Rebecca, a 20-year-old college student, was suffering from social anxiety, a mental disorder characterized by extreme fear in social settings. She had anxieties about people judging her for what she eats, how she eats, and dining etiquette. The counseling sessions she enrolled in did not help much, partly because she missed appointments for assorted reasons. Upon her doctor’s prescription, she subscribed to a digital mental health therapy.

Despite some early concerns, Rebecca went ahead with the cognitive behavioral therapy, which was delivered over digital platforms such as a mobile app and laptop. The therapy used gamified exercises, chatbots, and user videos. To her surprise, Rebecca overcame her fear and began participating in social gatherings confidently. The digital therapy enabled her to get treatment from the comfort of her home without missing any appointments. This also allowed her therapist to finetune the treatment based on her progress, using the data from the digital platform.

Such evidence-based interventions driven by software applications for the management of a medical disorder are called digital therapeutics (DTx), a subset of digital health that is receiving lot of attention. Those DTx products which are approved by the FDA and prescribed by doctors are known as prescription digital therapeutics (PDTx).

Growing markets driven by healthcare needs and patient preferences

DTx has been a hot topic due to its potential to change the way care is delivered and how the granular patient data can be effective in making informed treatment interventions and decisions. As the coverage pathways for prescription digital therapeutics widened, the investments in those digital products that support disease treatments increased around 2.6 times between 2020 and 2021. Major investments were made for mental health, diabetes, and cardio-vascular condition treatments. This trend mirrors the increasing consumer demand for digital therapeutic products for various conditions related to psychiatry, respiratory, endocrinology, addiction, cardiovascular, and others. The combined market of prescribed and non-prescribed digital therapeutics is projected to reach from $3.4 billion in 2021 to $56.1 billion by 2025, an upward revision from the original estimate of $13.1 billion due to pandemic related factors.

DTx will accelerate the healthcare industry’s pursuit of value-based care, virtual care, and personalized medicine. These solutions allow providers to deliver patient-centric care through an interactive and customized therapy administration at the patient’s convenience. This can improve patient experience and, in turn, can improve treatment adherence and health outcomes while eliminating unwanted administrative efforts for providers.

As the world moves towards the metaverse era, where the physical and virtual worlds coincide, DTx has immense potential to make a revolutionary impact. DTx can take personalization to the next level due to its extreme compatibility with digital twin technologies. In the near future, patients and clinicians can interact in the virtual world just as in the real world. Imagine counseling sessions with avatars or confronting anxieties in a virtual reality simulation. The key here is to ensure interoperability of data which makes the intra-metaverse communications swift and seamless, complying with the regulations.

Prescription digital therapeutics

Prescription digital therapeutics (PDTx) are software-based therapeutic interventions prescribed by a healthcare provider, as in the case of Rebecca. They are evidence-based therapies with proven clinical efficacies and are approved by regulatory authorities for the management or treatment of specific medical conditions.

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