Amazon’s Echo, second from right
In an effort to encourage digital health entrepreneurs to unleash the potential of Amazon’s Alexa software to address healthcare needs, Merck and Amazon have launched an innovation challenge to crowdsource ideas.
Called the Alexa Diabetes Challenge, the goal is to find new ways to harness Alexa’s voice technology to make self-management of diabetes easier, particularly for those newly diagnosed with the chronic condition, according to a company release. The challenges they face are similar to those with other chronic conditions: medication management, tracking diet and activity, early intervention to avoid costly hospitalization and managing comorbidities such as depression.
Lisa Suennen of GE Ventures, who also pens the blog Venture Valkyrie, called attention to the diversity of healthcare applications for Amazon Echo’s software, known as Alexa, in a blog post last year. She specifically noted one digital health company building medical applications on top of the Amazon Echo platform mainly for seniors living in their homes:
The idea is that the Echo and its Alexa software can aid in supporting cognition (just ask Alexa your caregiver’s name if you forget), medication reminders (is it time for my medication? How much do I take?), post-discharge instructions (Alexa, tell me again what rehab exercises I am supposed to do today) and transportation (Alexa, please get me an Uber to my doctor’s appointment). Other uses for the Echo have already been piloted by groups such as Boston Children’s Hospital. The hospital built a skill that allows parents to ask basic pediatric questions of their Echo, such as when to worry about a fever or how to dose OTC medications. Astra Zeneca is piloting a post-discharge coaching program for heart attack survivors.
The deadline for entries is May 22. Five finalists will be selected from the submissions to take part in a virtual accelerator to convert their concepts into working prototypes, according to the website. Then they’ll be invited to compete in a demo day this fall.
Several groups are taking very different approaches to voice technology from Apple’s Siri to natural language processing application for electronic medical records to technologies that harness voice to detect specific emotions from an individual’s voice, to identify depression, for example.
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.
Amazon Web Services supports a number of digital health companies, but Amazon Alexa Fund is relatively new to healthcare investment. It provides up to $100 million in venture capital funding to fuel voice technology innovation, according to its website. The first publicly announced digital health investment the fund made was Owlet Baby Care, which developed an infant activity tracker embedded in a smart sock. The smart sock passively monitors skin temperature, oxygen levels, heart rate, and sleep data and transmits that data to a caregiver’s smartphone.
