The Profil Institute for Clinical Research puts the number of apps for diabetes management alone at 1,200 for both iOS and Android network devices. In a bid to distinguish its apps in a crowded market, mySugr has formed a partnership with Profil to design and conduct a clinical research and development program for its apps.
Profil is a clinical research organization that specializes in diabetes, obesity as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.
Both groups will jointly design and execute a development program to enhance and validate the clinical and health economic impact of mySugr’s diabetes management apps. Over a few years, they will generate, analyze and publish data from prospective and retrospective studies.
Asked to provide more color on what it hoped to learn from the studies, mySugr CEO and Co-founder Frank Westermann responded in an email:
“We can’t yet disclose details about the nature or size of the planned studies, but the collaboration will be geared towards clinical outcomes and the associated financial savings made possible through digital health.”
As an illustration of just how “wild west” digital health apps can be, The Profil Insitute cites a study led by Kit Huckvale at Imperial College London assessing apps used to calculate insulin dosage. It looked at 46 insulin dose calculator apps and concluded that all but one had serious problems with accuracy for various reasons, “putting users at risk of both catastrophic overdose and more subtle harms resulting from suboptimal glucose control.” It also noted widespread issues with the users’ input of data and problems with calculation formulas and outputs that went against basic clinical assumptions.
Although getting clinical validation won’t automatically lead to mass app adoption, it can help companies gain credibility with the public and particularly the physicians they hope will prescribe their apps or at least recommend them to patients.
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.
“mHealth and telemedicine have the potential to improve the quality of clinical care across a wide range of chronic disorders. This is particularly true for diabetes, where patients themselves are often required to collect, integrate, analyze, share and respond to a wide range of personal health data,” said Dr. Marcus Hompesch, Chairman and CEO of Profil Institute in a statement. “Clinical data from well-designed studies will be crucial in demonstrating the impact of digital health on health outcomes, resulting in greater opportunities for mobile apps to be useful for broader medical care situations.”
Photo: Flickr user somegeekintn
