Estonia has identified digital health technologies as a priority strategic growth area. With a national e-health and data infrastructure powered by a highly developed ecosystem for building advanced software products, Estonia has a unique opportunity to become a centre for innovation for software-based medical devices in the Nordic region.

DTx Estonia aims to realise this potential by launching a first-of-its kind development program focused on accelerating the growth of digital therapeutics industry. Our goal is to ensure that we have more innovative start-ups ready to operate in this complex but high-potential and high-impact sector. 

The program is free and open to all relevant stakeholders, including:

• digital therapeutics companies in every stage
• physicians
• healthcare service providers
• regulators and public sector decision makers
• payers
• universities and students
• investors

The main goal of the program is to:

• Help current digital therapeutics companies learn about the latest international best practices and improve their ability to develop, validate, certify and launch their solution
• Inspire new entrepreneurs to launch their digital therapeutic startups
• Catalyse discussion between all the relevant stakeholders on the adoption of digital therapeutics in Estonia and beyond

Session I – DTx Intro

Time: 12.04.2023 11:00

Topics: Introduction to Digital Therapeutics

Expert: Megan Coder

Megan Coder, PharmD, MBA, is Chief Policy Officer of the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), an international non-profit trade association of industry leaders and stakeholders dedicated to improving clinical and health economic outcomes through the use of high quality, evidence-based digital therapeutics (DTx).

Megan founded DTA in 2017 and remains instrumental in developing the foundations for this quickly evolving industry. She leads DTA’s efforts related to thought leadership, global policy, international standard development, and the Alliance’s DTx Value Assessment & Integration Guide.

Session II – DTx Regulatory Pathways: German Experience

Time: 24.04.2023 13:00 – 14:30

Location (in-person event): Zapp conference centre at Lõõtsa 6, Helsinki seminar room, II floor, Ülemiste City, Tallinn

Expert: Jessica Hanneken

Jessica Hanneken is acting as Vice President Investment and Legal Health Affairs and Head of the Representative Office at BFS health finance GmbH. She is a mentor at Startup Bootcamp Digital Health Berlin and Vision Health Pioneers Incubator as well as a member of the supervisory board at the University Hospital Bonn.  Jessica is an attorney and specializes in the regulatory fields of the German Healthcare System.

She stays in deep and steady contact with all important institutions such as health insurance, hospitals, the self-regulatory bodies, ministries of health, patient organizations and members of the parliament in Germany. Jessica is a part of this expert network. She worked at the German medical and dental association, where she has been responsible for European and national health policies and knows the developments of the healthcare system for more than 14 years.

Session III – Getting Started: Clinical Unmet Need and Patient Discovery

Time: Wednesday Jun 7, 2023 ⋅ 15:30 – 17:00 (Eastern European Time – Tallinn)

Expert: Kevin Dean

Kevin Dean is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and of The Chartered Institute for IT. He is the Managing Director of Smart Health Science Limited and has been named by the Health Services Journal as one of the 50 Top Innovators in Healthcare. Since 2012, Kevin has been Adjunct Professor of Telehealth at the Maersk Institute, Denmark, and is also Senior Research Fellow at RAND Europe.

During this session Kevin will provide valuable insights on evaluating unmet needs to effectively address the development of Digital Therapeutics (DTx). Additionally, he will discuss the appropriate strategies for managing innovation throughout the development and launch process.

Session IV – Funding the Future of Healthcare

Time: 6th September, 10:00

Expert: Marko Kuisma

Partner @ Innovestor Life Science Fund

Commercial leader, executive and a venture capital investor. Experience in digital health, international health tech, health care and life science sectors. Passionate about improving future health with technological innovations.

Several years of experience in both strategic planning and execution, leading commercial operations and a whole lot of hands-on experience from the front lines. I’ve held commercial leadership roles in multiple companies, e.g. Mobidiag (acquired by Hologic in May 2021) and, recently as CCO of Kaiku Health (acquired by Elekta in May 2020).

Session V – Path to Reimbursement

Time: 20th  September, 16:00

Expert: Dr. Kamal Jethwani

Dr. Jethwani is a digital health, technology and healthcare transformation strategist. With an entrepreneurial approach, he has built and expanded digital innovation at the Harvard-affiliated academic medical centers to transform care delivery and research across a range of provider networks.

Dr. Jethwani also enjoys writing and speaking about digital transformation in healthcare, and has delivered over 250 keynote talks and panels internationally based on his work in rigorously testing innovations in clinical research settings, as well as implementing them at scale.