Brussels, 01/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The mHealth cycling Grand Tour 2015 will take place from 3 to 12 September and is open to cyclists with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
The Grand Tour, which was first held in 2013, is a ride like no other: participants will cycle from Brussels to Geneva, via Paris, a distance of some 1,500 kilometres in ten days. Riders will be monitored remotely in real time and will have the advantage of personalised coaching via their mobile devices to help them manage their condition throughout the ride.
The event highlights the benefits that new technologies offer the health sector. The European Commission has on numerous occasions spoken of the huge potential both for patients (more closely targeted and personalised care) and for more sustainable and better performing healthcare systems.
The mHealth Grand Tour wants to make a contribution to improving the lives of diabetics, vaunting their performances and highlighting the innovative technical solutions that help them manage their diabetes. Throughout the Tour, a number of major international players in the field of technology (Orange, Dexcom and Samsung) along with innovative start-ups will provide unique technical services to help the riders. Health sector players will be involved in the riders' support programme. The event will be supported by the European mobile operators association (GSMA), the Association française des Diabétiques and the International Diabetes Federation Europe and the Type 1 diabetes charity JDRF.
Following the Tour, the data gathered through the monitoring of the riders will be analysed as part of a medical study by Orange in partnership with the Société Francophone du Diabète of Belgium. The results of this unprecedented study will be released a few months after the Tour.
Partnerships between health and/or pharmaceutical players and those working in new technologies are forecast to increase in coming years as the benefits of eHealth become clearer. To give a recent example: the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi announced on 31 August that it had linked up with the Life Sciences division of the US giant Google in the area of diabetes. Google's Life Sciences division can help Sanofi improve the patient's experience and the clinical results and also manage health spending more effectively, Sanofi said. (Isabelle Lamberty)