Digital health technologies (e.g. smartphone apps, wearable sensors, and other remote, sensor-based tools that combine hardware and software) have become increasingly available to consumers, providers, and researchers. These tools offer new opportunities to address critical challenges or 'pain points', better connect patients and health care providers, and incorporate patient input throughout the drug research and development (R&D) life cycle.
The Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation and the Roundtable on Genomics and Precision Health hosted a public workshop on March 24, 2020, which provided a venue for stakeholders to discuss challenges and opportunities in using digital health technologies to improve the probability of success in drug development. Workshop participants considered key components for an evidence-based framework for applying digital health technologies towards drug R&D.
The agenda featured invited presentations and discussions for stakeholders to:
- Highlight critical barriers or ‘pain points’ along the drug R&D lifecycle for which digital health technologies may be uniquely suited to address;
- Consider lessons learned from currently validated digital health technology applications that could be generalizable for newer digital health technologies;
- Consider opportunities to enable the practical application of digital health technologies for improving drug development (e.g. sharing best practices for the validation and use of digital health technologies, harmonizing guidelines across sectors);
- Consider strategies to determine the evidentiary criteria for selecting digital health technologies that are fit for purpose in drug development (e.g. examining existing frameworks);
- Discuss privacy, ethical, and regulatory issues related to the use of digital health technologies.
Below are materials for the workshop, including an agenda, briefing book, discussion tool, and presentations. View archived webcast footage of the presentations and discussions here.
Read an interactive resource from the workshop proceedings here.
For additional information on the workshop, including the planning committee and sponsors, please visit our project page.