Skinuvita: treating chronic skin diseases highly effectively at home

Skinuvitas Tele-Phototherapy enables guideline-compliant treatment of chronic skin diseases at home with an unprecedented combination of safety, flexibility and suitability for everyday use. Managing Director Jan B. Elsner presented the solution at the Insuring Digital Health Event 2024 and reports here in an interview together with health economist Carolina Idzior.

How would you explain your solution in three sentences to a professional colleague from the health sector?

Skinuvita is a digital care model for the guideline-compliant home use of phototherapy for chronic skin diseases. As part of the innovative telemedicine system, the prescribed dose is automatically transferred to smart therapy devices and ongoing dermatological care is guaranteed. In contrast to the status quo, around 30 trips to the therapy center are no longer necessary. This improves quality of life and gives those affected in underserved regions access to this effective and well-tolerated form of treatment.

What problem motivated you to start the company?

Many of our team members have experienced the suffering of chronic skin diseases first hand. It is our mission to help other sufferers and to combine our own experience with our respective expertise to create a real impact. Phototherapy is a great treatment method, but requires 3-6 sessions per week in dermatology practices - a circumstance that makes it difficult for many sufferers to integrate the treatment into their everyday lives. This particularly affects young families, people with full-time jobs and those from rural areas. We are convinced that personal circumstances should not determine access to effective therapies.

How do you convince a pharmaceutical company, a health insurance company or another potential client to set up a pilot project with you?

Skinuvita impresses potential partners and health insurance companies with a unique care concept that closes the gap between highly effective therapy and limited access to it. Our tele-phototherapy enables guideline-compliant treatment at home and offers an unprecedented combination of safety, flexibility and suitability for everyday use thanks to digital dose transfer, telemonitoring and continuous medical supervision. Incidentally, 92% of Skinuvita therapy sessions are carried out outside typical practice opening hours. We are a European market novelty and were able to exceed all relevant parameters of the comparative studies on the status quo of care in our multi-center approval study. With our approval as a class IIa medical device (MDR), it is a fully validated therapy system.

There is clear added value for health insurance companies and insurers: Skinuvita increases the adherence of those affected, demonstrably improves quality of life and reduces costs in the long term by reducing trips to practices and minimizing the use of expensive alternative therapies. By closely involving dermatologists and focusing on therapy safety, we meet all the requirements of German guidelines and strengthen trust in care.

Skinuvita is the first tele-phototherapy solution in Europe that sustainably improves patient access to phototherapy while combining efficiency, safety and cost-effectiveness.

Skinuvita solution

Who are your current customer (groups) and who do you want your potential customers to be?

We are about to launch our solution in our home market of Germany. Our current customer groups are primarily health insurance companies that offer their policyholders innovative home phototherapy through a selective contract. The most important user groups, however, are those affected by chronic skin diseases and dermatologists. We are very pleased about the active support of the BVDD and nationwide pre-registrations from over 90 specialist practices. In addition, we are open to cooperations with other therapy providers to expand our treatment portfolio. For our expansion, we are analyzing various European healthcare systems and entering into appropriate partnerships.

Where do you see yourself in 3 years and how can 5-HT support you?

Exciting topics are on the agenda for us in the next 3 years: AI expansions, new clinical studies, steps towards internationalization. By then, we want to have set new standards in care and helped thousands of patients to improve their quality of life. 5-HT can play a key role for us in finding the right partners and gaining further expertise. We are therefore very grateful for the support we are receiving!

You participated in the Insuring Digital Health in October 2024. What is your impression of the event and what have you gained (so far) from participating?

The Insuring Digital Health event was an excellent opportunity for us to talk directly to the right contacts at various health insurance companies and present our solution in detail. The matchmaking and the quality of the exchange are of immense value. The successful projects of previous years show how many care innovations find their way to health insurance reimbursement with this format! In fact, we are now in concrete cooperation talks with several health insurance companies following the event. There is a good chance that the Insuring Digital Health event will also open the door to a significant improvement in healthcare provision in our case.

Skinuvita Managing Director Jan B. Elsner presenting at the 5-HT event Insuring Digital Health in October 2024