Top Digital Health partnerships of 2018
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Verily raises $1 billion to expand its healthcare beyond research (GOOGL, AMZN, AAPL, JPM)
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The influx of cash should help Verilys ongoing pivot toward commercializing health products.Most of Verilys previous work in healthcare has focused on research: Verilys conducting a study in conjunction with biopharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences that aims to identify the genomic cause of inflammatory disease, for example.
And it's also partnering with Duke University and Stanford Medicine to research risk factors that lead to disease onset. But Verily's recent initiatives suggest the firm is focusing more on developing and marketing products beneficial to healthcare stakeholders across the ecosystem to drive revenue.
For example, Verily spun out a joint venture with sleep-tracking device company ResMed in July 2018 to help providers treat sleep apnea, an underdiagnosed disorder linked with $150 billion in annual US economic costs. And the firm formed a pact with Walgreens in December 2018 that allows Verily to market health products in Walgreens locations, including devices and software to help manage diabetes and improve medication adherence.
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Commercializing more of its products makes sense if Verilys to keep pace with its big tech competitors:
- Unlike Verily, Apple and Amazon both currently market products to hospitals.Apple's signing up more hospital clients to its mobile patient electronic health record solution, while Amazon's selling new medical software to health firms.
- But Verily can leverage its partnerships with medical device companies to tap into a revenue stream currently inaccessible to Amazon and Apple.While Apple's touting the latest Apple Watch as a valuable medical tool, we think its unlikely the wearable will be used in clinical settings in the near future. Physicians balked at the Watchs ability to stack up against the accuracy of existing monitors, questioning whether Apple might trigger false positives and unnecessarily send a flood of patients to the ER.And although Amazon's selling an exclusive line of health devices and has an Alexa team devoted to healthcare, those offerings are primarily consumer-facing. Verily likely has a leg up on its big tech counterparts when it comes to marketing medical devices, with partnerships with big names like Dexcom, Sanofi, and Sensile Medical to develop devices spanning less intrusive blood glucose monitors and "all-in-one" medical-grade insulin pumps . Hitting on one of those products and bringing it to market would be a big win for Verily.
Verilys financing also suggests 2019 could be another landmark year for digital health funding.Digital health smashed previous record funding levels with ease in 2018, due in part to big techs active role in the sector.
The top 10 US tech companies by market cap participated in 27 healthcare startup funding rounds in 2018 through Q3, for example. If Verily's early participation in the funding market is echoed by other US tech giants in 2019, funding will likely continue at current torrid pace.
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SEE ALSO: THE DIGITAL HEALTH ECOSYSTEM: An in-depth examination of the players and tech trends reshaping the future of healthcare
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