The interest in adopting digital health tools such as clinical wearables and smartphone diagnostics has been hindered in some ways by the rapid growth in the number of these devices and relatively little clinical validation. GE Ventures and Stanford Health Care have partnered to launch a company called Evidation Health to validate and optimize digital health tools, according to a company statement.
Evidation Health was formed from The Activity Exchange, a digital health startup with strong predictive analytics capabilities. A couple of staff from Activity Exchange became part of Evidation Health. Christine Lemke, the chief product officer of Evidation, previously was co-founder and COO of Activity Exchange. Luca Foscini, co-founder and head of data science at Activity Exchange, occupies the same post at the new company.
“Digital disruption in the health care industry has introduced a number of new but often unproven products and services,” Rowan Chapman, managing director of new business creation at GE Ventures, said in the statement. “With Evidation Health, we will be able to not only improve outcomes, but also ensure that the best products reach patients.”
To illustrate the growth of digital health tools, a Rock Health report released earlier this year said more than $4 billion in venture funding was invested in over 250 digital health companies in 2014 alone.
Evidation raised $6.2 million in a Series A financing round at the start of the year. GE Ventures led the round and Asset Management Ventures and Rock Health participated. Asset Management Ventures was the original investor in Activity Exchange through a convertible note, according to a source familiar with the company. It made later made a follow-on investment. Among its board members are Chapman and Skip Fleshman of Asset Management Ventures.
So far, it has entered into corporate and academic collaborations with Humana, Biogen Idec., Sanofi, Harvard Business School and Wharton business school at the University of Pennsylvania.
Deborah Kilpatrick, the CEO of Evidation Health, previously served as COO of CardioDx. In a phone interview with MedCity News, she explained a few ways the company would help companies and healthcare facilities. “We have never before been in a time where proven mobile technologies can be analyzed in a granular way,” Kilpatrick said. “The biggest value we can add is clinical utility — are these [digital health] tools getting used in a way that favorably impacts patient management? We’re also helping companies clarify the value these digital health tool bring to their business.”
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.
Photo credit: Egg hatching photo from Flickr user Grendelkhan
Update: This story has been updated from an earlier version.
