Pharma Can’t Let Big Tech Win the Race for Medical AI

The shift to prescription digital therapeutics requires players who put evidence first, who have strong commercial and regulatory arms, and who have deep expertise in shifting the standard of care to embrace new therapies. Pharma ticks every box. With proven prescription digital products backed by compelling evidence, either at hand or well into development, pharma should have no problem enlisting payers, policymakers, and prescribers. It’s been done before when a new category of therapeutics arises, whether for biologics in the 1980s, immunotherapy and CAR-T in the past decade, or gene therapy today. Pharma must stop viewing prescription digital therapeutics as digital health projects, which is an area where they have historically struggled to succeed, and embrace them instead as new therapeutic programs, where pharma is the expert, bar none.The shift to prescription digital therapeutics requires players who put evidence first, who have strong commercial and regulatory arms, and who have deep expertise in shifting the standard of care to embrace new therapies. Pharma ticks every box. With proven prescription digital products backed by compelling evidence, either at hand or well into development, pharma should have no problem enlisting payers, policymakers, and prescribers. It’s been done before when a new category of therapeutics arises, whether for biologics in the 1980s, immunotherapy and CAR-T in the past decade, or gene therapy today. Pharma must stop viewing prescription digital therapeutics as digital health projects, which is an area where they have historically struggled to succeed, and embrace them instead as new therapeutic programs, where pharma is the expert, bar none.