Patient adherence (encouraging patients to take the correct dosage at the correct time), is a growing issue in the pharmaceutical industry and especially important for the efficacy of DPIs. Failing to use a reliever or preventer DPI correctly, or not using it at all, has been shown in a number of studies to increase the number and severity of asthma attacks, and in COPD it can exacerbate the condition. Lack of adherence has significant cost implications for the healthcare system and studies have shown that up to 75% of the total cost for treating asthma might derive from poor control of the disease*.
Dr Berman will highlight how smart, connected devices can enable both clinicians and patients to monitor and improve adherence and result in patients feeling more in control of their own health. Advances in devices such as smartphones, as well as developments in wireless communications, are helping to fuel the growth of remote patient monitoring and ‘connected health’. The use of smartphones could be particularly effective at improving adherence because the technology and user interface are very familiar to patients.
Dr Berman comments: “We are seeing increasing interest from the pharma industry in adherence monitoring and using smartphone technology to help patients take their drugs correctly and on time. Once you have batteries on a delivery device, it is no longer a technology limitation to provide the patient and healthcare professional with real adherence data. There are many advantages to using a smartphone to provide this help to the patient, over developing a dedicated piece of hardware, including convenience, lifestyle and familiarity factors for the patient, and cost and platform benefits for the developer. We believe there is a significant opportunity here for the industry.”
Sagentia’s participation in the event is part of its growing experience in the advanced drug delivery and connected health landscape. The company is experiencing increased interest from customers wanting strategic advice on technological advances in the field and to develop smartphone-connected medical devices and medical mobile apps. In particular, Sagentia is actively engaged in innovative sensing solutions for patient monitoring, custom wireless solutions for medical mobile apps and how to extract and aggregate the data to provide meaningful context-aware results to the user.
The full event agenda can be found here.
*Barnes PJ et al, The Costs of Asthma, European Respiratory Journal 9, pp636-642, 1996
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