Eisai and Alexa skills in epilepsy: the pharmaphorum podcast

Voice technology like Amazon’s Alexa is taking some big steps forward in healthcare and in the pharmaceutical world one of the companies working in this area is Eisai.

Chief strategy officer for the pharma firm’s neurology business group in the US, Alexander Scott joined the pharmaphorum podcast to talk about Eisai’s use of digital technology and its Alexa skill for those impacted by Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS).

The Ella the Jellyfish Alexa skill was created with input from children living with the rare and severe form of childhood-onset epilepsy and aims to provide comfort to children, families and caregivers through song, storytelling, meditation and interactive games.

Alexander talked about the emergence of voice technology like Amazon’s Alexa, its healthcare applications and how it can help with unmet patient needs in epilepsy.

The launch of Eisai’s Alexa skill in epilepsy late last year followed Amazon’s announcement in April 2019 that its smart speaker could handle health information compliantly in the US and the summer news that the UK’s NHS has worked with Amazon’ Alexa team to offer health information by voice search.

For its part, Eisai is aiming to go beyond providing healthcare information via Alexa to using the smart speaker to give support and solace to patients, families and carers.

You can listen to episode 19 of the pharmaphorum podcast here, download the episode to your computer or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series in iTunes, Spotify, acast and Stitcher.