Digital Health Transformation: A Practical Guide for Life Sciences Companies | Insights

In 2022, many if not most pharmaceutical, medical device, and other life sciences companies established strategies to innovate digital health technology complementary to their

existing strategic focus. The digital transformation of the life sciences industry is still widely unfolding across the marketplace. In 2023 and beyond, the race is on to launch

the next generation of digital health technologies to innovate the delivery of therapies to patients. Finding the optimal digital health focus will be a challenge for many life

sciences companies, as they accelerate into digital health through this evolving regulated space. To be sure, life sciences companies that do find ways to adeptly unleash the power

of digital health will gain a competitive advantage by providing improved patient access and quality of experience. In this fast-moving environment, in-house counsel, C-suites and

investors of life sciences companies in the midst of strategic digital transformations or product development should do the following: understand the breadth of digital health

identify strategic goals in digital health identify resources, partners, collaborators, and targets consider digital health as a path to environmental, social, and governance (ESG)

and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) unleash the power of digital health Acceleration will be a key driver of success in digital health transformation initiatives in 2023,

particularly given the pace necessary to iterate second- and third-generation efforts following the launch of any successful digital health pilots or products. #1 Understanding the

Breadth of Digital HealthThe breadth of digital health itself is daunting, and the first challenge for life sciences companies looking to launch or reboot their digital health

transformations is to understand the universe of activities that now fall under digital health. The following four categories are among the most relevant for life sciences

companies today: U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved/cleared products and medical devices such as digital pills, software as a medical device (SaMD), artificial

intelligence–driven medical devices, and innovative augmented reality and virtual reality medical devices. Many of these FDA-approved digital products are accompanied by

supporting hardware and use machine learning models to diagnose patients, track and manage chronic diseases, or deliver a therapeutic intervention. Telemedicine and other

telehealth services that offer either direct-to-consumer or physician-referral healthcare services such as remote patient monitoring (RPM) and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM),