitch their services as a means of reducing R&D costs by cutting down on missed appointments. Here’s Uber’s effort at cracking that vertical, dubbed Circulation.
- A new app for depression from Pfizer, dubbed Moodivator, combines goal-setting with customizable motivational messaging and a mood tracker that gives them a sharable log.
- Going by an MIT team’s work on the use of wireless signals to detect mood, it may one day no longer require patient input.
- Apple hired a YouTube star MD who “prescribes apps” to his audience. His role with the company is unclear, but he gives a pretty good elevator pitch on mobile health and how it will change provision of care.
- New leadership at WebMD as CEO David Schlanger stepped down and was replaced by president Steven Zatz, who previously headed advertising and sponsorships. Company revenues were up 13% for Q2, and under Schlanger’s leadership, WebMD made a sharp pivot to mobile.
- And GlaxoSmithKline has named Emma Walmsley to succeed longtime CEO Andrew Witty – a move that the Wall Street Journal says “cements the company’s shift away from its dominant prescription-medicine business” and towards OTC and vaccines (Walmsley joined GSK from L’Oreal six years ago). She’s also, incredibly, Big Pharma’s first woman CEO.
- The FDA approved Sarepta’s very controversial drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, one that patient advocates pushed hard for, despite middling data on efficacy (one account describes “Civil war at the FDA”). The approval, writes Stat, “reflects the FDA’s transformation from a pure regulator to an industry partner.” There may be some truth to that statement – OPDP has issued just 4 enforcement letters this year, down from a couple dozen in 2013, while approvals of branded drugs hit a two-decadal high last year.
- A study of consumer advertising’s influence on prescribing of psychiatric drugs found that advertising was not very likely to prompt consumers to request a drug, but that physicians were likely to prescribe a drug when requested.
- Bayer bought Monsanto in a $66 billion deal that would create an agricultural giant but which some analysts fear might bode ill for Bayer’s pharma business.
