Introducing MyTherapy for Psoriasis: An Open Platform to Support People Living with Psoriasis
With ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ we are creating a dedicated and open support offering for thousands of MyTherapy users living with psoriasis. Read what's coming, and how partners from life science and research can join in
- Thousands of users are already managing their psoriasis treatment using the MyTherapy app. Many of these users tell us that they need better tools and support for living well with psoriasis - despite the availability of pharma's various patient support offerings
- With ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ we are launching our second disease-specific support offering within MyTherapy. On top of MyTherapy’s proven and tested features, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ adds contents and features tailored to the needs of psoriasis patients - within an app that patients use several times a day
- We are taking an open platform approach and adding specific tools and educational/inspirational contents together with partners from pharma, academia, and the DTx world, thereby accounting for the diverse needs of patients living with psoriasis
On average, MyTherapy users are active in the app six times a day. This high level of engagement is a result of countless iterations and the continuous, close cooperation with people living with chronic diseases. This engagement stems from functionality that is designed to help people with any disease, such as managing medications, tracking symptoms, managing appointments, or collaborating with caregivers.
There is a second level of value for users that we are in a position to provide: Serving the support needs that are specific to the disease that a patient is living with. With ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’, we are launching our second disease-specific support offering within MyTherapy, following on from ‘MyTherapy for MS’.
On top of MyTherapy’s functionality, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ provides additional content and tools specifically for psoriasis patients – independent of the treatment that they may be on. Read on to learn why we have decided to specifically support people living with psoriasis and how we are working with partners in order to ensure that each patient gets access to the education, inspiration, and tools they need.
MyTherapy for Psoriasis: Why?
Psoriasis can present vastly different to challenges to different people. Many patients only need to apply topical treatments, others are taking medications or injecting highly innovative biologics. While many simply want to follow a treatment plan to help keep symptoms under control, others may want to dial in on understanding triggers or learn how to live well with common comorbidities.
What some people in healthcare call a ‘patient journey’, for people living with psoriasis is everything but a journey.
The life science industry operates patient support programs to assist patients in managing their disease. Some of these provide excellent support around a specific treatment. However, they struggle to provide meaningful support for living well with the disease; the broad spectrum of different support needs sums up to a massive unmet need. In addition, many psoriasis patients are reluctant to rely on industry-provided offerings.
As with multiple sclerosis, we have thousands of psoriasis patients as active users of our MyTherapy platform and have communicated with people living with the condition in the development of our app. Despite the abundance of digital tools on the market, the potential for simple yet effective support offerings remains largely unmet. We believe that it is time to break down the silos of traditional patient support programs and to instead join forces for a digital patient support offering of true relevance for almost any psoriasis patient.
An Open Approach
‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ aims to fulfill the unmet need for support by putting the patient at the center. Users pick the tools, the education, and the inspiration that fit their individual challenges. At the same time, people can use the offering for managing comorbidities or other health-related needs – a clear departure from today's disease-centric or even product-centric support offerings.
Additionally, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ is grounded in an open platform approach. By collaborating with partners from pharma, academia, and digital therapeutics, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ can provide tailored support and education for specific treatments and challenges at a quality and breadth that no single offering can provide. At the same time, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ retains all of MyTherapy’s core functionalities and keeps evolving with monthly updates.
How Partners Can Benefit from MyTherapy for Psoriasis?
Beyond supporting patients, ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ opens the door to a range of new partnership opportunities for both the pharmaceutical industry and for research purposes.
Pharma and Biotech
Building a patient support and education app from the ground up is costly and time-consuming, and most offerings are hardly being used. Instead, pharma partners are deploying product-specific support modules within ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’, thereby immediately benefitting from:
- Medication reminders and progress tracking
- Educational content and helpful tips for living well with psoriasis
- Tracking of well-being, symptoms, and measurements
- Collaboration with caregivers and data sharing with HCPs
Our in-house team of editors are experts in medical writing and behavior change and helps partners by translating messages into patient language that clicks and sticks. ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ is for pharma companies who want to support their patients where they already are or are looking for sponsoring opportunities for (non-promotional) content available to all patients. Sounds interesting? Don't hesitate to get in touch.
Research and Digital Therapeutics
Throughout the development of MyTherapy, we have partnered with leading medical institutions such as Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Klinikum rechts der Isar der Technischen Universität München for research purposes.
Research partners can benefit from MyTherapy’s exemplary patient engagement to gain real-world insights into patients’ behavior and attitudes. MyTherapy’s userbase allows researchers to use qualitative data to analyze issues such as medication adherence, while surveys and questionnaires can reach the patient populations that matter to you.
Further, being ISO 13485 compliant, we can host medical device grade modules within ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’, e.g. digital therapeutics (DTx) of software for controlling medical device grade IoT devices.
What's next?
‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ will be available from summer 2021. If you are interested in taking advantage of the partnering opportunities available using ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’, please get in touch. ‘MyTherapy for Psoriasis’ is the second disease-specific program we are releasing, following ‘MyTherapy for MS’, with more in the pipeline, so don't hesitate to reach out if you want to join us in redefining patient support in a condition other than psoriasis or MS.