Wellthy Therapeutics, a start-up which has integrated Artificial Intelligence to develop an app for diabetic care, is now raising funds to move on to its next phase of growth.
The company set up in December 2015, spent a year in product development and conducted India’s first clinical pilot study for digital therapeutics type II diabetes patients. The study provided evidence of superior clinical efficacy in patient outcomes when compared to any other category of diabetes oral drug therapy at an entry level dosage.
“We went live with the app with patients and clinicians in December 2016. Since then we are helping thousands of patients and have already considerable data points. Now we currently closing our first round of funding from some of the biggest names in healthcare and early stage venture capital,” Abhishek Shah, Co-founder and chief executive officer, Wellthy Therapeutics, told Pharmabiz in an email.
The app is actively used doctors, insurers, pharma and med device companies. Its key features include emergency intimation to family member about a serious condition, managing diabetes, with aids for weight loss and behavioral change, he added.
The company works with the RSSDI to provide doctor decision support tools to get one step closer to personalised medicine. This enables doctors to take more informed decisions on their treatment plan, with individual patient level guidance. “The app is expected go live in the second half of 2017 and will be one of the biggest innovations in diabetes management,” he said.
In its association with pharmaceutical companies, Wellthy aligns to offer better patient outcome for an improved compliance of oral anti-diabetic drugs (OAD) and insulin product lines . It improves medication adherence. The app also enhances therapies with real-world patient data thereby allowing better innovation for current and future product lines. It also increases sales force effectiveness with segmented patient behavioral & consumption data.
Our biggest focus for 2017 is the randomised control trial (RCT). While we will continue to expand from type II diabetes, the focus is on better user experience for better patient outcomes, said Shah.
The current scene for healthcare start-ups holds considerable promise. There is access to capital and plenty of problems to solve in healthcare. There is huge gap for primary care, chronic disease management, elderly care, access to affordable diagnostics and med devices. The trend is e-pharmacy, online doctor appointments, and electronic health records and e:payment modes that focus on improving patient outcomes. The big challenge of start-ups is to tap lucrative revenue opportunities and inventing in IP in spite of limited capital, said Shah.