Sprint #4 Workshop: Bridging the silos between Clinical Research, eHealth & Digital Therapeutics - “The rise of patient-centric applications”

BRUSSELS, BE – January 21, 2021

On the 17^th of December 2020, Innovation Sprint organized the 4^th episode of its annual event "Sprint Workshops". This year’s episode was titled "Bridging the silos between Clinical Research, eHealth & Digital Therapeutics - The rise of patient-centric applications" and was held online. The event was attended by more than 100 participants from Europe, US, and Canada and brought together people from the pharma industry, regulators, policy makers, and researchers that presented recent developments, and challenges of the industry.

The event was divided into 4 parts: Welcome & Keynotes, Track I: “Clinical Research & Digital Biotech”, Track II: “eHealth / DTx”, and the Panel discussion: “Bridging the Silos”. The workshop was opened by Sofoklis Kyriazakos, CEO of Innovation Sprint and followed by three keynote speeches by Vincenzo Bartoli, Senior VP of AstraZeneca, Michelle Longmire, CEO of the MEDABLE, and Simon Bourne, the CEO of my mHealth Ltd, who presented the activities of their companies with emphasis on digital patients’ experiences, virtual clinical studies, and DTx applications.

In Track I “Clinical Research & Digital Biotech”, Konstantina Kostopoulou, Chief Product Officer of Innovation Sprint presented the Healthentia Digital Biotech activity and the recent outcomes from the AI-driven clinical studies. Olivier Schmidt, VP Sales in KEYRUS Life Science presented how to leverage digital– empathic patient experience within Clinical Trials. Alan Yeomans, New Technologies WG leader of EUCROF presented the activities of the WG, among them the Code of Conduct, eConsent, and AI. David Coman, CEO of Science 37 talked about how to increase patient access and the rise of decentralized clinical trials. The track closed by the Hackathon Announcement that will be organized in March 2021 by Innovation Sprint and will have two streams: one related to validation of classifiers by means of RWD datasets and one related to virtual coaching content preparation for DTx.

Track II “eHealth / DTx” started with Hermie Hermens from University Twente and Innovation Sprint partner, who presented the TECHMED eHealth House and the ecosystem for personalised health in Enschede. Giuseppe Recchia, CEO of daVinci Digital Therapeutics talked about Digital Therapies and how to overcome barriers to entry into medical practice. Alexander Olbrechts, Business Group Leader Health Tech, mHealthBELGIUΜ presented mHealthBelgium and how Belgium is boosting mobile health apps. The track was closed by two presentations from the H2020-vCare project by Massimo Caprino (CCP) and Lucia Pannese, (CEO of Imaginary) who presented the vCARE digital coach experience to enhance home rehabilitation and the gamification via REHABILITY.

The Panel discussion “Bridging the Silos” was moderated by Alfredo Cesario, Medical Director of Innovation Sprint, and addressed the challenges of bringing clinical research and eHealth closer. Benedikt Van Nieuwenhove, President BeCRO, presented the Beglian ecosystem of CROs and their activities, followed by Sophie Lineart, Project Coordinator / MedTech Accelerator lifetech.brussels, who presented how the MedTech Accelerator became catalyst for connected medtech innovation and growth in Brussels. Serge Bodart, Chief Commercial Officer of IDDI and eCOA expert presented the process of eCOA for clinical research and how this can become complicated. Dimitris Athanasiou, member of PDCO EMA, Board Member of EPF, and WDO brought the patient aspect into the attention presenting challenges and opportunities for patient organizations in the Digital Era, referring to the Duchenne example.

The event was concluded after a full day of presentations and talks with the hope of #NoGoingBack, an initiative started by Signant Health and supported by the majority of organizations in the Clinical Research domain.