The Frenchwoman is responsible for the digitization strategy of the pharmaceutical company Bayer.
(Photo: company)
Dusseldorf Jeanne Kehren describes “Integrated Care” as one of the greatest achievements in the digitization of the pharmaceutical industry. The cumbersome term conceals simple business models: apps for cardiovascular patients, to promote women’s health or for cancer therapy.
The G4A accelerator program falls within the remit of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the pharmaceutical company Bayer, which recently selected four start-ups from 200 applications. In addition to a mentoring program, the young companies receive an investment of 100,000 euros. Kehren specifies the strategic direction of the funding program and provides direct advice to the founders.
The French woman knows what she’s talking about, because she can look back on almost 20 years of experience in the pharmaceuticals industry two years ago at Bayer: at Sanofi she developed drugs for diabetics, at Novartis she investigated the role biomarkers such as blood pressure play in Diseases play. Since 2013, more than 150 start-ups have completed the temporary Bayer Accelerator. This has resulted in more than 30 direct partnerships with Bayer.
Kehren describes the collaborations with the developer of the diabetes management platform One Drop as a particularly great success. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to predict how the patient’s blood sugar level will develop over the next six to twelve hours, says Kehren and looks as if she is still surprised that the technology really works.
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Kehren only accepted the job at Bayer because of the unusual task, she says. “Established companies tend to stay in their comfort zone: investing money in technologies that they already know and that they know will make more money with it.” After all, they can only make a promise for the future but would have to be invested today. She predicts that digital therapies or “Integrated Care” – as Kehren calls the new form of care – could make a significant contribution to the pharmaceutical company’s sales in ten years’ time.
Start therapies faster
These programs are sustainable because they enable people to better manage their health, emphasizes Kehren. This ability would at the same time relieve the medical staff. Patients receive a diagnosis more quickly and can be treated pharmacologically, perhaps even saved, more quickly. The time advantage is also an advantage for the pharmaceutical industry: Medicines are used earlier.
In order for the technologies to be practical, however, they need data. As part of the Patient Data Protection Act (PDSG), patients can voluntarily provide their health data to research. Only university hospitals are granted the right to submit applications; pharmaceutical research is left empty-handed.
The only alternative currently: “Carrying out clinical studies that are extremely expensive, take time and may also be less informative,” says Kehren. The effort for study participants is also much greater: They have to appear in person on several appointments. Many subjects drop out prematurely. The results are distorted, in the worst case the gain in knowledge is postponed by months or years.
Buy data from US companies
That’s why Bayer buys prescription and patient data from US companies. “It is difficult to put a figure on the value of a data set, but analyzing two million data sets can cost $ 500,000,” reports the CIO. The pharmaceutical company does not become the owner of the information. Customers can only rent the data, view it and commission the US company with a special analysis. Donors are paid.
The industry should create more understanding of what it does and what it is. Because the potential for inventing and developing drugs with data is great: “If we recognize and encapsulate changed cells earlier, we could, for example, prevent cancer from developing further,” says Kehren. However, it ruled out a cure for the deadly disease. But if healthy people understood the effect of prevention, they too would digitally disclose their state of health.
Either way: From Kehren’s point of view, pharmaceutical companies can get patient data even without an application right. Bayer has started a cooperation with the start-up Ada Health, which has developed a symptom checker. More than ten million users have already entered information about themselves and their complaints into the Ada app.
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