How Eli Lilly is Using Wearables to Deliver Better Treatments
Digital technology is helping brands the world over deliver better services to their customers. Almost every industry is finding new ways to use these digital touchpoints to better connect with those they serve.
Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. People relying on these supply chains are at their most helpless and vulnerable, and it is of paramount importance that they can access the right treatments at the right time. Failure to do so can result in a decline in clinical outcomes and even death. With many illnesses making a one-size-fits-all solution irrelevant, there is intense pressure on those involved in pharmaceutical supply chains to gain a better understanding of patients and their needs.
As a world-class provider of pharmaceutical solutions, Eli Lilly understands this need all too well and has been leveraging the power of digital technology to get a better understanding of its patients.
Eli Lilly
It all began in 2017 when Eli Lilly was looking for a way to develop a next-generation glucose monitoring system. The company decided on a device-driven strategy and partnered with Dexcom to help develop it. The goal of the project was to help Eli Lilly get closer to patients and, rather than being a simple provider of insulin medicine, become a more integral part of the system.
The next step was to develop a collaboration with medical data platform provider Evidation. The tech brand’s platform can take raw, high-frequency medical and behavioural data and transform it into new insights which can be leveraged to improve the way in which medical solutions are delivered. According to Evidation, the system is currently able to process more than a trillion data points per year, with plenty of scope for expansion.
“Evidation is democratizing medical discovery and empowering individuals, doctors, and researchers in ways we couldn't have imagined a decade ago,” says the company on its website. “With its new data platform, Evidation is helping us to better understand how to treat and potentially even prevent chronic disease.”
Data is driving so much of industry today, and it’s through the careful and intelligent analysis of digital information – and in the application of its insights to business – that brands can get a better and clearer understanding of their market than would have been ever thought possible in the pre-digital age.
However, Eli Lilly wasn’t finished there, and wanted to further expand its partnership with Evidation and its data platform to drive even more insight into the patients who are the ultimate recipients of its insulin products.
Wearable Technology
To achieve this, Eli Lilly and Evidation are embarking on a multi-year research project which will look to gather unprecedented volumes of data to develop new digital biomarkers for disease.
To gather the data required for such an undertaking, the two companies will deploy smartphone technology, voice data collection, and wearable technology. Using these technologies and Evidation’s Andromeda consented data platform the project will be able to track the everyday behaviour of patients and really get closer to them and how their lives progress as a sufferer.
“The collaboration will be based around Evidation’s Andromeda technology and will allow Lilly’s scientists to gain a deeper understanding of the physiological, environment, and contextual indicators that can help shape future advancements in medicine and medicine delivery,” said Lilly’s Chief Digital Officer, Divakar Ramakrishnan. “With Andromeda, Lilly scientists now have instant access to a private, collaborative, and secure analytical environment where they can use Evidation’s algorithms to process raw data for use in clinical studies or to create their own predictive models.”
Using wearable technology and other devices, Eli Lilly and Evidation are making sure their research subjects have the maximum number of touchpoints with the project possible. The objective data gathered by the wearable tech can be combined with the more qualitative information provided in diaries and logs recorded using voice technology and the participant’s own smartphone to get the most complete picture possible.
Final Thoughts
Getting closer to patients and gaining a better understanding of their lives should be a top priority for any brand involved in the logistics of bringing pharmaceutical products to healthcare providers and those they treat. The world of pharmaceutical supply chains can often seem far removed from the end users of its products, and it’s only by gaining these kinds of insights that better medicines can be developed and delivered for the good of all.
"Our initial collaborations with Lilly demonstrated that digital biomarkers can play a significant role in understanding individuals and disease, and we are excited to expand our collaboration," said Cofounder and President of Evidation, Christine Lemke. "The data platform product embodies an industry-wide change to the way we measure health, which makes it more proactive, objective, and ultimately meaningful to individuals.”
Using digital technology to get closer to the patient is set to be a hot topic at LogiPharma 2020, taking place in April at the Nice Acropolis, France. Download the agenda today for more information and insights.