Will the new digital therapeutics business model created by the merger of virtual reality DTx startup BehaVR and chronic pain management startup Fern Health set a new trajectory for the struggling digital health sub-category? The new entity is going to market as RealizedCare, and CEO Aaron Gani (who founded and led BehaVR) lets us in on the “strategic shift” that precipitated the merger and how he believes this is going to finally prove-out the digital therapeutics business case in healthcare worldwide.
This chat is really a digital therapeutics state-of-play, with Aaron candidly revealing his thoughts on where the category has both struggled and succeeded, how Pear and Akili have contributed to the advancement of the market, and how he and his team have intentionally designed RealizedCare’s new model to take advantage of the tough lessons learned over the last few years. Says Aaron, “Like essentially all digital therapeutics companies, we were really running into the challenges of adoption and of getting paid…”
So, how is RealizedCare now poised to mitigate that teeny-tiny little rev-gen hurdle?? Simply put, the crux of the new business involves wrapping Fern Care’s care management platform around the different mental health digital therapeutics BehaVR has developed to make it easier for integration by health plans, employers, and value-based care providers.
“It’s not just the DTx,” explains Aaron. “It’s companion apps and it’s coaching and it’s community and it’s care navigation, and we can drive outcomes in a population while throwing off a lot of the capacity constraints and the economic constraints that were getting in the way before.” Starting in chronic pain, which is a costly problem for RealizedCare’s value-driven target market, Aaron is confident that this approach to “solv[ing] a clinical problem AND a business problem” holds the key to mainstreaming and scaling digital therapeutics once and for all.
But, hey! Where is pharma in all this future talk of DTx growth?? Fern Care is a startup born from German pharmaceutical company Grunenthal, and BehaVR has come to the table with other pharma co’s on its Board. What's there role in all this? Are we abandoning our favorite DTx “around the pill” storyline forever? Or, is there room for it in this new narrative? For that, you must watch... tune in now!!
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Jess DaMassa chats it up with the ‘who’s who’ of the health tech and healthcare innovation set on 'WTF Health - What's the Future, Health?' Catch 100's of interviews with leading healthcare technology startups and the VC investors, health insurance companies, big pharma co's, and hospital systems helping bring their new ideas into the healthcare establishment. From AI and Big Data to digital health, virtual care, telehealth, digital therapeutics, payment model innovation, and investing, Jessica helps you spot the trends and figure out what’s next.
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