Roche has teamed up with Accenture to build a diabetes data analytics platform. The deal will see Roche build digital services on Accenture’s platform and offer them to patients, enabling it to pull in and analyze data to improve the management of diabetes.
Striking the five-year deal clears Roche to build its digital offering on Accenture Intelligent Patient Platform. Accenture created the platform to help companies assess the effect of patient programs in a secure environment using outcome-based analytics. Roche thinks the connection of its digital services to this platform will enable recommendations that improve outcomes in diabetes.
“The open diabetes platform we are creating will enable us to analyze large amounts of data through algorithms and put them into context, respond faster to the needs of people with diabetes, caregivers and healthcare systems and personalize treatment which all-in-all can lead to improved outcomes,” Marcel Gmünder, global head of Roche diabetes care, said in a statement.
Roche has put this idea at the center of its pitch to differentiate itself from the pack in diabetes. The Swiss Big Pharma envisages a digital health system that connects patients to doctors, nurses, family members, payers and hospitals. This system will feature devices and other technologies that help patients measure their blood glucose and manage their diet, lifestyle, medication and physical activity accordingly. The Accenture-based platform is the glue that binds the services together.
Work to expand the list of services that connect to the platform has advanced in parallel to the setting up of the agreement with Accenture. Roche advanced its digital service plans last month when it struck a deal to buy diabetes management app maker mySugr. That app slots in alongside Roche subsidiary Emminens’ web-based eConecta and the Big Pharma’s own Accu-Chek Connect app in the network of services.
Roche is connecting these services and future offerings to the Accenture-based platform. By doing so, Roche aims to bring together its diabetes management offerings and the data they gather. The Big Pharma thinks the pooling and analysis of data from different services will deliver insights that improve diabetes management, enabling patients to spend more time in the optimal range.