Ten years after a former Merck vaccine developer launched an immersive learning software company using gaming technology for physicians in peer-to-peer settings and life science companies, it is expanding its interactive programs to patients through managed care companies. It is a company that believes its time has finally come as the healthcare industry finally enters the digital age.
Douglas Seifert, the CEO of Syandus, told MedCity News in a phone interview that the patient education simulation programs are intended to improve the way healthcare professionals communicate to their patients what’s happening in their health and why they are pursuing a particular course of treatment. With managed care companies, Seifert sees a lot of aligned needs – an opportunity to lower healthcare costs and improve outcomes.
It is initially developing a diabetes simulation program to show how lifestyle and choices impact health. The Exton, Pennsylvania-based company is also exploring applications for oncology, multiple sclerosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. The programs enlist game technology to create an immersive learning platform.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
Syandus secured a $25,000 follow-on investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania to help expand the software to the patient side, having received $150,000 from the economic development agency in 2009.
“It’s really about helping patients understand diseases, especially diseases like COPD, cardiovascular disease, diabetes — all of these follow a long-time course and the patients have lifestyle choices to make. These programs look at how that fits into improving health. But on the medical side, what is the challenge to physicians? How would they diagnose COPD? It’s an underdiagnosed disease. We’re speaking with medical societies on what would be the best place to start to have the most impact in that area. They are the experts and we take their lead.”
The genesis for moving into patient programs, said Seifert, was some of the company’s software programs were starting to be used by physicians to help educate patients. “That’s really when we started realizing the value of it for patients — what the patient would be seeing and describing it in the context of their bodies.”
It is also moving into immunobiology for college and medical school students, a decision spurred by the strong physician response to its COPD program after some said they wished they had the benefit of similar technology when they were in medical school.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Seifert has a Ph.D. in bioengineering and started the company with a small business innovation research grant from the National Science Foundation. Looking back on the first few years of the company’s life, Seifert said it was initially challenging to get people to invest in the company because it was ahead of the curve. He said companies were intrigued by the concept, but until 2005 it was tough to get people and companies to invest in the business and there was a lot of resistance.
“When I first started this company, I didn’t realize the technological hurdles and that digital was not really part of the healthcare arena. I didn’t realize how far ahead we were. To be a trailblazer is not easy. It’s taken a lot of work to get where we are,” Seifert said. “Now, technology has caught up, the pharmaceutical industry has caught up and managed care is interested in the digital space, so it’s a very exciting time.”
