One of the many intriguing aspects of the rise of AI in healthcare is the way innovators are using it to target specific diseases.
For example, a Berlin-based digital health company – HiDoc Technologies GmbH, dba Cara Care – has developed a mobile health app that uses AI to help people manage chronic digestive problems, and it recently announced it has raised $7 million in funding. The company intends to spend the bulk of the money getting the app in the hands of gastrointestinal patients in the U.S.
Cara Care, which was launched in 2016 and quickly raised an initial $2 million, says its app has already helped upwards of 400,000 people in Germany and the U.S. manage widespread GI conditions such as reflux, irritable or inflammatory bowel, food intolerances, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis “with a 78.8% treatment success rate.”
According to the company, a recent report estimates that annual healthcare expenditures for gastrointestinal disease in the United States total $136 billion, which is more than that for heart disease ($113 billion), trauma ($103 billion), and mental health ($99 billion)i.
Moreover, while often unseen, gastrointestinal diseases can cause a lifetime of physical and mental suffering for patients, in many cases beginning at a young age. Even with costly medication under the care of a GI specialist, digestive diseases can cause mental health challenges, social stigma, and loss of productivity and wages for sufferers. Cara Care offers a new digital dimension to therapies that were previously offline, helping to enhance treatment, generate real-world evidence, and created individual treatment plans to improve quality of life for digestive disease patients.
“It is clear that digital therapeutics will play a crucial future role in the treatment of individuals with chronic gastrointestinal disorders such as IBS,” gastroenterologist Anthony Lembo, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said at the time of the announcement. “I believe that these digital treatments will help improve patient compliance to medication and lifestyle changes, delivering better outcomes across this patient population.”
Cara Care says it will also use the new funding to conduct research and expand collaborations with players in the pharmaceutical, diagnostics and food-production industries.
“We believe mobile software can have a significant therapeutic effect on these patients, as GI diseases are highly influenced by factors such as diet, stress, mental health and physical activity,” said Cara Care’s André Sommer, M.D. “By identifying individual triggers for symptoms and flares, we can tailor interventions to reduce symptoms and improve the patient’s quality of life. Based on the health and lifestyle data, it is further possible to optimize medication intake, increase adherence and match the right therapy with the right patient.”