Pfizer to acquire local digital health company

Pharma News: Pfizer Australia has made a $100 million bid to acquire local digital health company and its smartphone diagnostics technology.

ResApp, a start-up that began as a project at the University of Queensland, develops smartphone applications for the management and diagnosis of respiratory diseases. The company’s machine learning algorithms can diagnose and measure the severity of a respiratory condition using sound.

Its clinically validated and regulatory-approved products include ResAppDx and SleepCheck, which are Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved in Australia and CE Marked in Europe.

ResAppDx is a smartphone-based acute respiratory disease diagnostic test that is used in emergency departments, telehealth and primary care settings. The SleepCheck smartphone application allows individuals to self-assess their sleep apnoea risk.

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ResApp CEO and managing director, Tony Keating, said “We are excited by the prospect of this acquisition by Pfizer, a leading biopharmaceutical company that shares our vision and belief that technology can help transform healthcare and improve patients’ lives.”

Lidia Fonseca, Pfizer’s chief digital and technology officer said in a statement “This proposed acquisition and research collaboration add to our growing digital capabilities and bolster our efforts to pave a new era for digital health.”

Additionally, the company and Pfizer have entered a research and development licence agreement (R&D Licence) for COVID-19 products. The key terms of the six-month R&D licence include two options for each company to extend the deal by three months.

Last month, ResApp reported positive results from clinical trials of its new COVID-19 instant screening test, which uses a smartphone and cough sounds to detect the presence of infection.

“The sheer scale of this global pandemic and the likely evolution to an endemic disease means we need more scalable diagnostic tools that can balance our current over-reliance on rapid antigen and PCR tests,” said Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Australia’s Deakin University and a member of ResApp’s COVID-19 scientific advisory board.

ResApp’s board has unanimously recommended that shareholders back the scheme, which will require investor approval and ticks from an independent expert and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

That non-exclusive R&D collaboration carries a A$3 million upfront fee for Pfizer to license ResApp’s technology, plus up to A$1 million in milestones based on future recruitment of patients into clinical trials to test out the app. The question of proceeding with the acquisition in full will be voted on by ResApp shareholders in mid-June 2022.

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