A bankruptcy court in Delaware approved a stalking-horse bid from Otsuka to acquire Proteus Digital Health for $15 million. The company, which makes sensor that can be embedded in pills to track medication adherence, filed for bankruptcy in June.
After its partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceutical began to unravel earlier this year, Proteus Digital Health filed for bankruptcy on Monday. The company had raised more than $500 million to develop ‘smart pills’ embedded with sensors, but struggled to sell physicians and insurers on the technology.
Closing cancer health equity gaps require medical breakthroughs made possible by new funding approaches.
Proteus, which makes tiny sensors that can track medication adherence, will no longer develop the technology in behavioral health medications for Otsuka Pharmaceutical. Instead, the startup is shifting its focus to oncology and infectious diseases, where it hopes its tech will have better traction.
Digital health companies faced bad news going into 2020, from job cuts to dissolving pharma partnerships. But these struggles are part of an industry that is finding its identity in a crowded healthcare market.
EtectRx is one of a few companies helping track medication adherence. But some patients find the tech hard to swallow.
Several FDA approvals - including ones going against AdCom votes - have attracted controversy and a perception of lowered standards at the agency. However, some see a long-standing institutional tension between patient protection and speedy approval, with the latter having a net positive effect.
The future looks bright for the integrated specialty pharmacy model – for health systems, providers, and most importantly, for patients.
A new report by Accenture suggests that over the next three years, 54 percent of biopharma industry revenues could come from new advancements in medical science and technology - and combinations of the two.
The report also found that 56 percent of physicians have brought up the potential for a digital therapy as an option for their patients, and 26 percent have discussed the option after a patient brought it up.
Proteus' new oral oncology drug is a digital version of capecitabine, a common chemotherapy medication often used to treat breast and gastrointestinal cancers.
Otsuka's top U.S.-based leaders spoke about the company's partnerships in mental health and how it is driving innovation in big pharma.
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
Otsuka also made an $88 million investment as part of the expansion. The companies plan to launch Abilify MyCite, approved in November 2017, by the end of this year.
Startup entrepreneurs opened up on a panel at the Health 2.0 conference in Santa Clara about the drivers and challenges of applying big data to healthcare.
Andrew Wright, Otsuka America Pharmaceutical Vice President, digital medicine and medical device division, and David O'Reilly Proteus Digital Health Chief Platform Officer, shared some insights on what it takes for a collaboration to succeed, especially when you are doing something that's never been done before.
The FDA's approval of Abilify Mycite, which is expected to come to market early next year marks a milestone for mental health patients but also raises some interesting questions about how the healthcare industry will respond to the digital pill tech.
Abilify MyCite, developed in collaboration between Proteus Digital Health and Otsuka Pharmaceutical, has an ingestible sensor embedded in the pill which records that the medication was taken. It reflects a trend by companies to use sensors to quantify the effectiveness of medications.