Digital Health

Haleon's partnership with Microsoft to include 1,500 of the former's products in the latter's Seeing AI application – which reads aloud information on packs for the visually impaired – is an example of how digitalization can help to make healthcare more inclusive, according to vice president and global head of healthcare professionals and health influencer marketing Tess Player.

“There’s no one company, government, person or technology who is positioned to ‘solve’ the health of the world,” notes Haleon's Nick Tate. Which is why OTC companies are partnering with tech firms large and small to create the next generation of consumer healthcare products and services. In the first part of an exclusive interview on the future of digital consumer health, Tate – who heads up the firm’s incubator business, Haleon NEXT – discusses some of the complications of tech innovation that make such collaboration attractive.

In this episode, HBW Insight catches up with IQVIA Consumer Health’s vice president of global consulting services, Amit Shukla, to find out how the global consumer healthcare market is performing as it comes out of the pandemic. It’s good news, Shukla reveals, based on the firm’s latest intelligence. The market grew double digits in 2022 and is predicted to expand by 5-6% per year in the future - even faster if some of the innovative switches currently in the pipeline succeed. Shukla points to artificial intelligence, sustainability and popular wellness ingredients as trends to watch that will drive future market growth.

COVID-19 threat is abating and control measures easing, but government commitments made at height of pandemic to forearm against future health care emergencies should not be abandoned, says German Advisory Council on Health and Care and the IVD industry.

Bayer hopes its innovative Aspirin-branded Heart Risk Assessment Tool will reach 100m in the US and its planning an international roll-out, the firm's general manager and vice president of pain and cardio, US, Kelly Fanning tells HBW Insight in an exclusive Q&A. Fanning also explains what Bayer is doing to manage the current surge in demand for Aspirin in the US, UK and Europe.

New Swiss guidance says that QR barcodes on medicine packs and leaflets that link to additional information on companies’ websites or other platforms “must not jeopardize medicinal product safety or deceive users.”

In this episode, HBW Insight catches up with director general of the Association of the European Self-Care Industry, Jurate Švarcaite, to find out about the association’s upcoming Annual Meeting. Taking place in Paris, France, from 22-24 May, the meeting begins with a networking cruise along the river Seine and ends with a series of participatory workshops on pressing topics such as robiotics, Rx-to-OTC switch and sustainability. Along the way, delegates will hear from insiders and experts on how the new EU pharmaceutical legislation and a raft of incoming environmental regulations will impact self-care. Attendees will also find out how consumers and industry leaders are shaping the future of Europe’s consumer health sector.

FDA releases information about reporting results of OTC at-home COVID-19 antigen tests, as well as recommendations on who should get tested, when and how often.