Last week One Drop, the US-based startup offering digital therapeutic solutions for diabetes and other chronic conditions, announced a new step in its collaboration with Bayer.
The relationship between the two started back in 2019 when One Drop secured $40M series B financing from a pharmaceutical giant. This year Bayer led One Drop’s $34.7 million Series C funding round adding $64 million in other commercial agreements on top – making the total deal value equal to $98.7 million.
The aim of this strong partnership is to build personalized care programs and digital products for people with chronic conditions. Let’s look into the implications of the deal from the perspective of the evolution of the digital health products.
Expanding digital health monitoring to more areas
The partnership with Bayer will accelerate One Drop’s move into the new areas beyond diabetic care such as oncology, cardiology and women’s health. As Jeff Dachis, Founder & CEO of One Drop mentioned during his interview to WTF Health, the startup gets stronger potential to move further and help people with, for example, cardiovascular conditions – an adjacent area to diabetes which is also costing employers and payers a lot of money.
It’s important to note that One Drop has been working (and will continue doing so reinforced by the partnership with Bayer) in the predictive and preventive healthcare. The startup helps people to predict what’s going to happen with their health markers and then advises how to change it if the forecast is not going in the right direction.
One Drop’s products allow to change people’s behavior before reaching the advanced stage of a medical condition and avoid the implication of health damaging behavior.
For example, One Drop has recently launched a new digital membership program that provides users with a personalized health plan and customized programs according to the desired objectives in, for example, blood pressure, weight or physical activity.
Hence, the partnership between One Drop and Bayer is opening more space in the market of preventive digital solutions in multiple healthcare industries.
What about ML and Data Science in digital health?
All the news on the deal mention that Bayer will benefit One Drop’s data-driven approach in healthcare and boost digital side of Bayer’s business. Let’s take a closer look into what is there behind these words.
One Drop’s database counts nearly with 14 billion diverse health data points of over 3M users focusing on over 75 biomarkers. The right use of Machine Learning and Data Science allows the startup to turn this data into useful prediction and then lead the patient step by step to move this prediction in the right direction (or keep up with it).
Moreover, such a developed databased with that many biomarkers makes it possible to take into account almost all the dependencies and connections among the different symptoms, sufficiently increasing the reliability of the health predictions.
Again, it means a broader focus on preventive and predictive care because Bayer will take advantage of One Drop’s data science, health science and behavioral science expertise.
The tendency in the digital health market
Finally, the deal goes in line with an overall tendency of this year that is so rich in digital health M&A’s and partnerships – a longing to provide integrated solutions to the patients focusing on their entire health system. Most of the players have realized that they need to deal with the entire person, not at a patient with, say, cardiovascular condition or diabetes.
The market of very targeted applications focused on the symptoms in the specific area is giving way to the platforms that guarantee unified, integrated and personalized experience and could work as a trusted source meeting most of the existing needs. This leads to the wave of M&A’s we are witnessing this year – take even the recent Livongo and Teladoc merger.
Most probably, we will continue noticing the switch from the individual point apps to the development of the solutions taking care of the entire person’s health.
Follow latest innovations in the digital health market
Together with other top digital health innovators, One Drop has been present among keynotes at Frontiers Health conference over the last few years. This year Frontiers health is coming back on November 12-13, 2020 in a special format of the Global Hybrid Conference.
The conference will combine online and offline events and activities in Italy, Germany, Finland, Spain, the USA and more locations. The hybrid format will allow to attend Frontiers Health from any world’s location remotely or in person at the local hubs. The conference will be dedicated to all aspects of digital health innovation and will also include Startup Discovery sessions exposing the greatest digital health startups.
