Key takeaway
Digital health raised $11.1 billion in 2026 so far, while pharma signs fewer, more deliberate partnerships. Lessons from Boehringer Ingelheim and its partners on making these collaborations last.
Short answer: Realistic expectations, clear ownership and governance that changes as the product matures. Pharma brings rigour, evidence and market access; digital health companies bring speed and technology. Partnerships fail when each side assumes the other will move at its pace. They work when the pharma company owns the strategy internally, both sides plan for more resources and more time than they expect, and roles are handed over deliberately as the product moves from trial to market.
Each side has what the other lacks. Digital health companies build software fast, but struggle to fund large clinical trials, win reimbursement and reach prescribers. Pharma has clinical development, regulatory and market access muscle, plus field teams, but rarely builds software well in-house.
The money is still there. Rock Health counted $11.1 billion of US digital health venture funding in the first three quarters of 2026, including $3.7 billion in the third quarter alone, and more than $140 billion over the sector's 15 years. But capital is concentrating in fewer, larger companies, and there has been no new digital health listing since August 2025. That gives startups more reason to seek strategic partners. Flare Capital's Michael Greeley told Rock Health he sees "strategics filling in behind the generalists who left after COVID-19."
Pharma, meanwhile, is getting more selective. Galen Growth counts 1,707 digital health partnerships across the 13 largest pharma portfolios, led by AstraZeneca (228), Roche (202), Pfizer (190), Novartis (161) and Bayer (143). New partnerships peaked at 149 in 2023 and fell to 115 in 2025. "The accumulation phase is over," Galen Growth concluded. Its 2026 Pharma Digital Health Innovation Index puts the new challenge simply: "The gap is now about conversion, not collection."
At the 5th Digital Health Conference in Madrid, Julie Jouguelet, Digital Health Asset Lead in Oncology at Boehringer Ingelheim, shared lessons from both sides of the bridge. She brought in voices from partners: Tony McDermott of Click Therapeutics, Ben Parcher of Boehringer Ingelheim and Aurore Beaume of Aptar Digital Health. The most memorable line in her presentation came from Beaume:
"Resource needs are usually underestimated, speed is overestimated."
Aurore Beaume, Aptar Digital Health, quoted in Julie Jouguelet's session at the 5th Digital Health Conference
McDermott described the other half of the problem: "Digital health often pushes for speed, but doesn't always account for the level of rigor required by pharma."
Jouguelet's session pointed to four friction points:
These are not new problems. A Research2Guidance study back in 2019 estimated that only around 25% of startup–corporate collaborations in digital health succeed, and named the same breaking points: no comprehensive strategy, mismatched expectations and a weak operating model. It cited Sandoz ending its commercial agreement with Pear Therapeutics, a pioneer of prescription digital therapeutics that later filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
The partnership changes as the product moves from proof of concept to clinical trials, regulatory review and launch. Jouguelet's lessons fell into three groups:
Roles also shift by design. As McDermott noted in Jouguelet's presentation, once design and development are complete the digital partner often becomes more of an advisor than a driver, handing over to local commercial teams.
Yes, and Boehringer Ingelheim's own work with Click Therapeutics shows it. The two companies co-developed CT-155, an app-based therapy for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia that received FDA Breakthrough Device designation in January 2024 and met its primary endpoint in the Phase 3 CONVOKE trial in 2025. In April 2026 the model changed: Boehringer Ingelheim invested $50 million and handed full product responsibility, including commercial and marketing authorisation rights, to Click, subject to FDA clearance.
The lesson is that partnership structure is not fixed. The right model at proof of concept may not be the right model at launch.
Header photo: Radission US on Unsplash.
To add software-based therapies, patient support and data to their medicines without building technology in-house. Startups gain clinical, regulatory and market access expertise, plus credibility with customers.
Most often because of mismatched expectations about speed and resources, unclear ownership of strategy and processes, and governance that does not adapt as the product moves from development to launch.
It is the senior governance body where both companies make strategic decisions. Speakers at our conference said it works best when led by well-equipped senior leaders and kept focused on strategy rather than operations.
US digital health startups raised $11.1 billion across 358 deals in the first three quarters of 2026, according to Rock Health, including $7.4 billion in the first half.
According to Galen Growth's 2026 analysis, AstraZeneca has the largest portfolio with 228 recorded partnerships, followed by Roche (202), Pfizer (190), Novartis (161) and Bayer (143).
The Digital Health Conference, organised by UBIQ Events, brings together pharma, medtech and digital health leaders to discuss digital therapeutics, real-world evidence, AI and regulation.
