French IT services company Atos and British healthcare technology firm Huma have announced a five-year partnership to improve healthcare and research with remote monitoring technologies.

In a deal set to be worth €300m over five years, the aim is to shift healthcare and clinical trials from hospitals to homes.

The partnership will focus on Huma’s modular platform, which can power digital hospitals at home up to national scale, as well as support pharmaceutical and research industries to run complex global decentralised clinical trials. The platform is already used in the USA and across Europe for illnesses ranging from atrial fibrillation to diabetes to Covid-19.

Atos will use its experience in implementing and scaling complex transformation projects to accelerate adoption of Huma’s technology. This will include investment by Atos worth up to €20m split across R&D and go-to-market resources, including dedicated consulting and sales personnel. The investment in R&D will fast-track the integration of the Huma platform with other clinical platforms, as well as develop a dedicated video module.

The immense pressure exerted by the Covid-19 pandemic on the world’s healthcare systems exposed the weaknesses of current models already overstretched with ageing populations and the rising global incidence of chronic conditions. Innovation is needed to improve both patient care and the overall efficiency of the care chain. Atos and Huma’s approach means patients are monitored outside of hospital and given timely, proactive clinical intervention ahead of need, ultimately optimising the use of resources, improving patient outcomes and reducing long-term healthcare costs.

“We have great excitement about this partnership, as we are convinced that Atos and Huma can drive a systemic shift from reactive to proactive models of care,” said Robert Vassoyan, head of health and life sciences business at Atos. “Huma is the company we’ve been looking for in this important mission that resonates with each of us personally as we seek to improve the lives of our family, friends, neighbours and society. This is a partnership worthy of the mission.”

Early-stage evidence has shown Huma’s service, which has already been operating nationally across Germany, England and the UAE, can almost double hospital capacity.

“This partnership takes us to a new league,” said Dan Vahdat, CEO of Huma. “We have already shown that we can create a service for a new disease area in a matter of weeks, as we did during the pandemic, and that we can go live with over 100 clinics in a day. Atos will supercharge our work so we can offer services at scale, anywhere in the world across delivery of care and pharma collaborations leading to more people living longer, fuller lives.”

The partnership should benefit from Huma’s software platform and more than 40 patents, and Atos’ professional service expertise in digital strategy, change management and service management.

The five-year partnership will begin with integration, enabling global go-to-market deployments, but will also combine Atos’ expertise of driving digital adoption, support and infrastructure with Huma’s digital care, clinical trials and biomarkers. The companies expect the combined service will reach €100m revenue per year within the first four years.

Atos has 105,000 employees and annual revenue of over €11bn. Claiming to be European number one in cyber security, cloud and high-performance computing, the group provides tailored end-to-end technology for all industries in 71 countries.

Huma’s modular platform supports digital hospitals at home across different disease areas. In life sciences, it powers some of the world’s largest decentralised clinical trials and studies. The platform combines artificial intelligence, digital biomarkers and real-world data to advance proactive, predictive care and research.