The Beat #001: It's a Numbers Game 📈
Three numbers and the stories behind them
586M
The number of people who suffer from depression or anxiety globally.
In order to tackle this prevalent and ever growing problem, Project Amber (commissioned by Alphabet’s “semi-secret research and development facility”) sought to identify a specific biomarker in the brain that can be used to diagnose mental health issues.
This type of 1:1 output is commonplace in other areas of health, such as diabetes, where doctors can routinely measure blood glucose and use these data to inform and adjust their insulin intake, diet, and exercise regimen.
However, today’s assessment of mental health primarily relies on subjective, survey-based response, such as a series of questions in a conversation with a clinician (e.g., how are you sleeping, how is your appetite, are you having trouble concentrating, etc.).
What the field is missing are objective measures that clearly indicate presence and status of the disease.
As a result, the research initiative aimed to leverage brainwave data (i.e., the electrical activity created by neurons in your brain) and machine learning to identify recognizable and repeatable patterns in depressed or anxious patients.
Despite rigorous testing, unfortunately the project did not succeed in finding a single biomarker for depression and anxiety, and it’s unlikely that these complex and variable diseases can be distilled down into a single indicator.
But the research leaders did decide to open source their EEG hardware prototypes (making EEG data easier to collect ) as well as their machine learning algorithms (making EEG data easier to interpret), opening the door for future researchers in the mental health community to continue mapping these prevalent diseases.
1.8%
The total venture capital raised by female vs male founders so far in 2020.
Labeled the Diversity in Digital Health initiative, a recent survey proctored by Rock Health set out to better understand the baseline state of racial and ethnic diversity among U.S. digital health startups.
The study, which surveyed 678 startup leaders (managers, directors, VPs, C-suite executives, and founders) in Q3’20 elucidated a number of significant differences in the digital health community, including:
Asians are overrepresented in digital health (~3:1), while Black leaders (~1:2) and Hispanic leaders (~1:3) are underrepresented when compared to their share among the U.S. population.
Regions with the most White and Asian founders have higher average deal sizes and receive the majority of digital health venture funding.
Asian men are the most likely to be venture-backed, while Black women are the least likely. In addition, female founder respondents were nearly 3x as likely to have bootstrapped their company (i.e., received no outside funding) than male founders.
Black respondents rated access to capital and investors as significantly larger barriers to building their companies than their White and Asian counterparts.
These findings highlight the substantial work left to be done in order to build a digital health community that not only accurately reflects the demographics of this country but also enables opportunity for people of all backgrounds and identities.
5.4%
The amount of body weight lost by those participating in Omada’s Health virtual diabetes prevention program.
Omada is a digital care program that provides a variety of tools and support for those with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, and/or hypertension. Those who commit to the year-long program are provided with:
One-on-one professional health coaching
Weekly interactive lessons on best practices for managing their condition
A number of connected devices (such as a scale, blood pressure monitor, and glucose monitor) that sync to a private account shared with your health coach.
Leveraging these tools for 12 months, participants from a recent study lost more weight and saw higher improvements in average blood sugar levels than people enrolled in a standard, in-person educational health program.
However, while these types of digital tools can empower consumers to make more informed decisions about the management of their health conditions, CMS does not currently reimburse virtual prevention programs, such as that of Omada Health.
This is because, unlike in drug development, where there are clear, agreed-upon evidence standards to prove efficacy and safety in the form clinical trials, digital interventions lack uniform guidelines and measures to support their use.
With that said, there is hope for change on the horizon. In late September, the FDA launched a new center of excellence to oversee digital health products such as smartphone apps, wearable devices, and software-based treatments.
The thought is that the introduction of more regulated oversight, including a formal review process in the evaluation of virtual interventions, will increase payer appetite for coverage and reimbursement of these tools.
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