Health2047 launches collaboration with Celgene to build data transfer tools

Dr. Doug Given, Health2047 CEO, said In a phone interview that Celgene is the first of many collaboration partners that will be announced this year. 

 

Directly below shot of medical team joining jigsaw pieces in huddle against white background

Health2047, an American Medical Association-affiliated group that seeks to improve the development of digital health tools and commercialize them through partnerships with established companies and startups, has agreed to collaborate with Celgene to build a data transfer tool for healthcare.

When Health2047 came into being last year, its to-do list included system-level solutions to chronic care; value-based healthcare and payments; connected health solutions; and collaboration models for physicians, providers, payers and patients. Given the interest by pharmaceutical companies in quantifying the effectiveness and use of their drugs, it is in their interest to improve the way healthcare data is shared.

In a phone interview with Dr. Doug Given, Health2047 CEO said Celgene is the first of many collaboration partners that will be announced this year.

“We are establishing a platform for data transfer with features that are important to Celgene,” Given said. “We have joint strategy and joint project development teams. We’re building apps to address their business needs.”

Asked for more color about the collaboration Given said that there’s an interest in developing a way to move data more effectively between pharmacies, patients, and physicians — there’s currently no good way to do that. When a patient receives a prescription, there is no way of understanding the utility or value of it.

Given said Health2047 was in a unique position because it is not a health IT vendor. He likened Health2047’s neutrality in the push to improve data sharing to Switzerland.

“Ninety-five percent of [healthcare] data is not captured by health systems,” Given said. The pervasiveness of point solutions in the healthcare industry has led to the kind of fragmentation that the group seeks to address through the collaboration with Celgene.

Gertjan Bartlema, Celgene Vice President Information Knowledge Utilization said balancing the needs of managing data efficiently while adding knowledge and insights is critical to creating more value for patients, according to the news release. But of course that applies just as much to pharma companies, if not more.

The collaboration with Celgene reflects one of the business tracks Health2047 articulated when it launched — partnering with established companies to tune their offerings for healthcare.

It’s an interesting development for Celgene, which has not, at least publicly, collaborated with digital health companies or invested in them in the way that other pharma companies such as Merck and GSK have.

Photo: Getty Images

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