Regions
MAIN/REGIONS
regions/
Regions
  1. Americas
  2. Asia & Oceania
  3. Europe
  4. Middle East & Africa
  1. Solutions
  2. Products
  3. Insights
  4. About
  5. Careers
  6. Contact Us
MAIN/search
MAIN/Solutions
Solutions/
SOLUTIONS
  • Research & Development
  • Real World Evidence
  • Commercialization
  • Safety & Regulatory Compliance
  • Technologies
LIFE SCIENCE SEGMENTS
HEALTHCARE SEGMENTS
THERAPEUTIC AREAS

Impacting People's Lives

"We strive to help improve outcomes and create a healthier, more sustainable world for people everywhere.

LEARN MORE
Harness the power to transform clinical development

Reimagine clinical development by intelligently connecting data, technology, and analytics to optimize your trials. The result? Faster decision making and reduced risk so you can deliver life-changing therapies faster.

Research & Development Overview
Research & Development Quick Links
Real World Evidence. Real Confidence. Real Results.

Generate and disseminate evidence that answers crucial clinical, regulatory and commercial questions, enabling you to drive smarter decisions and meet your stakeholder needs with confidence.

REAL WORLD EVIDENCE OVERVIEW
Real World Evidence Quick Links
See markets more clearly. Opportunities more often.

Elevate commercial models with precision and speed using AI-driven analytics and technology that illuminate hidden insights in data.

COMMERCIALIZATION OVERVIEW
Commercialization Quick Links
Service driven. Tech-enabled. Integrated compliance.

Orchestrate your success across the complete compliance lifecycle with best-in-class services and solutions for safety, regulatory, quality and medical information.

COMPLIANCE OVERVIEW
Safety & Regulatory Compliance Quick Links
Intelligence that transforms life sciences end-to-end.

When your destination is a healthier world, making intelligent connections between data, technology, and services is your roadmap.

TECHNOLOGIES OVERVIEW
Technology Quick Links
MAIN/Products
Products/
CLINICAL PRODUCTS
COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS
COMPLIANCE, SAFETY, REG PRODUCTS
REAL WORLD PRODUCTS

CASE STUDY

"Data in a Day

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Insights
Insights/
BLOGS, WHITE PAPERS & CASE STUDIES

Explore our library of insights, thought leadership, and the latest topics & trends in healthcare.

DISCOVER INSIGHTS
THE IQVIA INSTITUTE

An in-depth exploration of the global healthcare ecosystem with timely research, insightful analysis, and scientific expertise.

SEE LATEST REPORTS

INSTITUTE REPORT

"Global Trends in R&D 2023

READ MORE

EMEA Insights

"IQVIA thought leadership with a focus on EMEA.

Learn more

WHITE PAPER

"DCTs Deliver Big ROI

LEARN MORE

WHITE PAPER

"Capturing value at scale: The $4 billion RWE imperative

LEARN MORE
MAIN/About
About/
FEATURED INNOVATIONS
  • Connected Intelligence
  • AI & Machine Learning
  • Human Data Science Cloud
  • IQVIA Innovation Hub
  • Decentralized Trials
  • Genomics
WHO WE ARE
NEWS & RESOURCES

INVESTOR RELATIONS

"Visit our investor relations site for more information.

LEARN MORE
Unlock your potential to drive healthcare forward

By making intelligent connections between your needs, our capabilities, and the healthcare ecosystem, we can help you be more agile, accelerate results, and improve patient outcomes.

LEARN MORE
AI & Machine Learning with a healthcare IQ.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating opportunities. Realizing the benefits for healthcare requires the right expertise. Together, we can solve the problems of today, and drive the breakthroughs of tomorrow.

LEARN MORE
Your healthcare data deserves more than just a cloud.

The IQVIA Human Data Science Cloud is our unique capability designed to enable healthcare-grade analytics, tools, and data management solutions to deliver fit-for-purpose global data at scale.

LEARN MORE
Innovations make an impact when bold ideas meet powerful partnerships

The IQVIA Innovation Hub connects start-ups with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners. Together, we can help lead the future of healthcare with the extensive IQVIA network of assets, resources, clients, and partners.

LEARN MORE
Proven, faster DCT solutions

IQVIA Decentralized Trials deliver purpose-built clinical services and technologies that engage the right patients wherever they are. Our hybrid and fully virtual solutions have been used more than any others.

LEARN MORE
Unlock the power of genomic research.

IQVIA enables genomic research via global access to a network of genomic-clinical data, proprietary technologies that enable federated analytics, and therapeutic area & bioinformatics expertise to help you answer your most pressing research questions.

LEARN MORE
MAIN/Careers
Careers/
WORKING AT IQVIA

Our mission is to accelerate innovation for a healthier world. Together, we can solve customer challenges and improve patient lives.

LEARN MORE
LIFE AT IQVIA

Careers, culture and everything in between. Find out what’s going on right here, right now.

LEARN MORE

WE’RE HIRING

"Improving human health requires brave thinkers who are willing to explore new ideas and build on successes. Unleash your potential with us.

SEARCH JOBS
MAIN/Contact Us
Contact Us/
Blog
The UK could become a leader in digital health by rolling out turnkey solutions for digital therapeutics research
Nelia Padilla and Brian Clancy
May 07, 2018
  • Blogs
  • The UK could become a leader in Digital Health

Digital Therapeutics are patient health applications and connected devices that have proven clinical benefits, as well as, appropriate regulatory clearances and distribution pathways to serve their intended use. Recent reporting by the IQVIA Institute has identified a large, growing number of such apps with the potential to save billions in unnecessary healthcare costs.1 This value drives strong industry growth projections, with some forecasting that Digital Therapeutics sales will expand to $USD 9.4 billion worldwide by 2025.2

In many ways, the UK is in a position to grow and catch up with the market leaders in the Digital Therapeutics industry. To date, only 8% of published app effectiveness studies have taken place in the UK.3 In 2017, $USD 14.2 billion was invested in digital health startups globally, but only $USD 426 million (3%) was invested in UK digital health startups.4

The UK’s Global Position in Digital Health

If Digital Therapeutics companies could conduct their studies better, faster, and cheaper in the UK than elsewhere, the benefits to the health and wealth of the nation would be significant. Improving the UK’s Digital Therapeutics research infrastructure would position the nation for more investment in research and downstream commercial activity; UK startups would become more competitive, and more world leaders in Digital Therapeutics would want to set up operations in the UK. However, to realise these clinical and economic benefits, the leading apps that drive this value would likely need to be studied in NHS patients prior to their broad adoption. 

The research needs of the Digital Therapeutics industry are – at the highest level – fairly uniform and well understood. To be sustainably successful, Digital Therapeutics developers of all kinds need an efficient means of proving their effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness relative to the standard of care in a setting that very closely resembles real world practice. In fact, most industry participants would agree that the main problem with current infrastructure is not necessarily ‘quality;’ it’s the excessive time and cost of today’s studies together with the struggle to transition seamlessly from research to real world practice.

A turnkey solution for Digital Therapeutics research

The UK has an opportunity to provide the world’s first turnkey solution for Digital Therapeutics research. Key features of such a solution should include the following:

    Simplified application & setup

    The commonalities of many Digital Therapeutics create the opportunity for a ‘templated’ approach to developing study protocols, drafting ethics review applications, and matching promising studies to potential funding sources.

    Pre-contracted ‘Digital Therapeutics Research Network’

    It generally takes years for Digital Therapeutics companies to find and set up appropriate legal agreements with suitable research sites. The ability to ‘plug in’ immediately to a network of appropriate sites would be priceless for the industry.

    App prescribing platform & 3rd party research apps

    Studies should minimise the work required of clinicians and patients. Significant efficiency can be realised by providing healthcare professionals with the ability prescribe study apps from their EMR, by providing patients the ability to eConsent to study terms, and by providing qualified researchers with a single source of collated EMR, app, and other data to analyse.

    ‘Bench’ of qualified independent research teams

    A list of academic and private sector teams with expertise in the management and analysis of pseudonymised data should be available to prepare manuscripts that meet high quality publication standards, such as the WHO’s ‘mERA’ checklist.5

    Ability to transition intermediately to use in ‘monitored’ routine care

    While research can be improved, perhaps an even larger issue for Digital Therapeutics companies is the need to achieve scale. It would make sense to use a common infrastructure for research and routine care to enable seamless transitions.

A turnkey Digital Therapeutics Research Platform

The required ‘investment’ to make the above a reality is not in new technology as the technology exists already. The required investment to become a world leader in Digital Therapeutics is in collaboration across the public, academic, and industrial sectors. A consensus is needed around new processes for giving the UK’s Digital Therapeutics industry a common sense boost.

References

1 IQVIA Institute. The Growing Value of Digital Health in the United Kingdom. 7 November 2017.

2 Grand View Research. Digital Therapeutics Market by Application. July 2017.

3 IQVIA AppScript Clinical Evidence Database. Data on File. 13 March, 2018.

4 Marc Sluijs. DigitalHealth.Network Deals Database. 15 March 2018.

5 S. Agarwal. Guidelines for reporting of health interventions using mobile phones: mobile health (mHealth) evidence reporting and assessment (mERA) checklist. BMJ 2016;352:i1174. 17 March 2016

Contact Us