Miao Health Becomes First Chinese Company to Join Digital Therapeutics Alliance, Accelerating DTx Adoption in China

Digital Therapeutics See New Progress in China.

Recently, Miao Health officially received certification from the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (hereinafter referred to as DTA), becoming the first Chinese enterprise officially announced as a member of the alliance. Miao Health has also established a long-term strategic partnership with DTA to accelerate the implementation and development of digital therapeutics in China.

It is reported that the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), a non-profit industry association established in the United States, was founded in 2017 by leaders in the global digital therapeutics industry. To date, it has certified only 49 members worldwide, including prominent international companies in the field of digital therapeutics such as Pear Therapeutics, Akili Interactive Labs, and Propeller Health. Previously, there were no Chinese enterprises among its members. Relying on the influence of its technical achievements published in internationally authoritative journals, as well as two years of communication with the DTA, More Health became the first to gain recognition from the DTA.

 (Miao Health Selected for DTA, Image from DTA Official Website)）

Why Did Miao Health Become the First Enterprise in China to Officially Announce Its Entry into DTA? What Did It Do Right? What Are Its Advantages in Technology and Products? How Is the Company Planning for the Future Development and Scenario Implementation of Digital Therapeutics in China? VCBeat interviewed Dr. Luo Xiaobin, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Miao Health, with these questions, aiming to understand Miao Health’s journey in “digital therapeutics.”

What Is Digital Therapeutics? According to the definition by the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), digital therapeutics deliver evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by high-quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat diseases. Digital therapeutics can be used independently, in combination with medications, or alongside other therapies to improve patients’ health outcomes.

As a digital health solution based on an entirely new concept,Digital therapeutics are still in the early stages of development but are growing rapidly.Globally, U.S. investment in digital therapeutics companies grew at an average annual rate of 40% over the past seven years, exceeding $1 billion by 2018.

In the early stages of industry development, digital therapeutics still face numerous challenges.For instance, physicians’ awareness and acceptance remain low, necessitating joint market cultivation. Furthermore, constrained by foundational medical principles, the range of indications suitable for digital therapeutics remains relatively narrow. Particularly regarding reimbursement, it is still unclear who should pay and how much, as the business model has not yet been clearly defined. Given the convergence of these factors, achieving innovative breakthroughs in digital therapeutics is no easy task.

Since its inception, Miao Health has focused on personalized health management across the entire human life cycle, accumulating six years of technological and data expertise.It is important to recognize that digital therapeutics (DTx) encompass three major scenarios—prevention, management, and treatment—posing a significant challenge for companies entering this field.

Specifically, Miao Health first establishes the “Miao+” IoT-based health big data platform to enable continuous, multi-dimensional tracking of users’ health management data. Meanwhile, it builds the “H” health risk stratification management platform to classify and analyze users’ health risks, proposing the use of an H-value to quantify health status. Leveraging the “M” AI-driven health intervention platform, it automatically generates personalized health management plans for users.

Driven by three core platforms, Miao Health has established a comprehensive digital therapeutic platform for lifestyle intervention in chronic diseases, integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence.

In terms of application scenarios, Miao Health’s digital therapeutics primarily target chronic diseases. The company has developed a digital lifestyle intervention platform for chronic disease management, specifically designed for individuals with diabetes, hypertension, and medical obesity. By combining human expertise with artificial intelligence, the platform establishes an “active intervention technology” framework centered on data collection, disease risk prediction and analysis, and health interventions.

The data can intuitively reflect the actual effectiveness.2Between 2019 and 2020, an analysis of one million users by Miao Health revealed that participants who engaged in digital therapeutics throughout the year experienced an average daily increase of 35 minutes in sleep duration, a 1.7-fold increase in step count, and a weight loss of approximately 1.5 kilograms.From the perspective of future value extension, the massive health data accumulated by these participants holds even greater potential.

Products Are Built on Data. In the digital exploration of chronic disease management, Miao Jiankang continues to delve deeply, building a competitive moat.Through close technical collaboration and exchanges with the Canadian Health Management Center, the Canadian Institute for Innovation in Chronic Disease, the Chinese Medical Association’s Health Management Branch, and experts from numerous renowned domestic hospitals, Miao Jiankang has transformed decades of clinical experience into artificial intelligence solutions, developing products such as NLP knowledge graphs and AI health managers, thereby exploring diversified digital therapeutic management pathways.

It is worth noting that Miao Health recently participated in the drafting of seven new standards for the trusted selection of internet medical and health services, and its capabilities and achievements in chronic disease management have received professional recognition.

Additionally,Both abroad and in China, digital therapeutics companies are grappling with the question of who will cover the costs. Miao Health’s implementation strategy focuses on integrating with insurance payment channels to enable reimbursement for its services.Leveraging the B2B2C business model, Miao Health primarily integrates digital therapeutics technologies and capabilities into insurance scenarios. It helps insurers build a digital middle platform for “insurance + health management,” providing one-stop SaaS solutions to enable better cost control, lower loss ratios, and facilitate digital transformation. To date, Miao Health has partnered with over 80 life insurance institutions, serving nearly half of the insurers in the industry.

In December 2020, the Insurance Association of China, in conjunction with the Chinese Health Management Association, released four association standards titled “Guidelines for Health Management Services by Insurance Institutions.” These standards established a comprehensive framework for health management services within the insurance industry, filling the gap in relevant standards for health management in this sector.Miao Health, as a representative of health management, also participated in the drafting of this standard.From exploring and practicing the deep integration of insurance with health management to promoting the establishment of standards, Miao Health has always been at the forefront.

It is evident that Miao Health has achieved breakthrough progress in the field of digital therapeutics, developing relatively mature products and business models, thereby taking a significant step forward. This constitutes one of the key reasons why Miao Health became the first company in China to obtain DTA certification and officially join the International Digital Therapeutics Alliance.

The development of an emerging sector requires not only the leadership of top-tier enterprises but also the continuous emergence of innovative companies, working together to expand the overall market.

“As a leading enterprise in digital therapeutics in China, Dr. Luo Xiaobin, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of More Health, stated to VCBeat that the company is willing to open its platform capabilities with an open mindset to domestic enterprises interested in participating in the development of digital therapeutics, thereby facilitating the continuous growth and improvement of the digital therapeutics ecosystem for chronic disease management in China.”

From an industry perspective, this undoubtedly represents a significant attempt and breakthrough. Since the concept of health management was introduced and popularized, persistent challenges have included limited accessibility, difficulties in proactive health management, and the lack of standardized frameworks for outcome evaluation. Addressing these issues requires the industry to evolve toward specialization, digitalization, and intelligence, while strengthening the integration of therapeutic interventions with clinical practice.

From a trend perspective, the application scenarios of health management will gradually expand from outside hospitals to inside hospitals.In light of this, all digitally based chronic disease management pathways may require institutional regulatory approval and registration certification in the future. In this process, the significance of digital therapeutics is self-evident.

As a digital therapeutics platform, how will Miao Health empower enterprises in the next phase?

Dr. Luo Xiaobin introduced that, in addition to opening up data capabilities, Miao Health can help other domestic digital therapeutics companies and pharmaceutical firms better develop digital therapeutics products in terms of new product research and development.

Furthermore, Miao Health can unlock greater value for digital therapeutics by connecting insurance companies with digital therapy enterprises. This is because Miao Health’s solutions are designed to refine digital health management capabilities within commercial insurance scenarios, thereby naturally resolving the critical question of who should pay for digital therapeutics.

Taking diabetes and hypertension as examples, Miao Health implements tiered management for policyholders after collecting archival data and constructing user profiles. On one hand, it stratifies users’ health risks through quantification and provides personalized digital health plans, including daily lifestyle interventions and medical consultation guidance, thereby offering digital therapeutic services to insurance companies. On the other hand, frequent user interactions effectively improve health outcomes, facilitating better cost containment for insurers. Furthermore, Miao Health’s digital therapeutics have accumulated valuable data based on preliminary screening, assessment, and intervention, which will play a highly positive role in future cost control efforts related to insurance policies and national health insurance.

As can be seen, Miao Health connects the upstream and downstream of the “healthcare, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and insurance” industry through a platform model, promoting the broadest possible coverage of digital therapeutics to reach more people.

Since last year, the wave of new digital infrastructure, represented by big data and AI, has been in full swing and gradually penetrating every aspect of the healthcare industry. However, digital therapeutics, as an important niche within this wave of medical digitalization, is still in its early stages of development.

Just as during the development of mobile internet, digital therapeutics in China hold certain market advantages compared to the United States, such as larger sample data volumes and lower costs for data acquisition.

However, China also faces challenges in the field of digital therapeutics. First, regarding mechanistic efficacy, it remains imperfect to rigorously demonstrate medical principles at every product level, ensure a closed-loop medical theoretical framework, and obtain robust clinical data. Second, concerning patient adherence, digital therapeutics require patients to dedicate time to accepting and using the product for a certain period before achieving tangible improvements; therefore, more time is needed for user and market education.

Dr. Luo Xiaobin stated that the industry is still in its early stages of development, and collaborating with international peers to jointly advance the digital therapeutics sector will present opportunities for mutual benefit and win-win outcomes."As the first corporate representative in China, Miao Health has officially joined the International Digital Therapeutics Alliance,"Engage in in-depth exchanges with internationally renowned digital therapeutics experts on product and model innovation, while adhering to domestic data privacy regulations and safeguarding the data privacy of users in China., and introduce relevant concepts to China, promoting the development of domestic digital therapeutics through platform empowerment and other means.

As more and more companies join the fray, what surprises will digital therapeutics bring to the healthcare industry in the future? Let’s wait and see.