Introducing a holistic and long-term perspective to chronic disease treatment

We believe that healthcare has the opportunity to develop an improved patient orientation through digital technologies. Pharmaceutical companies, in particular, can achieve this by start-up cooperation. One of the most tangible use cases is the extension of care-offerings ‘beyond the pill’. Our example at hand is successful in the German market and can be seen as role model for further developments in chronic disease treatment.

Being diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) means dealing with symptoms such as cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhoea and constipation — you name it. This chronic condition affecting the large intestine leaves patients with a requirement for long-term treatment and, most likely, a change in lifestyle.

Until now, the most common used therapeutic method is through OTC-medication. One of the players in the German market is Sanofi, a French biopharmaceutical company focused on human health, who introduced Buscomint in the end of 2019. Using a high concentration of peppermint oil, the symptoms are expected to improve within two weeks.

With IBS being a chronic condition, focussing solely on the alleviation of symptoms might lead to improvements of quality of life in the short-term, but holds risks of relapse in the long-term. In order to tackle this problem, Sanofi is cooperating with the eHealth start-up Cara Care.

Cara Care is an app provider that supports the treatment of chronic digestive diseases to live a healthier and happier life. The app ultimately builds on a holistic approach to understand the digestive disease and is so far taking care of the therapeutic areas* of IBS, IBD, GERD and Dyspepsia. Cara Care was founded in 2015 in Berlin by Jesaja Brinkmann, Andre Sommer & Orest Tarasiuk. Its headquarter is currently situated in Berlin, where they have received a funding of 9 million € to start the business.

As soon as Cara Care has been registered in the German directory for reimbursable apps according to the “German Digital Healthcare Act” (DVG, §33a, §134 und §139e SGB V)3, healthcare practitioners are allowed to prescribe Cara Cara as a reimbursable solo therapy or a hybrid therapy (together with a drug). Further, they have been selected as part of the Healthline Best Digestive Health Apps in 2020.

The cooperation between the pharmaceutical company and eHealth start-up creates a new approach to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) treatment — a very complex condition. Sanofi’s phytopharmaceutical Buscomint focusses on the treatment of the symptoms, Cara Care on the other hand on supporting the patient in uncovering underlying causes of the condition. This holistic approach goes beyond the traditional treatment approach through a phytopharmaceutical and enriches this with digital accompaniment throughout the patient journey. It allows for an individual consideration of nutrition, lifestyle, hormones, and psyche.

Cooperating with a start-up like Cara Care reinforces the (urgently) needed patient orientation in pharmaceutical companies. Since most companies are focussing on HCP needs, the shift towards a more patient-driven strategy is still a hot topic. Due to its clear patient orientation, Cara Care can facilitate patient understanding and deliver valuable insights into patients’ usage patterns, their pains and gains.

Additionally, such a cooperation creates the opportunity for Sanofi to not only add an interesting element in the HCP discourse, as it is a tool to further support and enrich existing therapies, but also to offer patients an individual component in IBS treatment. This comes in the shape of support in the management of daily life with IBS and the development of a deeper understanding for individual symptom triggers and prevention. It can be a very valuable element as it can function as a differentiating factor towards Buscomint’s strong competition, such as Iberogast and Kijimea.

As you can see, the “German Digital Healthcare Act” (DVG) functions as a clear incentive for such treatments beyond the pill because it kickstarted the process of not only integrating but normalising digital offerings as vital part of a treatment approach. On a large scale, this can lead to improvements within the health system and enhance efficiency. We believe that this cooperation marks just the beginning in this field of cooperation, facilitating the extension of treatment by going ‘beyond the pill’ and adding value not only to the cooperating parties, but also to patients’ daily life.

*Index

IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome)

IBD (Chrohn’s diseas, ulcerative colitis)

GERD (Gastrophoegal reflux)

Dyspepsia (Indigestion)

Sources

1 Pharmazeutische Zeitung
https://www.pharmazeutische-zeitung.de/hoch-dosiertes-pfefferminzoel-beruhigt-den-darm/

2 Buscopan
https://www.buscopan.de/produkte/buscomint-bei-reizdarm

3 Cara Care
https://cara.care/de/

4 Healthline
https://www.healthline.com/health/digestive-health/top-iphone-android-apps-gut-health