FH23: Inside the first Digital Medicine & DTx Global Policy Summit

In early November, the inaugural Digital Medicine & DTx Global Policy Summit, part of Frontiers Health 2023, brought together experts, policymakers, and industry leaders from Europe, the US, and APAC to discuss best practices in cross-country scaling, harmonisation, and mutual recognition in appraisal criteria, access, and reimbursement processes, as well as strategies for systemic integration, adoption, and value generation.

In his opening address, Roberto Ascione, Healthware Group CEO, highlighted the importance of policy innovation to support developments in the DTx space. From technology and process he held high hopes for productive outcomes from the discussions of the Summit – a collaborative effort by Healthware Group, Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), and other organisations – which he dubbed an “ecosystem and community effort”.

Global challenges: Seeking harmonisation

Alberta Spreafico – global head of digital health & innovation strategy, senior director of the global management team, and managing director of digital health & innovation at Healthware Group – welcomed to the stage Professor Dr Jochen Klucken, FNR PEARL chair of digital medicine at the University of Luxembourg, and Rosanna Tarricone, chair of the advisory group for the European Taskforce for Harmonised Evaluation of Digital Medical Devices in the EU, and associate SDA dean for the government and health division at SDA Bocconi. Klucken and Tarricone have been working together on analysing the ecosystem and the different policy frameworks across Europe, looking at supporting harmonisation. They are the chairs of the taskforce.

The Summit spanned three macro-sessions: the first focused on Europe, sharing the evolving scenario and trends possible for harmonisation; the second, was focused on APAC; and third, focus shifted to the US. By sharing the different evolving scenarios, best practices, and opportunities it was hoped that attendees and speakers would be able to connect the dots needed to achieve harmonisation across countries.

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