Proteus Digital Health® Announces Digital Medicines Pipeline Development and Expansion into Oncology

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--()--Proteus Digital Health®, Inc. today announced that together with its collaborators, the company has developed a pipeline of 31 digital medicines for mental health, cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, infectious diseases, and oncology.

Andrew Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Proteus commented on why the company is confidently investing to expand its pipeline. “Our extensive clinical trial and commercial experience with digital medicines with thousands of patients has been overwhelmingly positive. The products are well accepted by consumers, secure, private, fully HIPAA compliant and extraordinarily safe. More importantly, we have shown consistently that patients who choose to use DigiMeds™ take them about 90% of the time, compared to medication possession of 50% with regular drugs. Physicians coach patients and properly titrate medicines at three times the rate when they have accurate data on drug use and activities of daily life that our solutions provide. This is more important than ever: on March 26, 2018 the Annals of Pharmacotherapy published a study estimating that inappropriate drug use costs the U.S. $524.4 billion a year, about 16% of total US healthcare spending. Wider use of digital medicines will help many patients and will help save a lot of money.”

Proper use of medicines is especially important in the treatment of mental health, where patients can be hospitalized if they do not consistently use their drugs in the right dose. Proteus is working with Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company to develop digital medicines for the treatment of Bipolar, Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder. Otsuka received the first NDA approval for a digital medicine, ABILIFY MYCITE® (aripiprazole tablets with sensor), in November 2017. Proteus and Otsuka are investigating the development of additional digital medicine products in mental health where there is the greatest patient need, and assessing opportunities for regulatory registration.

In cardiovascular and metabolic conditions, Proteus has a panel of 15 digital medicines that can be prescribed to named patients in the United States, prepared and delivered via specialty pharmacy services. Health systems in the US have entered into master service agreements to use the digital medicines, focusing on high-risk patients who are failing drug therapy. Proteus has conducted several clinical studies demonstrating the clinical and economic benefits of using digital medicines to improve outcomes in these patients, including a successful randomized control trial in patients with uncontrolled hypertension and type 2 diabetes (J Med Internet Res 2017;19(7):e246).

In infectious disease, the company has seven digital medicines that are being used in clinical studies to treat patients with TB, hepatitis C and HIV. These programs are designed to demonstrate that digital medicines effectively support expanded access to curative or life sustaining drug therapies, ensuring excellent medication adherence with high levels of patient autonomy and satisfaction. UC San Diego TB researcher, Dr. Sara Browne, recently completed a randomized control trial comparing digital medicines-enabled Wirelessly Observed Therapy (WOT) to Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), finding that WOT detected 54% more doses than DOT while freeing patients from onerous direct observation requirements.

Proteus is developing a portfolio of digital medicines to help cancer patients. These DigiMeds™ include oral oncology agents that require complex dosing, as well as drugs intended to help alleviate side effects, including opioid analgesics. An advisor in this initiative is Dr. Linda Sutton, an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine.

"Proteus technology has the potential to improve the quality of cancer care and make the work of cancer treatment teams timelier, more precise and more effective," said Dr. Sutton. "The explosion of therapeutic options with new drugs, as well as new molecular and genetic tests, has made oncology care increasingly complicated. We need the ability to support patient use of drugs in the right dose, on the right schedule, and ensure that these powerful medications are working as intended. There is so much uncertainty when prescribing oral oncolytics today. We send patients out of the clinic with prescriptions to fill and take at home, and oncology teams are challenged to guide patients through their treatment remotely. With digital oral chemotherapy drugs, the patient’s oncologist will know with certainty when the patient took his or her chemo. That puts the oncologist in a better position to determine if subsequent problems are related to disease progression or drug toxicity, and better able to assess drug efficacy.”

About Proteus Digital Health®

Proteus Digital Health is enabling a new category of pharmaceutical: Digital Medicines. These offerings include widely used drugs, formulated so they communicate when they have been swallowed; a wearable patch that detects medicines and captures physiologic response; mobile applications to support patient self-care and physician decision-making; and data analytics to serve the needs of health system managers. The company has more than 440 issued patents that protect this enabling technology, and regulatory clearances in the U.S., European Union and China.

Proteus Digital Health is privately held by investors that include Carlyle, Essex Woodlands, Kaiser Permanente®, Medtronic®, Novartis®, Otsuka, PepsiCo, and ON Semiconductor®. Further information is available at: www.proteus.com. Connect with us on Twitter @ProteusDH.

Proteus Digital Health® is a registered trademark owned by Proteus Digital Health, Inc.. Abilify MyCite® is a registered trademark owned by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

Contacts

Proteus Digital Health, Inc.
Emily Fox, +1 650-637-6240
Director of Communications
efox@proteus.com

Release Summary

Proteus Digital Health®, together with its collaborators, has developed a pipeline of 31 digital medicines for numerous medical conditions.

Contacts

Proteus Digital Health, Inc.
Emily Fox, +1 650-637-6240
Director of Communications
efox@proteus.com