Mario Aguilar covers technology in health care, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, wearable devices, telehealth, and digital therapeutics. His stories explore how tech is changing the practice of health care and the business and policy challenges to realizing tech’s promise. He’s also the co-author of the free, twice weekly STAT Health Tech newsletter. You can reach Mario on Signal at mariojoze.13.

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A new Pfizer job posting for a digital medicine & PDURS strategy lead offers a glimpse of where the pharma giant may be going with some of its digital health work. The new role would be charged with heading up a PDURS Center of Excellence at Pfizer and “will guide cross-functional teams to design, validate, and launch drug-digital solutions that meet regulatory requirements.”

What is PDURS you may reasonably ask? In 2023, the Food and Drug Administration issued draft guidance on Prescription Drug Use-Related Software, which is of particular interest because it offers the agency’s thinking on what drugmakers are supposed to do when they have software, like an app, that when used with a drug offers “meaningful improvement in a clinical outcome” as compared to use of the drug alone. With evidence of this benefit, it could be added to a drug’s label, and that opens the door to new marketing and reimbursement opportunities.

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