Frost & Sullivan's recent analysis finds that digital therapeutics (DTx) in the United States are considered legitimate alternatives to traditional pharmacotherapy. These solutions are comprehensively regulated and granted prescription status by various national or state-level regulatory agencies based on reported evidence of improved clinical outcomes for a defined patient population. 

As life sciences companies aim to enhance patients' treatment experiences and find new biomarkers that aid drug discovery, DTx companies diversify their pipelines by adding new indications, addressing unmet needs. Consequently, this market is estimated to witness more than three-and-a-half-fold growth, reaching $4.54 billion by 2025 from $1.23 billion in 2020, expanding exponentially at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.8%. 

"In the next three to five years, multiple technology vendors will offer digital treatments that will be regarded as safe and effective as subscriptions to personalized medication," said Koustav Chatterjee, Healthcare & Life Sciences Principal at Frost & Sullivan. "Additionally, patients would be allowed or advised to modify dosages and reduce consumption of non-emergency medications based on their daily vitals that DTx solutions will capture and contextualize."

Chatterjee added: "Patient-centric digital health vendors have strived for a business model that allows physicians to recommend their products, patients to use them for a defined period (without fail), caregivers to monitor outcomes 24/7, and payers to reimburse the cost of usage. Further, DTx companies partnering with payers, providers and life sciences companies provide the best way of getting access to patients for scalability, apart from risk-sharing agreements."

Over the next two to three years, biopharma companies also will highly invest in DTx solutions, enabling the subsidized cost to patients in exchange for marketing and access to patient data. As a result, Frost & Sullivan identified the following growth opportunities for market participants:

• Prescription-grade software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) that auto-upgrades treatment plans based on patient's biomarker reading for dosage optimization: SaMD should be able to capture, consolidate, and normalize patient data and recommend personalized actions for medication and care plan adjustments.

• DTx-related platform-as-a-service (PaaS) capability that specializes in multiple therapeutic areas to help IT companies build capabilities at scale: The PaaS capability has to be modular and multi-therapeutic as the target audience for these solutions often carries multiple chronic comorbidities.

• DTx to support evidence-based treatment and medication adherence for patients, providers, and payers: Biopharma should work with the DTx companies to develop use cases and value propositions that inform patients about the range of benefits offered and impact on outcomes.  

US Digital Therapeutics Growth Opportunities is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan's Healthcare & Life Sciences research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.

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