Bayer CH Backs Digital Therapeutics With ‘Multimillion-Dollar’ Mahana Partnership
Executive Summary
A multimillion-dollar partnership will bring together Bayer Consumer Health's digestive health brand equity with Mahana's cutting edge digital therapeutic technology for treating irritable bowel syndrome.
Bayer Consumer Health is entering a “multimillion-dollar distribution and marketing partnership” with San Francisco based company Mahana Therapeutics.
With Mahana offering via prescription in the US what it describes as the “only FDA-cleared digital cognitive behavioral therapy treatment for irritable bowel syndrome that you can do on your smartphone” and Bayer CH marketing some of the world’s biggest OTC digestive health brands – Rennie, Alka-Seltzer, MiraLAX and Iberogast – this could be a match made in digital heaven. (Also see "Mahana Therapeutics Plans To Use $61M In Series B Financing To Launch IBS Treatment App" - Medtech Insight, 11 Aug, 2021.)
“Digital therapeutics are a perfect addition to our portfolio of care and tap into new tech-savvy consumers looking for drug-free treatments as well as help eliminate gaps in care provision,” commented Bayer CH’s head of R&D and chief scientific officer David Evendon-Challis.
For its part, Mahana notes that the “historic partnership” is “among the first major investments ever made by a global life sciences company into the emerging marketplace for digital therapeutics.”
“Mahana is proud to collaborate with the Bayer team who share our view that digital therapeutics are a critical part of the future of healthcare,” commented Mahana CEO Simon Levy. “Through this agreement, we can further expand the availability of our innovative prescription digital therapeutics for patients and their caregivers around the world who seek effective treatment for chronic conditions.”
Precision Health
The partnership is the first major move by Bayer’s new Precision Health unit, set up earlier this year to focus entirely on identifying “digital and digital-supported consumer healthcare opportunities.” (Also see "‘Faster, Better, More Efficient’ – Why Bayer Is Investing In ‘Precision Health’" - HBW Insight, 22 Jun, 2023.)
Digital therapeutics – defined by the Digital Therapeutics Alliance as “delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by high-quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat a medical disorder or disease” – were identified by Evendon-Challis in an exclusive recent interview with HBW Insight as an exciting new space for consumer health.
“When there’s an opportunity for digital to not just be a health companion, which is useful in many instances, but actually to provide a service directly, that is really interesting. I think that there's huge potential within consumer health for these kinds of products,” Evendon-Challis said. (Also see "Bayer Consumer Health’s Evendon-Challis On The ‘Huge Potential’ Of OTC Digital Therapeutics, AI" - HBW Insight, 4 Jul, 2023.)