State of digital health investment, part 5: HTC Vive

HTC Vive is carving out a unique role in healthcare, creating virtual reality headsets and investing in medical extended reality (XR) technologies and companies. 

Dan O’Brien, president for the Americas at HTC Vive, sat down with MobiHealthNews to discuss HTC Vive's place in healthcare and what investors should prioritize when funding medical XR ventures and emerging technologies.

MobiHealthNews: How is HTC Vive working within healthcare?

Dan O'Brien: If you look at the brand, it's a blue triangle that stands for technology, innovation and humanity. That's the brand promise, what we're actually working on and solutions we've been working on since day one. Healthcare is one of those verticals that we felt like we could make a difference, whether it was training and simulation, 3D visualization and actual therapeutics.  

We immediately started working with physician teams and clinician teams who had an idea. One of the early ones was Surgical Theater, which is a 3D visualization of MRI scans and cancer clusters, allowing surgeons to have a 3D view of a surgery they were going to prepare for. That was 2016. So, we've been in the healthcare space for quite some time.  

We have also had some large-scale deployments over the years with companies like Penumbra.  We have other partners like PeriopSim, Cinemax, XRHealth, VRpatients and others. Some of them we have invested in as a company. Some of them, we're just partnered with and we co-sell a solution to the market. 

But we're still working in all of those verticals today. Training simulation is one of the biggest vertical use cases that we really get to make a big difference. We can get training through significantly faster. One hour of training can be done in 15 minutes. 

And so, it's very effective, and then the other one we see as a really good data point is the reduction of errors. So, upwards of nine times fewer errors by surgeons, because they're practicing over and over again. We're starting to see now where they're building simulations for patient interactions as well, which is really good.

MHN: Meta has had trouble solidifying itself in healthcare due to alleged HIPAA violations. Why is HTC Vive so confident about its move into healthcare not having a negative effect on the company?

O'Brien: I can see that that's a company that has data-privacy challenges and a business model that's designed to consume that data. We don't collect a lot of that data, and we don't have a data-mining business model.

When we work with, whether it's financial services, the federal government, energy and some of those other more classified or highly secure areas, we are the default device, because we don't mine the data. We protect the data. We encrypt the data. We encrypt the communication between the headsets.

We also have specific ISO certifications just for medical patient data handling. So, as information is handled in the headset, that information goes back to whatever ISO or hospital network that's using those products. We have the certification for being able to transmit that data. We don't touch it or grab it, but we securely pass it to where it's supposed to be, so that nobody else can actually touch it.

We've invested in those things as a company – patient handling and data handling. Healthcare is a natural vertical for us to make a big difference. We are working with the VA, we are working with very large hospital networks, and so we are working on advanced ways to bring even more solutions into the market. So, it's an area for us to double down.

MHN: HTC Vive invests in different XR companies. What should investors consider when deciding whether to fund a medical XR company?

O'Brien: When you look at some of the companies, they might have their data and metrics, but their efficacy is like, "Oh, well, people are enjoying that." And it's like, well, that's great. People who play Beat Saber enjoy light sabers. 

From an investor's standpoint, they really have to look at their efficacy. Is there significant efficacy? We know of companies that are working on specific PTSD recovery and midbrain blood-flow applications, where the headset is now the delivery system for the recovery or the therapy. 

But you have to be very specific in going, "Here are companies that have clinical data." They are showing the actual efficacy of their solution. Here is a clear TAM [total addressable market]. Here are nine million veterans we can build solutions for. 

In general, you have to look at the real data those companies are working on, because some are just working on feel-good "mental health." I think that word is used very abusively. But really knowing, does that team understand when a person is in a mental health crisis? What is that crisis? When they are at a cognitive deficiency and when they're actually in crisis.

When we look at what we've done with the space station and Commander [Andreas] Mogensen, and the European Space Agency, and the work that he did, all of that was measured data of when he was in the headset when he was on the exercise bike. It was very simple measurements, but we were measuring the efficacy of reducing stress, increasing the overall cognitive state of being capable of handling all the tasks from that day. Because, if you want to be in a stressful environment, live in space. That's a high-stress environment.

So, I look at all those scenarios and go, let's be very purposeful in understanding the companies that really want to make a difference.