Moves in pharma app market, but user longevity an issue
pharmafile | August 28, 2015 | News story | Medical Communications | Communication, apps, digital, medcomms, medical communications, mobile
Pharma companies continue to invest in the mobile app market, but studies have found that pharma apps suffer the same longevity challenges as programmes in the wider market.
Amsterdam-based dermatology app maker SkinVision has raised $3.4 million in funding from pharma company Leo Pharma, along with contributions from SkinVision’s existing investor and majority stakeholder, the Dutch investment firm Personal Health Solutions Capital.
The company plans to use the funding to increase its subscription-based app’s capabilities. In the current version of the app, a user takes an image of a mole, which the app gives a melanoma risk rating – red, yellow, or green – and highlights any abnormalities that it can detect in the lesion.
SkinVision plans to extend the app’s functionality beyond analysis of photographs of users’ moles for melanoma detection, and into other skin conditions, while also expanding into additional geographical markets. SkinVision has a CE Mark in Europe but is not available in the US.
Leo Pharma senior vice president of global development, Kim Kjoeller, comments: “The internet is dramatically changing how consumers manage their health and that creates new opportunities for us to deliver innovative, value-added services.
“We are very pleased to collaborate with SkinVision, because we will gain unique learnings about the convergence of digital technologies with medical applications. The coming years will see an ever changing and increasingly digital health care environment, and Leo Pharma wants to be at the forefront of that trend. This is a huge opportunity for the European technology and pharmaceutical industries to become world leaders.”
Yet the company recognises that despite pharma apps’ increasing reach, users remain reluctant to pay for health apps, and that Skinvision’s ratings in mobile stores have suffered as a result.
And their ability to gain a foothold in the market and be seen as valuable by users long-term remains in doubt. A study recently published by Smart Patient revealed pharma apps suffer from the same problems as other consumer apps: in that the most popular earn a huge proportion of downloads.
Smart Patient found that in the US, UK and Germany, of 359 apps from 20 of the world’s largest pharma companies, the top 10 accounted for 66% of all downloads.
The study also found that developers regularly fail to keep pharma apps fresh, with 30% never updated and 29% receiving just one update.
The top five apps were Sanofi’s Go Meals, Bayer’s Clarityn’s Pollen Forecast UK, Johnson & Johnson’s 7 Minute Workout App, Sanofi’s pill reminder Think of Me, and the Merck Manuals professional edition.
The survey suggests that motivating patients to use apps on an ongoing basis remains a challenge, as in the consumer app market, where reports show one in four apps are used just once.
Joel Levy
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