Biogen ($BIIB) CEO George Scangos is already on the record saying wearable devices are going to "transform the way we do clinical trials."
In multiple sclerosis trials, with which the biotech is familiar, one of the endpoints used is a timed 25-foot walk test. "Obviously it would be better to have some wearable on that patient that monitored their activity 24/7," he said in a video on the company website.
"It may be a while before there's a regulatory accepted endpoint," he said, "but it will be a shorter time before they are able to provide useful information to companies like us as we conduct earlier stage clinical trials."
Now Biogen is interested in participating in the wearables space more directly. Scangos told The Wall Street Journal he wants Biogen to conduct research that's aimed at creating new wearable and even ingestible devices as it seeks to diversify following a slowdown in sales of its breadwinning multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera.
"Technology is radically changing the way we make scientific decisions, conduct research and seek to improve quality of life and health outcomes for patients," the biotech CEO told The Wall Street Journal.
And technology chief Adriana Karaboutis, who joined the company about a year ago, has initiated a reorg that more closely aligns the biotech's R&D with Scangos' goal of entering new businesses and deploying various technologies. She has created a unit devoted to studying digital health tech like biosensors, and another team focused on data analytics.
Biogen has already researched FitBit, and determined that it increased the level of physical activity among multiple sclerosis patients who wore the device for three weeks. Karaboutis envisions linking the data to doctor's offices, saying in the WSJ article, "This is about how do we help patients who see a doctor every six months have a real-time data capture."
In addition, the company has experimented with natural language software to spot trends, and aims to generate patient stratification risk reports based on 1.6 billion records of genomic data.
Could Biogen cement its new focus on medical technology and Big Data via acquisition? The WSJ reports that company officials recently toured Silicon Valley and Europe to learn about startups and technology that fit its vision.
- read more in the WSJ