Mika Health Collaborates with AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to Deliver AI-Enabled Mobile Support to Women Undergoing Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast cancer patients in Switzerland will receive access to a personalized digital therapeutic designed to optimize their experience and health while on treatment

AMSTERDAM, June 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mika Health, a global digital therapeutics developer specializing in meeting the needs of cancer patients, in collaboration with AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, today announced at the HLTH Europe conference, a digital initiative to improve the experience of women receiving breast cancer treatments. The initiative’s name, “UNITE,” reinforces the commitment of Mika Health, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to promote cross-industry collaborations that improve the lives of patients and is expected to shape AI-enabled offerings to support people in additional disease areas.

“Digital therapies are becoming increasingly important in modern cancer treatment,” said Adam Nosal, Head of Oncology at AstraZeneca Switzerland. “This partnership with Mika allows us to expand access to holistic cancer care and gain insights that will shape our broader efforts to improve therapeutic options for cancer patients.”

Mika Health is an evidence-based digital therapeutic that has already supported more than 100,000 people with cancer in Germany and Great Britain and optimized their therapeutic experience. Certified as a validated cancer treatment platform in Class IIa of the EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR) in the EU, Mika Health supports cancer patients with mental health-oriented coaching courses, AI-enabled personalized recommendations and daily symptom monitoring in an effort to increase active participation in their treatment and improve their treatment experiences.

Breast cancer patients participating in the UNITE program will use the Mika Health digital therapeutic in conjunction with pharmaceutical therapy. Patients in clinics in German-speaking Switzerland will be among the first to access support in the Mika Health app that is tailored to their treatment experience. The project, which has been running in Switzerland since April 2024 and is supported by the EUROPA DONNA Switzerland organization and the Cancer League, will be expanded to include French and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland.

“We are very pleased to collaborate with AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo to expand access to personalized support aimed at increasing patients’ understanding, sense of control and physical and mental health,” said Dr. Gandolf Finke, founder and Managing Director of Mika Health. “This exciting combination of evidence-based digital support and innovative drug research is a significant opportunity to improve cancer treatment experiences and increase survival rates in the leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide.”

Using proven therapy management methods and techniques in combination with innovative machine learning technologies, Mika aims to provide people living with cancer with improved experiences and therapy results. The Mika Health app offers extensive information on topics such as nutrition, exercise, mindfulness and financial issues and acts as a digital therapeutic agent for depressive moods and exhaustion. In a randomized clinical trial, depressed mood decreased by 42 percent and chronic fatigue decreased by 23 percent compared to the control group.¹

“As a company that puts the well-being of patients at the center of its activities, we are very pleased to partner with Mika,” said Giuseppe Grossi, Country Manager of Daiichi Sankyo Switzerland. “In today’s digital world, it is increasingly important to be innovative in promoting solutions that improve the quality of life of people with cancer and help to achieve better treatment outcomes. Supporting the Mika app is a concrete example of the progress we want to promote in cancer treatment and beyond.”

About Breast Cancer

Despite advancements in therapeutics to treat breast cancer,² breast cancer continues to be the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in females worldwide, with an estimated 2.3 million new cancer cases (1 in 4 new cancer cases) and 685,000 cancer deaths (1 in 6 deaths) in 2020³. More than 6,000 women in Switzerland are diagnosed in the course of a year. Men are also affected (around 50 in Switzerland).⁴

About Mika Health

Mika Health is an app-based platform aimed at providing targeted and comprehensive support to people with cancer using digital technology. Through scientifically proven methods and techniques of therapy management, Digital Therapeutics (DTx) helps patients to actively participate in their treatment and regain more quality of life – with daily symptom monitoring, psychologically oriented coaching courses, and AI-supported, personalized recommendations. To achieve this, Mika combines innovative machine learning technologies with a multimedia knowledge database of rigorously verified content, such as nutritional tips, exercise routines, or mindfulness training.

Fosanis, the Digital Health company behind Mika, was founded in Berlin in 2017 by Dr. Gandolf Finke and Dr. Jan Simon Raue and completed a Series-A financing round of more than 10 million euros in 2022. After tens of thousands of patients in Germany and the UK have already used the free DTx platform alongside their cancer therapy, the fifty-strong team of experts continues to expand its growth in the global HealthTech market. More information at us.mika.health.

About Daiichi Sankyo

Daiichi Sankyo is an innovative global healthcare company contributing to the sustainable development of society that discovers, develops and delivers new standards of care to enrich the quality of life around the world. With more than 120 years of experience, Daiichi Sankyo leverages its world-class science and technology to create new modalities and innovative medicines for people with cancer, cardiovascular and other diseases with high unmet medical need. 

About AstraZeneca in Switzerland

AstraZeneca is a British pharmaceutical company and has been operating in Switzerland for almost 50 years. The company is one of the ten pharmaceutical companies with the highest sales in Switzerland and is active in the following therapeutic areas: oncology, respiratory diseases and immunology, cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic diseases as well as vaccines and immunotherapies, which also include drugs to combat COVID-19. The primary goal of the 250 or so employees is to make new medications available to people affected by cancer as quickly as possible. In Switzerland, over 240,000 people are being treated with a drug from AstraZeneca. The company expects to approve over 35 new therapies by 2025. AstraZeneca aims to make the Swiss healthcare system more sustainable and resilient. To do its part for a healthy planet and healthy people, the company works tirelessly to reduce CO2 emissions and waste. It has therefore set itself the goal of becoming CO2 negative by 2030.

More information about AstraZeneca Switzerland: www.astrazeneca.ch

Media Contacts

CH-9876 / June 2024

¹ J. Wolff, J. Stupin, J. Olschewski et al (2023): Digital therapeutic to improve cancer-related well-being: a pilot randomized controlled trial. International Journal of Gynecologic Cancer, doi: 10.1136/ijgc-2023-004304

² https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/state_of_the_nation_april_2019.pdf

³ Breast cancer: Global patterns of incidence, mortality, and trends.Crossref DOI link: https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.2023.41.16_suppl.10528; Published Print: 2023-06-01

⁴ https://www.krebsliga.ch/ueber-krebs/frueherkennung/brustkrebs