The missing pieces of the digital therapeutics puzzle

When it comes to marketing digital therapeutics, companies can only do so much on their own until certain information infrastructure is in place, Kristin Milburn, managing director of Healthware Labs, tells pharmaphorum Deep Dive.

Over the last few years, digital therapeutics have made great strides in efficacy, regulatory approval, and even reimbursement. But the most effective digital therapeutic in the world does nothing if a patient doesn’t know it exists, or a doctor doesn’t know they can prescribe it.

For marketing and communications around digital therapeutics today, awareness is the watchword – pharma marketeers have to get the word out about not only their particular product, but often about the whole category of digital therapeutics.

“I would say one of the biggest challenges, assuming that there’s a reimbursement pathway and you can get paid, is just awareness of these solutions,” Kristin Milburn, managing director of Healthware Labs, says.

“And I do think that there needs to be an industry-wide effort to help educate both patients – and maybe physicians even more to start – about what are DTx and what is available in their therapeutic area. Because until they are aware of them, they’re never going to recommend them, obviously, to their patients.”

• Read the full article in pharmaphorum's Deep Dive digital magazine