This has led to increased use of technology, such as telemedicine, to deliver care to patients remotely. The pandemic has also highlighted the need for increased investment in healthtech and digital healthcare solutions to ensure that healthcare providers can continue to provide high-quality care to patients, even during times of crisis.

Furthermore, healthtech will become mainstream through the progressive adoption of connected devices, remote patient monitoring tools, teleconsultation, and other digital modalities that aim at improving care. It has two potential effects on healthcare.

First, it aids in decision-making because it gives all stakeholders more information about patients’ health status and improves their ability to take appropriate action. Second, since digital solutions are decentralized and accessible to patients directly, it puts a greater emphasis on them. Thus, the patient voice is more accessible than in the past, which is a very positive shift.

A Leader In Integrated Health Solutions And Services

This is where Aptar Digital Health comes into the picture with a mission to empower patients with self-confidence to manage their disease. The company believes that when supported with the right tools, patients can become active participants in their own care, working as partners with their care teams. Thus, it creates end-to-end solutions through an integrated suite of products and services by combining mobile, web-based technology, and connected hardware, to actively engage patients in their treatment and help deliver superior experiences at a global scale.

Aptar Digital Health provides a range of services to assist patients dealing with diseases. For instance, it helps support people diagnosed with cancer to better self-manage their symptoms and stay on track with their treatments. In the field of respiratory care, with the aid of mobile apps, smart inhalers and diagnostic devices, it assists individuals with asthma or COPD to better manage their medication therapy. It also helps people with diabetes better manage their treatment thanks to real-time advice on insulin doses to inject.

With a track record of over 20 years of active operations in the market, Aptar Digital Health owns in-depth knowledge and know-how on multiple subjects such as clinical background, regulatory, patient journey, market needs, and market access. Finally, being backed by a large industrial group like AptarGroup lends us financial and organizational stability to invest in the long-term digital health play.

In all of these examples, Aptar Digital Health connects patients with their care teams remotely so they can benefit from earlier interventions should this become necessary.

AptarGroup, Inc., a global leader in the design and manufacturing of a wide variety of drug delivery, consumer product dispensing, and active material science solutions and services, owns Aptar Digital Health as a division of Aptar Pharma. And Aptar Digital Health is the result of Aptar Pharma’s ambition in becoming a leader in digital solutions.

Challenges And Roadblocks

The digital health industry is still in its infancy. Global healthcare systems are still establishing suitable legal and reimbursement frameworks and integrating digital health solutions into routine medical procedures. Even though the use of digital technology has been extensively democratized over the past 20 years, digital health is a niche and expanding market where patient and physician adoption is still low.

By educating people and raising their knowledge of the benefits of digital health, Aptar Digital Health seeks to challenge this paradigm. Some challenges the company faces are linked to the way the healthcare systems are structured. The incentives are not completely aligned among all health system stakeholders – for instance, when healthcare payment systems are linked to utilization of medical resources (e.g., hospitalizations, ER visits) instead of linked to achieving better clinical outcomes. There must be a further alignment of the different stakeholders to have full-scale adoption.

Meet The Team Behind Aptar Digital Health’s Success and Growth

Aptar Digital Health is co-led by two individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership skills, unparalleled expertise in their respective fields, and an unwavering commitment to driving the organization toward greater success. Alongside their expert team operating across several continents, their tireless efforts, dedication, and strategic vision have steered the company to new heights. These two exemplary leaders are Sai Shankar (Co-President) and Pierre Leurent (Co-President).

Sai Shankar has more than 20 years of experience across pharmaceutical, medical devices, and digital health business verticals. He joined Aptar Pharma in 2017, having previously spent 15 years at Allergan and Sanofi. Since joining Aptar, he has helped to build out the Digital Health division.

Today, as the Co-President of Aptar Digital Health, Sai is responsible for overall P&L responsibilities for the business and has overseen the acquisition of digital health companies such as Voluntis and Cohero Health, as well as equity investments in various start-ups like Propeller Health, Sonmol (China) and Navia (India).

Pierre Leurent is passionate about the intersection of digital and healthcare and has enjoyed working for over 20 years in this space, both in the United States and Europe. An engineer by training, he started his career at GE Healthcare, in its medical imaging software division. Then, he worked at HealthCenter, a vendor of Electronic Health Records based in Silicon Valley.

In 2001, he co-founded Voluntis, a leading digital therapeutics platform company, which went public in 2018. In 2021, Voluntis was acquired by Aptar Group. He now serves as the Co-President of Aptar Digital Health. Pierre has also occupied roles in industry trade associations, such as the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), of which he is a founding Director, and Advamed’s Digital Health Executive Leadership Group.

On a personal note, Pierre loves Sai’s energy – there is no mountain that he is afraid to climb! He finds him very ambitious and tenacious, and driven by a contagious energy! And as for Sai, he loves Pierre’s deep industry knowledge, his pragmatism at all levels, and his optimism for the future of digital health.

The exemplary duo says, “What inspires us at Aptar Digital Health is the opportunity to improve patients’ quality of life thanks to better health management tools. Our mission is to empower patients to take control of their own health by leveraging the latest technologies. We put advanced digital solutions directly in the hands of patients and healthcare professionals. Every day we are motivated by the positive impact we see our solutions deliver, improving people’s lives and supporting healthcare professionals.”

Staying Ahead

According to the dynamic duo, Pierre and Sai, “We are aware that the demand for our solutions varies considerably. We operate globally and across specific therapeutic areas. Patients, healthcare providers, pharma companies, and institutions have all different expectations of digital health solutions based on the clinical context, local regulations, or the therapy that are supported by a digital approach. We work to stay ahead of these needs by integrating new capabilities such as managing regulated and unregulated solutions and proposing “beyond-the-tech” services like market access, training, and onboarding and data analysis.”

They further add, “With a track record of over 20 years of active operations in the market, Aptar Digital Health owns in-depth knowledge and know-how on multiple subjects such as clinical background, regulatory, patient journey, market needs, and market access. Finally, being backed by a large industrial group like AptarGroup lends us financial and organizational stability to invest in the long-term digital health play.”

Better Healthcare Services

Pierre and Sai: Healthcare institutions should take into account HealthTech for several factors, including improving care delivery and outcomes, lightening the burden on caregivers, and lowering healthcare costs, which are rising at an alarming rate globally. In the majority of healthcare systems, providers are compensated based on the number of tasks completed rather than on the consistency of the treatment they provide. To evaluate the worth of a medical procedure and the move towards so-called value-based healthcare, data is required. HealthTech makes it feasible to gather the data points (disease progression, patient quality of life, etc.) needed to support these new care models.

Improve Patient’s Journey

Pierre and Sai : Every stage of the patient’s journey through treatment is being improved by Aptar Digital Health. Our integrated suite of digital health products and services empowers patients to actively engage in their treatment and deliver a superior experience at a global scale. We leverage our unmatched experience and end-to-end platforms and solutions to derisk and accelerate pharma’s digital health initiatives across therapeutic areas, resulting in better patient outcomes and better care. We are a leading expert partner of the pharmaceutical industry in connected devices, SaMD (Software as a Medical Device), diagnostics, and patient insights.

Key Milestones

In 2023, Aptar Digital Health plans to increase its operations and fortify its relationship with the Life Sciences industry across several therapeutic areas. Aptar Digital Health currently works in seven therapeutic areas, with a particular emphasis on oncology, respiratory, immunology, and neurology, where there are numerous opportunities to make a difference for patients using specific therapies.

Pierre and Sai say, “This year, we’ll also be able to see the full benefits of the comprehensive offer that we built last year, following the acquisition of Voluntis by Aptar Pharma. Today, we have a unique portfolio of software, connected devices, and services, and in 2023 this offer is being actively marketed. We are also expanding our portfolio of collaborations with technology partners and increasingly acting as the pharmaceutical industry’s go-to partner for the deployment of digital health solutions at a global scale. Our goal is to further our leadership position in integrated solutions for patients and healthcare providers.”

Words of Wisdom for HealthTech Entrepreneurs

Pierre and Sai :  You need to have a clear value proposition that meets specific unmet needs and makes you different from the competition. Same for business models, once you have defined who your target is (patients, healthcare providers or health systems, pharma…), be able to prove your value through consumer insight studies, market, clinical and real-world evidence studies, and demonstrate that you create value not only from a financial standpoint but also from an outcomes standpoint.

It’s also very important to stay focused on the business models you have prioritized. There are so many opportunities in this space that you can easily lose focus and get diverted in different directions, which can ultimately lead to failure.

Another piece of advice would be to be present and active in the ecosystem. Don’t stay alone in your own world: talk to people. The healthcare industry is a field of experts, with many stakeholders and country specificities, so it’s important to be well-connected. Surround yourself with the right people, be supported by external advisors, experts in their own domain, to inform your decision-making and help you achieve success!

A Versatile Leader with Extensive Experience

Alf Erik currently heads Global Health Technology as its CEO. He began his professional journey in the health industry in 1997 when he graduated from college, and Zeneca hired him as a pharmaceutical representative. After two years, he was hired as an Area Manager by the huge German corporation Bayer and given the responsibility of introducing a new cholesterol-lowering medicine.

The versatile leader was then recruited by Roche Pharmaceutical, a company that at the time had several revolutionaries in the field of cancer treatment. He made the decision to quit the pharmaceutical industry after five extremely exciting and enlightening years there in order to spend less time away from his family.

“My career continued in media, design, and sports as an advisor and general manager for 15 years before I was invited to join Global Health Technology in 2019,” says Alf Erik.

Using Technology To Deliver Care More Efficiently

Global Health Technology operates globally with the development and sale of cutting-edge products in health care. Its multifunctional silicone wound dressings, Erland Care products, are made in Norway, and it offers ground-breaking technology based on its patents.

The company develops products within stoma care and wound treatment, which are backed by third-party testing, the next generation of skin protection. It is superlight, thin, and has the absorption capacity of 15 times its dry weight. The absorption capacity helps reduce leakage from stomas, which is sealed in the superabsorbent; this in turn, helps reduce odours.

The semi-permeable perforated silicone as an adhesive gives the skin a great ability to ventilate/breath, improving wound healing. The quality of the silicone, which Alf Erik & his team have tested, also makes it easily removable after use, also on established wounds, leaving to adhesive left on skin.

The Protective Skin products can be applied to sores and wounds, dry or heavily exuding, such as bed sures, diabetes-ulcers, traumatic wounds, first- and second-degree burns, etc. The products may also be used on top of other products. Several dressings may be layered on top of each other in cases where the exuding fluids are considerable.

“The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are a common work plan for a healthier, greener, and more inclusive community by 2030. We are committed to supporting Goal 3, which wants to ensure good health and promoting quality of life for all, regardless of age,” says Alf Erik.

Traditional Healthcare And Healthtech Can Work Together

The synergies from joint opportunities, in Alf Erik’s opinion, will inevitably lead to higher healthcare quality. These synergies should be encouraged constantly, but historically, they haven’t always been. Historic or old agreements and large companies have had a foothold within or around institutions has a way of hindering smaller companies that often have the capability of quickly turning around as a response to feedback and delivering alternative or improved solutions. Not always, but sometimes.

Alf Erik explains, “And we are not using this as an excuse, rather a means of inspiration. Challenges will head in our direction left, right, and centre, and with them, the companies and partnerships forged will forge even stronger synergies. A platform for intercommunication and cooperation is important and might not be of interest to all. But for a large portion of the innovators out there, we firmly believe cooperation and partnerships will give a return to all parties.”

Strategizing Game Plans

According to Alf Erik, Global Health Technology’s products are coming from user-driven innovation. Having that in mind, their initial design and materials were chosen on those grounds, which, when choosing to follow the path of need and necessity, will result in a product to be proud of by the company but also wanted by the crowd.

Working towards a common goal as a team is what makes an entrepreneur strong, and a team is built up by individual efforts supported by the surrounding team

When making decisions internally, the versatile leader and his team always take the market’s competition and innovation into account. Even as a small business, they must have two sets of goals in mind. One being how to improve the product further and engage with their target audience, and two, is there a need to be filled that they should be filling?

Major Achievements

Global Health Technology  since its inception in 2010 has garnered many achievements –

1. The company has developed 2 product series that has the users in focus and gives a real impact in their quality of life.
2. Its team consists of a group of high qualified and engaged colleagues.
3. In 2020 and 2021, it was chosen to present at the DNB NXT Healthcare conference as one of the most promising health companies in Norway.
4. In 2022 it won the Social Care Premier Supplier Healthcare Award in UK.
5. In 2023 – All Erland Care products available on Amazon

Key Milestones

“As a result of the pandemic, we as a company had to pivot in our launch preparation and plans, which had a snowball effect on our 2022 and 2023 goals. Having a team that is constantly focused on their individual goals as well as our team’s goals and goalsetting has had a major influence on how big of an effect, or in our case, how minor which, in the natural order of things, will give way to new ideas for our preparations and launch ambitions,” states Alf Erik. The versatile leader and his company Global Health Technology are already experiencing massive interest worldwide from distributors, healthcare professionals, and patients/consumers of their products.

Alf Erik has set the milestones for 2023, which are ambitious, but they are fundamentally backed by the market research he and his team are conducting in conjunction with their distributors. It once more involved communication between his company and its partners/distributors. “Their ambitions must be supported by our company`s ability to deliver on our end, and our ambitions should reflect that of the company`s team, founder and shareholders,” says Alf Erik.

Words of Wisdom

Being a seasoned professional, Alf Erik shares some valuable advice, “Cliché pitfall right here. Originality when asked such a question is obviously hard. And to be fair obstacles on the way in an entrepreneurial lifestyle is probably a given, in my opinion. Working towards a common goal as a team is what makes an entrepreneur strong, and a team is built up by individual efforts supported by the surrounding team.” He further adds, “Ryan Holidays book “The Obstacle is The Way” and John Doerr’s “Speed and Scale” are classics, with golden nuggets for every individual out there trying to tread their own path. And as an option having a few sparring partners or mentors on the way, able to enrichen thought and discussion processes with different angles, cannot hurt.”