In 2017, terms like ‘blockchain’ and ‘Bitcoin’ dominated many of the news and financial headlines. Now that these are concepts that have been solidified in the mindset of the public at large, the healthcare industry will now be able to enhance these new technologies to maximize benefits for patients.
The digital health space is growing rapidly, and new tools are emerging for the treatment of cancer in phase II placements. Witty Health is a physician-owned company that has created lines of production for digital cancer therapies, with its SmartCDK and SmartI-O offerings already in development. The protocol is ready for SmartCDK, and the company expects to achieve its first patient recruitment in May 2018. With the support of large pharma names providing inputs for clinical protocol, Witty Health’s plan is to license one or more of the CDK 4/6 inhibitor marketers (potentially Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Novartis) or make this opportunity available to other names in the industry.
Blockchain and Digital Health
In the company’s platform strategies, Witty Health has created OncoPower, which is a token-fueled blockchain-based platform that improves cancer treatment outcomes and includes all cancer drug toxicity monitoring capabilities. Further, anyone can create an app for the OncoPower blockchain and use the Onco digital token. Essentially, the OncoPower platform is an SEC-compliant, token-fueled platform.
We recently spoke with Ram Shesha, Co-founder of Witty Health and asked questions about the company and the future of cancer treatments in digital health.
What is Witty Health?
Shesha: Witty Health is a digital therapeutics company. We develop smart digital solutions for the prescription drug market that improves medication adherence, quality of life, and health outcomes. Witty Health is currently focused on oncology and licenses its FDA approved digital therapeutics to pharmaceutical companies.
Why are you most excited about the digital health industry?
Shesha: Digital health has tremendous potential to make the next type of impact that the healthcare world needs. Being able to monitor patients 24/7 and aggregate millions of patient monitoring data points to improve drug development. There is often a difference between how a drug performs in clinical trials versus real life when it comes to outcomes and QoL. Machine learning, remote patient monitoring, and blockchain based healthcare technologies are poised to revolutionize the healthcare industry and we are excited to be involved in these at a very early stage.
What are the biggest cancer care challenges society faces today?
Sheha: Cancer treatments have significantly improved over time. With newer drugs and personalized cancer treatment strategies, outcomes are much better and side effects are much better controlled. However, this has brought about several challenges to cancer care; most notably the financial impact of taking a cancer drug to the patient as well as the slow adoption of enhanced standardized treatment protocols, affecting nimbleness for the physician. High quality cancer care still remains a critical challenge for many cancer patients. To overcome these challenges, we need motivated manpower, technological innovation, and dedication. We see that geographic access to a quality Oncologist remains an issue today — an issue that tele-oncology, personalized cancer medicine, and remote patient monitoring has the potential to disrupt. We want to use technology to improve the quality of and access to care for every person that hears the diagnosis ‘cancer’.
Which biotech trends will most influence the next 10 years?
Shesha: The biggest driver is going to be personalized medicine in which the drugs are customized to small subsets of patients based on their specific needs. Personalized medicine is made possible by genomic sequencing, enhanced patient feedback, blockchain technology, and large scale data analytics. Witty Health is at the forefront of big data analytics through using patient monitored data to advance personalized treatment.
What separates Witty Health from the competition?
Shesha: We are a one-inch-wide and one-mile-deep oncology focused company offering 1) drug-specific FDA approved digital products, 2) a global patient reporting space called the Smart Cancer Treatment Platform, and 3) a blockchain technology based infrastructure. All of these are the building blocks of personalized medicine.
What else do you want the world to know about your products and company?
Shesha: We are a predominantly physician and oncologist owned venture which helps us push the limits of cancer care. We receive direct feedback from both patients and oncology providers at every step to design the smartest possible personalized medicine.
For more information, visit WittyHealth.com.
