Digital Health

The digital opportunities in the highly regulated health and life sciences sector are numerous, with the disruptive nature of these technologies demanding an innovative approach to the legal issues that can arise.

We use our industry insight and expertise to deliver the pragmatic advice that is needed across all aspects of digital health technology from developing new products & services and technology adoption, to harnessing data and transforming business processes using innovations like artificial intelligence.

Whether advising on compliance, regulatory frameworks, investments or collaborations, we work with digital health companies and start-ups innovating and exploiting new technologies, as well as other providers of care looking at how they can use those technologies to meet patient need.

Businesses developing, adopting or working with digital health innovations face a range of commercial and legal opportunities and challenges:

• The mix of skills and experience needed to succeed in digital health - whether understanding of the technology or insight into front line patient care - creates opportunities for consolidation in the market.
• The need for funding and scale on the part of start-ups and growth companies is also creating opportunities for strategic and/or financial investment in these companies.
• Greater collaboration and wider reliance on open-source software requires new approaches to the protection of intellectual property reflecting collaboration across the industry and greater reliance on copyright and restrictive covenants in key employees’ service contracts rather than the patents on which the life sciences industry has traditionally depended.
• Data, data protection and information security are also crucial areas of focus in the sector. All healthcare involves the processing of sensitive, special category personal data, and regulators like the Information Commissioner’s Office are likely to take any breaches of data protection obligations by health and social care or life sciences businesses particularly seriously.
• Any transactions or developments in the sector can involve detailed scrutiny, legal due diligence and negotiation of how risks should be allocated and any liability to third parties for any defects in these new digital solutions.

We have experience advising on and dealing with on all of these matters as well as other healthcare-specific regulatory issues, including the classification of digital solutions under medical device regulations. Our experience means we can pre-empt and prepare you for the commercial and legal challenges that you may face and deliver valuable solutions.

Our digital health experience

• Advising eConsult Health – a company that provides online triage solutions to GP practices on its Series A funding round, led by Gresham House Ventures, and on the acquisition of Q Doctor.
• Advising Ahren Innovation Capital as lead investor on the Series B $20m investment round of personalised nutrition start-up ZOE.
• Advising AI-driven global digital health company Vamstar on its Series A funding round led by Alpha Intelligence Capital.
• Advising on the sale of all the shares in digital health company Fingerprint Global to Halcyon Group, an investment platform set up by private equity investment company, Aliter Capital LLP.