Why Pharma Companies Should Embrace Digital Health Startups & Vice Versa
While most healthcare stakeholders are eager to embrace digital health, the pharmaceutical sector has been somewhat reluctant to join the digital health bandwagon. Some of the forward-thinking pharma companies are just now awakening to the opportunity for digital health to strengthen their businesses (see “The Pharma Digital Health Accelerator Club”; http://bit.ly/pmn160102iclub).
For pharma companies to realize digital health’s potential as quickly as possible, they should seek out and partner with technology startups focused on digital health innovation. Savvy startups should be receptive to these collaborations, as there are major benefits to them from working with pharma.
By embracing digital health tools alone or in combination with medications, pharmaceutical companies can:
- Improve outcomes
- Build connections to patients
- Strengthen branding
As with many disruptive innovations, digital health requires the development of novel business models and partnerships to succeed. The most effective way for pharmaceutical companies to achieve these benefits is to partner with multiple, compatible digital health startups, and to have these startups build innovative patient and provider-facing digital health solutions on behalf of their pharma partners.
When pharma comes courting, a savvy digital health startup should be receptive. It can benefit enormously by working with a drug company. One of the biggest benefits: access to a pharma company’s substantial sales and marketing networks. Selling products into the healthcare system can be extremely difficult because of the wide variety of physician practice models and healthcare procurement processes. Startups often lack the infrastructure needed to reach customers and, therefore, have trouble scaling up sales. Many fail as a result. Teaming with pharma and tapping into their extensive marketing infrastructures and distribution channels will help digital startups gain traction far faster than they could on their own.
Which pharmas will embrace partnerships?