Tag: IBD technology

Wave Health: Empowering patients, improving outcomes, and catalyzing IBD research

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This blog post is sponsored by Wave Health. Thoughts and information shared are my own.

What started as an app designed for cancer patients in 2019, now spans more than 250 chronic health conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease. Wave Health is a free, easy-to-use, comprehensive tool that empowers patients to use their daily health data in practical and effective ways, while enabling those in our community to be more involved in their care and treatment decisions. This week on Lights, Camera, Crohn’s a look at the story behind how Wave Health came to be what it is today and how the app can be a transformative tool in how you take on your IBD.

Hear what Claudia Zhao, the Marketing and User Engagement lead at Wave, has to say about the inspiration behind their mission.

 “Wave Health App was inspired by a personal patient experience. In 2013, one of Wave’s founding partners was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. During his treatment, Ric’s partner, Matt (now the CEO of Wave Health) began to record extensive data by hand — things like his diet, hydration, exercise, mental engagement — anything that might impact the side effects Ric faced during his chemo and drug therapy. With this information, they were able to provide their doctor with real-time, individualized information, and identify relationships between what Ric was doing and the side effects he was experiencing. Protocols were shifted and Ric began to feel better,” said Claudia.

Matt transformed his data analytics system into chemoWave, an app for cancer patients like Ric. Soon, they realized that anyone with a chronic illness would benefit from a health management and insights tool like chemoWave, and they created Wave Health App.

“Wave’s mission is simple: to help every patient take control of their own journey. Wave serves to empower patients to use their everyday data in ways that allow them to be better partners with their care team and ultimately improve their at-home and treatment decisions.”

What sets Wave apart from other IBD-related apps

Most IBD-related apps focus on tracking symptoms and a few other activities such as meals, bowel movements, and medications. Wave Health is different in that it serves as an all-in-one health diary.

“In addition to the more obvious activities to track in IBD management, Wave also lets you track vitals, sleep, menstruation, and even mindfulness activities like meditation and breathing. Wave then gives you personal insights, not only about your symptoms, but also about what’s impacting your moods and wellbeing. Wave helps you manage your IBD-related symptoms, but it also acts as your overall health companion.”

Having a companion to help guide the way you manage and treat your IBD can help ease the isolating nature of our disease. Often life gets busy, and we forget how much our Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis takes a toll on our day-to-day activities. It’s easy to generalize or downplay the struggle when it comes time to share how you’re feeling to your care team. Wave takes that guesswork out of picture and is a win-win for everyone involved.

A systemic review out of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recently found the app to be the highest rated symptom and PRO tracker for cancer patients.

“This speaks to the fact that Wave is easy-to-use, while also providing real, tangible benefits to the patient journey. In addition to being rated the highest overall PRO tracking app, Wave also received the highest individual scores for both engagement and aesthetics, two very important pillars for any type of user experience. Since the review in 2020, Wave has also done a complete UI/UX redesign. With a more intuitive interface and new features that make health tracking even easier, the experience of using Wave is only getting better,” explained Claudia.

How Wave expanded beyond the cancer community

Beginning exclusively as a cancer app, Wave was expanded to serve all chronic illnesses because of the underlying challenges that patients face regardless of their specific health issue.

“The nature of most treatments is that they are standardized — protocols shift only after periods of trial and error. Wave identifies relationships effectively and quickly, so that treatments can be tweaked, and side effects can be alleviated or avoided more promptly.”

Another key focus of Wave is on filling the gap between doctor’s visits. Most of the patient experience occurs at home, not in the doctor office, and currently there is no sufficient system or way for patients to easily report their symptoms and other outcomes during these critical periods.

“Wave helps patients fill in their care team, whether it’s about how their symptoms have been improving or how many days they’ve missed their medications. With a comprehensive record of patients’ daily and treatment activities, doctors have a more complete picture of the patient and their journey and are enabled to make more-informed decisions from there.”

Wave can help anyone

You also don’t have to be “chronically ill” to use Wave and see its benefits. Tracking and getting Wave’s A.I. insights can help anyone improve how they feel. Wave is a health management tool for anyone looking to take control.

“The app empowers patients to take control of their own journey. Just by harnessing their own daily health data, they can get powerful information into what helps them feel better or worse and then adjust their at-home activities to optimize their wellbeing. Second, Wave helps patients communicated better with their doctors on what they’re experiencing between visits. Patients can share/email their logged data directly through the app, or they can receive easily shareable Wave Pro PDF reports,” said Claudia.

How Wave Pro Works and a 6-month FREE discount code

The reports summarize a patient’s important health data and insights from the week, allowing them to see both short-term and long-term trends and changes. Users can download these reports and bring them into their doctor’s visits. Wave Pro is available through a monthly ($10.99) or annual ($54.99) subscription, with a free 30-day trial at sign-up.

Enter the code LIGHTS right away at sign-up and receive 6 months of FREE Wave Pro reports.

The future of biologics and the changes coming down the pipe

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This article was sponsored by SmartTab. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

The future of IBD care and treatment is constantly evolving and there’s a lot of hope on the horizon for the patient community. Think back to the moment your physician discussed starting a biologic for the first time and how daunting it was to imagine giving yourself an injection or getting an infusion for the rest of your life. It’s a heavy burden to bear for many reasons.

This is where SmartTab comes in. SmartTab is a digital medicine company focused on drug delivery and improving patient care, comfort, and compliance. Their main application, the InjectTab, would give people the option of using the current syringe or autoinjector used to give biologic medication or instead have a person swallow a capsule that would deliver the active ingredients to either the stomach or the small intestine. This initiative is making waves in a big way in both the patient, pharmaceutical, and technology industries. SmartTab was recently named a Tech Crunch Disrupt 2020 Top Pick.

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As someone who has been giving myself injections for over 12 years, this is music to my ears. My next question was what this means for those on infusions.

Robert Niichel, Founder and CEO of SmartTab, says, “We will start with the biologics deployed through a syringe and needle and then move to biologic infusions. Imagine if you take that infusion dose and instead take a smaller dose of the same medication as an ingestible capsule once a day. You now have reduced the amount of drug to a daily amount, side effects would go down because you’re not having to process this entire bolus and keep in mind that some of these drugs, no matter what it is, when you have an infusion, whether it’s to treat Crohn’s or receive chemotherapy, your body has to process that out through the liver or the kidneys. It’s stressful on the metabolism and the organs. Our goal, is that one day, regardless of whether it’s an infusion or an injectable, that you’ll take those drugs via an InjectTab capsule.”

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Keeping patients in mind every step of the way

SmartTab is determined to limit the anxiety associated with managing diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. The diagnosis and living with a chronic illness can be challenging to cope with, no matter how many years you’ve had it. It’s exciting to think what the future will hold for the IBD family.

“If physicians could go to people and say, we are going to start you on a biologic, you will take one capsule, every week, that’s a lot less of a burden than finding out you need to give yourself injections or spend hours with an IV getting an infusion. Your compliance goes up, patient outcomes, go up. At the end of the day, we’re trying to figure things out so people can lead better and more comfortable lives,” said Robert.

Getting InjectTab FDA-approved

SmartTab has the technology of the capsule finalized and they are starting a pre-clinical animal study next month. The InjectTab will inject an active ingredient into the side of the stomach.

“We will then do blood draws to collect the different levels of the active ingredients. Once that is complete, we will move on to human clinical trials and then onto FDA clearance, meaning approval of a device. Once we have that clearance, then we can combine our InjectTab with other active ingredients. Then we would seek out strategic partners to combine a prescription drug with our InjectTab. We would then do human studies.”

A lot of the heavy lifting for the actual technology has been completed, now it’s all about the clinical studies. Robert says the good news is that they’re not working on getting a new drug approved, since existing biologics will be used with the InjectTab technology.

“We believe that five years from now, if you take a biologic, you will no longer need to be doing a self-injection, there will be more options than syringes or needles to get your medication. You could just take a capsule. Whether it’s once a day or once a week, it will be as easy as taking your vitamins and moving on with your day.”

The cost benefits of a capsule vs. an injector

Right now, autoinjectors are typically hundreds of dollars. The InjectTab will range from $10-$50 a capsule, so right away there’s a significant cost reduction per use.

Robert says SmartTab is really counting on the insurance companies to look at this and say they’ll reimburse for the technology to deploy the drug because now patients are compliant and have reduced office visits and disease progression that can lead to hospital stays and surgeries.

SmartTab is currently in talks with several pharmaceutical companies, because that is the path to commercialization and making InjectTab a game changing reality for patients. Initially, the capsule technology will be available in the United States and then Europe. InjectTab will be geared towards the adult population first.

Life with IBD can be a tough pill to swallow, but the future possibilities surrounding InjectTab may prove otherwise. As someone who has given myself injections for more than a dozen years, this type of technology blows my mind in the best way. When my GI walked into my hospital room in July 2008 while I was battling an abscess the size of a tennis ball in my small intestine and he told me I had two options—Humira or Remicade, I was devastated. I didn’t want to give myself injections and I didn’t want to sit with an IV in my arm and feel sickly. It was a lot to process then and is still not always easy now. Hats off to companies like SmartTab innovating and changing the landscape for the future of IBD and beyond. As a patient, it means the world to me to see the tireless work going on behind the scenes that will change the future for those living with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and other conditions.

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Interested in learning more about IBD innovations? Check out the virtual IBD Innovate: Product Development for Crohn’s and Colitis conference November 17-18. Register here.

Click here to learn more about Tech Crunch’s Top Picks for 2020.

Check out my podcast interview about living life powerfully with Crohn’s disease and the future of IBD treatment.