Nia Health and AbbVie Deutschland begin collaboration on AI-supported care for atopic dermatitis

AbbVie Deutschland is supporting the further development of Nia Health’s digital, AI-supported care offering for people with atopic dermatitis. The approach ranges from documentation in patients’ everyday lives to an “AI Severity Classifier” that supports physicians in assessing disease severity. Nia Health, a medical device manufacturer based in Berlin, is a spin-off of Charité and operates “Nia”, the most widely used atopic dermatitis app in Germany.

 

Since July 2026, AbbVie has been supporting the further development of a digital, AI-supported care offering from Nia Health. The offering is aimed at people with atopic dermatitis (eczema) and at the physicians treating them; scientific responsibility rests with Nia Health.

In Germany, around two per cent of adults live with atopic dermatitis. The condition runs in flares and the state of the skin can change from one day to the next. Patients experience this course mainly at home, whereas physicians see it only at a handful of appointments each year. With the “Nia” app, patients document the course of their condition between appointments. This means they arrive better prepared for the consultation, which becomes more efficient for both sides.

AI support for clinical assessment

A further central component of the care offering is the assessment of disease severity. Physicians have so far determined clinical scores manually. Because the same finding can be graded differently depending on who assesses it, interrater reliability is limited, with consequences for monitoring and data quality. Nia Health is therefore developing the “AI Severity Classifier”. The AI-supported system analyses photographs of affected areas of skin that patients take themselves using the app and estimates severity on the basis of established clinical scores.

The “AI Severity Classifier” is currently being integrated into the hospital information system (HIS) at Charité. In future, this will allow disease severity to be recorded automatically, in standardised form and directly within the HIS, in some cases even by patients themselves at home. The AI serves solely as support and the physician’s assessment remains authoritative. The effort involved in data collection falls, while the comparability of scores increases and a scientifically robust data basis emerges.

“With atopic dermatitis, a gap often opens up between what patients experience in daily life and what comes across in the consultation”, says Tobias Seidl, CEO and co-founder of Nia Health. “Our applications make the course of the condition visible. AI makes severity more objectively measurable, so that changes are identified earlier and therapies can be adapted in an even more personalised way.”

Real-world data as a foundation

Use of the app also generates anonymised real-world data, that is, data from everyday clinical care. It shows how the condition develops outside the consulting room and what places the greatest burden on those affected, for example skin pain or personal circumstances during a change of therapy. For Nia Health, these insights are the basis for further improving care for people with atopic dermatitis.

Why AbbVie is supporting the development

AbbVie has been researching and developing in the field of chronic inflammatory skin diseases, including atopic dermatitis, for many years. Through the partnership, the company is supporting the further development of innovative care solutions.

“We want to understand and improve care for people with atopic dermatitis beyond the individual appointment”, says Katrin Diemann, Head of Medical Immunology at AbbVie Deutschland. “Digital applications and AI that make everyday care more efficient and more precise are an important building block in this”, adds Anja Moeller, Business Unit Manager AD at AbbVie Deutschland.

 

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