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Pharma companies gain access to de-identified data on adherence for specific drugs

Medisafe's new channel for pharma companies is aimed at helping drug developers better understand adherence dynamics and make it easier to tweak their guidance for patients and physicians.

This heat map of adherence shows Medisafe app users on HIV Medication

This heat map is intended to give a sense of medication adherence for Medisafe app users on HIV medication.

 

What’s the worst day for medication adherence? How soon after patients are prescribed a drug does adherence start to decline? Those are the kind of questions that vex pharmaceutical companies and to which Medisafe thinks it can provide answers. In a phone interview with Omri Shor, Medisafe co-founder and CEO, he talked about the expansion of Medisafe’s platform into pharma, per the company’s news release.

Part of the goal of this channel is to give pharma companies more insight into adherence for patients on their medications and pick up patterns, using app users’ de-identified information. Armed with that info, drug developers can collaborate with Medisafe and physicians to boost adherence for patients and lower the risk of unnecessary hospitalization from complications that can arise when patients go off their meds.

I would think Friday would be the worst day for adherence and when Shor asks me to pinpoint a time, I guesstimate 3pm to 4pm. I’m close. From one of the pilots Medisafe ran, which focused on an HIV drug, Friday evening from 3pm to 6pm came up as the worst time. By mapping out de-identified adherence data from Medisafe users, the company showed the steep drop off on Friday evenings.

“We have created an ecosystem,” said Shor. The platform extension gives pharmaceutical companies the ability to co-brand and customize the Medisafe interface for their patients and show patients videos, articles and other educational content, patient assistance programs, among other services, the news release noted.

This heat map shows a worldwide view of adherence for Medisafe app users on HIV medication

This heat map shows a worldwide view of adherence for Medisafe app users on HIV medication.

“Pharma companies have the capability with Medisafe to promote content to the patient based on the insights we will find out for that patient.”

He added, “If we can find an age-based cohort, or a demographic cohort, it will enable our partners to do better work and generate better outcomes.”

Getting back to the HIV drug example, adherence data also revealed a steep drop in adherence between day 27 and day 32 of taking the medication. That’s the kind of adherence pattern that spurs companies to dig deeper to understand why and until now, these insights have largely been a black box for drug developers.

Since the company raised $6 million in January last year, it has doubled in size, Shor said. He said that it would be rolling out more services for consumers in the next few months. Last year, it embarked on a collaboration with Human API to make it possible for users to import medication lists from hospitals and medical facilities. Customers can use this information to track when they need prescription refills for multiple medications. Last month, Medisafe expanded that collaboration with Human API to include all major U.S. pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreen’s.

More services for Medisafe’s app could mean expanding into behavioral health, an area many digital health companies have sought to move into following a policy push by the administration to make behavioral healthcare more accessible.

Image: Medisafe

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