Mika Health Collaborates with AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to Deliver AI-Enabled Mobile Support to Women Undergoing Breast Cancer Treatment
18 Junio 2024 - 12:36PM
Mika Health, a global digital therapeutics developer specializing
in meeting the needs of cancer patients, in collaboration with
AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, today announced at the HLTH Europe
conference, a digital initiative to improve the experience of women
receiving breast cancer treatments. The initiative’s name, “UNITE,”
reinforces the commitment of Mika Health, AstraZeneca and Daiichi
Sankyo to promote cross-industry collaborations that improve the
lives of patients and is expected to shape AI-enabled offerings to
support people in additional disease areas.
“Digital therapies are becoming increasingly
important in modern cancer treatment,” said Adam
Nosal, Head of Oncology at AstraZeneca
Switzerland. “This partnership with Mika allows us to
expand access to holistic cancer care and gain insights that will
shape our broader efforts to improve therapeutic options for cancer
patients.”
Mika Health is an evidence-based digital
therapeutic that has already supported more than 100,000 people
with cancer in Germany and Great Britain and optimized their
therapeutic experience. Certified as a validated cancer treatment
platform in Class IIa of the EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR) in
the EU, Mika Health supports cancer patients with mental
health-oriented coaching courses, AI-enabled personalized
recommendations and daily symptom monitoring in an effort to
increase active participation in their treatment and improve their
treatment experiences.
Breast cancer patients participating in the UNITE
program will use the Mika Health digital therapeutic in conjunction
with pharmaceutical therapy. Patients in clinics in German-speaking
Switzerland will be among the first to access support in the Mika
Health app that is tailored to their treatment experience. The
project, which has been running in Switzerland since April 2024 and
is supported by the EUROPA DONNA Switzerland organization and the
Cancer League, will be expanded to include French and
Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland.
“We are very pleased to collaborate with
AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to expand access to personalized
support aimed at increasing patients’ understanding, sense of
control and physical and mental health,” said Dr. Gandolf
Finke, founder and Managing Director of Mika Health. “This
exciting combination of evidence-based digital support and
innovative drug research is a significant opportunity to improve
cancer treatment experiences and increase survival rates in the
leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide.”
Using proven therapy management methods and
techniques in combination with innovative machine learning
technologies, Mika aims to provide people living with cancer with
improved experiences and therapy results. The Mika Health app
offers extensive information on topics such as nutrition, exercise,
mindfulness and financial issues and acts as a digital therapeutic
agent for depressive moods and exhaustion. In a randomized clinical
trial, depressed mood decreased by 42 percent and chronic fatigue
decreased by 23 percent compared to the control group.1
"As a company that puts the well-being of patients
at the center of its activities, we are very pleased to partner
with Mika,” said Giuseppe Grossi, Country Manager of
Daiichi Sankyo Switzerland. “In today's digital world, it
is increasingly important to be innovative in promoting solutions
that improve the quality of life of people with cancer and help to
achieve better treatment outcomes. Supporting the Mika app is a
concrete example of the progress we want to promote in cancer
treatment and beyond."
About Breast Cancer
Despite advancements in therapeutics to treat
breast cancer,2 breast cancer continues to be the most frequently
diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in females
worldwide, with an estimated 2.3 million new cancer cases (1 in 4
new cancer cases) and 685,000 cancer deaths (1 in 6 deaths) in
20203. More than 6,000 women in Switzerland are diagnosed in the
course of a year. Men are also affected (around 50 in
Switzerland).4
About Mika Health
Mika Health is an app-based platform aimed at
providing targeted and comprehensive support to people with cancer
using digital technology. Through scientifically proven methods and
techniques of therapy management, Digital Therapeutics (DTx) helps
patients to actively participate in their treatment and regain more
quality of life - with daily symptom monitoring, psychologically
oriented coaching courses, and AI-supported, personalized
recommendations. To achieve this, Mika combines innovative machine
learning technologies with a multimedia knowledge database of
rigorously verified content, such as nutritional tips, exercise
routines, or mindfulness training.
Fosanis, the Digital Health company behind Mika,
was founded in Berlin in 2017 by Dr. Gandolf Finke and Dr. Jan
Simon Raue and completed a Series-A financing round of more than 10
million euros in 2022. After tens of thousands of patients in
Germany and the UK have already used the free DTx platform
alongside their cancer therapy, the fifty-strong team of experts
continues to expand its growth in the global HealthTech market.
More information at us.mika.health.
About Daiichi Sankyo
Daiichi Sankyo is an innovative global healthcare
company contributing to the sustainable development of society that
discovers, develops and delivers new standards of care to enrich
the quality of life around the world. With more than 120 years of
experience, Daiichi Sankyo leverages its world-class science and
technology to create new modalities and innovative medicines for
people with cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases with high
unmet medical need. About AstraZeneca in
Switzerland
AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company
and has been operating in Switzerland for almost 50 years. The
company is one of the ten pharmaceutical companies with the highest
sales in Switzerland and is active in the following therapeutic
areas: oncology, respiratory diseases and immunology,
cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases as well as vaccines
and immunotherapies, which also include drugs to combat COVID-19.
The primary goal of the 250 or so employees is to make new
medications available to people affected by cancer as quickly as
possible. In Switzerland, over 240,000 people are being treated
with a drug from AstraZeneca. The company expects to approve over
35 new therapies by 2025. AstraZeneca aims to make the Swiss
healthcare system more sustainable and resilient. To do its part
for a healthy planet and healthy people, the company works
tirelessly to reduce CO2 emissions and waste. It has therefore set
itself the goal of becoming CO2 negative by 2030.
More information about AstraZeneca Switzerland:
www.astrazeneca.ch
Media Contacts
AstraZeneca Sven Winkler AstraZeneca Switzerland
Tel. +41 (0) 41 725 75 75
media.switzerland@astrazeneca.com |
Mika Health Shira Derasmo Cuttlefish
Communications Tel. +1 917 280 2497
shira@cuttlefishpr.com |
CH-9876 / June 2024 1 J. Wolff, J. Stupin, J.
Olschewski et al (2023): Digital therapeutic to improve
cancer-related well-being: a pilot randomized controlled trial.
International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, doi:
10.1136/ijgc-2023-004304
2 https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/state_of_the_nation_april_2019.pdf
3 Breast cancer: Global patterns of incidence, mortality, and
trends.Crossref DOI link:
https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2023.41.16_suppl.10528; Published
Print: 2023-06-01
4 https://www.krebsliga.ch/ueber-krebs/frueherkennung/brustkrebs