Heart attacks, anaphylactic shock and clinical decision support for healthcare workers in rural clinics in developing countries. Those are the targets of a group of mobile health apps that could help decide the future of mhealth technology commercialization at the university. It’s part of a new program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Six apps were chosen by development firms who will produce prototypes for the Center for Technology Transfer. The first three were conceived by faculty from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and qualify for UpStart’s incubator program. A drug verifier app, developed by a Wharton business school student, will get advice from UpStart’s new student entrepreneur adviser program. Aside from Resuscor, each of them fit the description for the Noble Mobile category — an app to improve society.
In the spring, venture firms will choose whether to invest in them. Here’s a summary of the mobile health apps in contention.
Anaphylaxis 911 The app gets triggered by the users when they experience an allergic reaction. It texts 911 with relevant information such as known allergies, emergency contacts and any prescription medications the user takes. It also calls 911 using the speakerphone to identify the location and time of the reaction in case the user falls unconscious before first responders arrive. The anticipated market is end users with severe allergic reactions and pharma companies in the space.
Resuscor Reducing body temperature as a way to treat cardiac arrest — referred to as targeted temperature management or therapeutic hypothermia — is the focus of this app. It is a clinical decision support tool to aid in the delivery of TTM, using 3-D animation, video and text-based content and clinical calculators.
Survive Under 5 About 3.9 million children under 5 years old die from diarrhea, sepsis or pneumonia. This app would provide clinical decision support to medical teams in rural clinics in developing countries.
Drug Verifier Of all the apps in the AppIt Up competition vying for investment, this seems like the biggest long shot. There are plenty of companies using QR codes to identify counterfeit drugs that have been doing it for years, driven by the critical need in places like Nigeria, where counterfeit drugs are a major problem, to Florida where it’s also a big trend.
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.
