JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital health has been advancing owing to technological progress by means of smart devices and artificial intelligence, amongst other developments. In the field of diabetes, especially, there are many active use cases of digital technology supporting the treatment of diabetes and improving lifestyle. In the innovation ecosystem, new alliance networks are formed not only by medical device companies and pharmaceutical companies, but also by information and communications technology (ICT) companies and start-ups. While understanding and utilizing the network structure is important to increase the competitive advantage of companies, there is a lack of previous research describing the structure of alliance networks and the factors that lead to their formation in digital health.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to explore the significance of alliance networks, focusing on digital health for diabetes, in effectively implementing processes, from the Research and Development (R&D) of products and/or services to their launch and market penetration.

Methods:

First, we listed the companies and contracts related to the digital health for diabetes, visualized the change in the number of companies and the connections between companies in each industry, and analyzed the overview of the network. Second, we calculated the degree, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality of each company in each year. Next, we analyzed the relationship between network centrality and market competitiveness by using annual sales as a parameter of company competitiveness. We also compared the network centrality of each company by industry and/or headquarters location and analyze the characteristics of companies with higher centrality. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between network centrality and the number of products certified or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Results:

We found the degree centrality of companies was correlated with an increase in their sales; The betweenness and eigenvector centrality of medical device companies located in the U.S. were significantly higher than those outside the U.S; Finally, the degree, betweenness and eigenvector centralities were correlated with an increase in the number of Class III, but not of Class I nor II medical device products.

Conclusions:

These findings give rise to new insights on the industry ecosystem for digital health and its requirement and expect a contribution to R&D practices in the field of digital health.