Italy eyes Digital Therapeutics
The recommendations for the Country's pathway towards DTx are captured in the White Paper "Digital Therapeutics, an Opportunity for Italy"
- The official journal of the Smith Kline Foundation, Tendenze Nuove, published the White Paper "Digital Therapeutics, an Opportunity for Italy" on 13 January 2021.
- The book consists of 208 pages featuring insights and recommendations from 40 leading experts in the field who also participated in the "Digital Therapeutics for Italy - #DTxITA" working group, established in 2019.
- The recommendations presented in the document represent the first step to introduce the new class of digital therapeutics into medical practice in Italy, following other Countries that have already implemented them.
Milan, Italy, 4 February 2021 | On 13 January 2021, the official journal of Smith Kline Foundation, Tendenze Nuove, announced the publication of the white paper "Digital Therapeutics, an Opportunity for Italy", providing the knowledge foundations for the Italian ecosystem to advance on DTx.
This publication, co-promoted by daVinci Digital Therapeutics, FADOI, FSK (Smith Kline Foundation) and Healthware Group, represents the first step of the pathway towards the implementation of digital therapeutics that Italy began following other countries like Germany, France and the US.
The book consists of 208 pages and features insights and recommendations from 40 leading experts in the field, also involved in the "Digital Therapeutics for Italy - #DTxITA" working group, established in 2019 with the aim to endorse the implementation of DTx in the Italian Institutions and healthcare system.
The publication of this white paper and recommendations on Digital Therapeutics by Tendenze Nuove represents a significant contribution at international level - says Giuseppe Recchia, Director of Tendenze Nuove and promoter of the project by the Smith Kline Foundation - It is in fact the first occasion in which digital therapeutics, a new class of medical interventions, are submitted to the evaluation of experts from medicine, health, and civil society with the aim of governing their introduction into medical practice in the country.
The current global scenario - says Roberto Ascione, CEO of Healthware Group - is very diverse with respect to the ability of individual countries and their healthcare systems to adopt and regulate these new therapeutic treatments that will mark the future of medicine, with a crucial impact on patients in terms of access to treatment and the sustainability of healthcare systems. In Italy, the collaboration between innovators and the different players of the national health system, stimulated by the project "Digital Therapeutics for Italy - #DTxITA", is essential to gain more awareness and facilitate the adoption of this new generation of therapies, as already done in other countries.
The project - explains Gualberto Gussoni, Scientific Director of FADOI, Scientific Society of Internal Medicine, leader of the project and editor of the book - aims to identify and define the conditions necessary to allow patients to access the benefits of digital therapeutics, and for Italy to become a reference point for their research and development, thus making a useful contribution to the country from a social, health and economic point of view. The number of experts involved in the project, initially 21, has gradually increased to more than 40, in order to acquire the various technical, clinical, methodological, regulatory, organisational and economic skills that would allow the various aspects of research, access and commercialisation of digital therapies to be investigated in the most appropriate manner. These experts come from prestigious Italian universities, from the clinical and research worlds, from the regulatory, legal and industrial spheres, and from leading patient organisations.
Given the acceleration of the adoption of telehealth, remote monitoring and other digital health tools, as a result of the pandemic, and as well as the increasing investment pouring into the space, DTx is expected to play an increasingly important role in the healthcare ecosystem around the world.
With this step, Italy starts its journey towards creating a viable Digital Therapeutics environment to provide patients and physicians with a safe and trusted access to this new class of therapies as well as to create the condition for the DTx industry to develop in the country
