Day two of DTx Asia began with experts in the APAC region discussing different ways to integrate digital therapeutics (DTx) into healthcare and its respective opportunity costs, at the Novotel Ambassador Hotel in Seoul on Wednesday.

The panelists included EverEx Founder & CEO Chan Yoon who served as the moderator, Mobio CEO & Chief Scientist Interactive Bechara Saab, Monash Health Director of Medical Services Jason Goh, KT Vice President of Digital & BioHealth Lee Hai-sung and TALi CEO Mary-Beth Brinson.

KT’s Lee said DTx solutions can help address the rising demand of patients in Korea where doctors are known for their quick three-minute consults with patients.

“DTx solutions can fill this gap to provide more attention to patients and detailed data to physicians,” he said.

Sharing from an Australian perspective, TALi’s Brinson said DTx are particularly valuable for treating the increasing burden of chronic diseases.

She explained that DTx enables more immediate access to healthcare to by-pass long physician wait times.

Despite Australia’s commendable national health insurance, she said more can be done to reduce some of the overall out-of-pocket burden.

On a different note, Monash’s Goh said although there is a demand for DTx, digital healthcare solutions like EMR adoption and clinical imaging tend to overshadow DTx.

However, he noted that the Covid-19 pandemic helped highlight the need for telemedicine and digital therapy solutions. In this regard, he said that a German system needs to be adopted whereby GPs and physicians in primary care facilities are reimbursed for the time they spend consulting with the client about the DTx solution and teaching patients how to use it to facilitate DTx integration.

Mobio’s Saab shared his views on the matter.

“The current healthcare system is inadequate to provide healthcare due to Asia’s increasing healthcare budget per capita and low density of physician to patient ratio,” he said.

To solve this problem, the DTx industry needs to invest more to make DTx solutions work, just like the pharma industry did to have cold chain infrastructure to facilitate manufacturing in the wake of Covid-19, Saab said.

Goh suggested that start-ups should consider health economics for health insurers and patients during the development of the DTx to expand DTx solutions.

He added that there should be a DTx equivalent to the conventional medical aid system which recognizes the time taken to filter DTx products for prescription to patients.

Then, Lee pointed out that DTx companies also need to work more closely with the pharma industry to improve self-management of diseases and compliance of pharma’s existing drugs.