Digital innovation and disruption in healthcare are the subject of this episode of the pharmaphorum podcast, for which I visited GlaxoSmithKline at their Stockley Park base to speak with Kai Gait, a senior global digital strategy director at the company.

Kai’s role focuses on digital disruption within healthcare and involves developing digital solutions for patients living with respiratory diseases and he and his team focus on finding innovative ways to use new and existing technologies to support patient needs.

He’s worked in digital pharma for nearly 25 years, working across a range of local and global roles with international organisations. During this time, he’s led enterprise digital and innovation programmes, including developing and leading one of the world’s biggest physician websites, through to digital therapeutics programmes.

Kai Gait

We discussed how digital technology is disrupting healthcare and the positive impact it’s having on patient care, before taking a closer look at the Internet of Things (IoT) and how it can be applied to healthcare to help people understand and improve their own health and wellness. GSK’s MyAsthma app featured in our conversation as well, though it has since been decommissioned.

Given that Kai was recently made a Fellow at the Chartered Institute of Marketing it also seemed appropriate during this episode of the pharmaphorum podcast to look at the impact digital technology has had on pharmaceutical marketing.

You can listen to episode 8 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – in iTunes, Spotify, acast and Stitcher.