Packaging, drug delivery and an app: Program rewards patients for compliance

Can packaging and drug-delivery devices help reward patients for adherence? West Pharmaceutical Services is working with HealthPrize to find out.

Even the best drug in the best container with the best delivery device can be rendered useless if patients don’t take it, points out Chris Evans, vp of research and innovation for West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. “For years, West has been making devices for self-injection easier to use, but the angst and anxiety along with the perceived pain are often barriers to adherence.”

Those “psychological barriers” are typically present “when the benefits of taking the drug are long term, not immediate,” adds Katrina Firlik, chief medical officer for HealthPrize Technologies LLC.

Executives at both companies have discussed how to tackle noncompliance ever since HealthPrize’s CEO Tom Kottler and Firlik co-founded the company and launched its rewards platform for healthcare. “We knew there would be some role West could play with its devices,” says Evans, “such as some wireless communication method to convey dosing to the HealthPrize application.”

Last fall West and HealthPrize formalized its collaboration by integrating HealthPrize’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) medication adherence and patient engagement platform with West’s injectable drug delivery systems. At the upcoming Pharmapack North America conference June 9, Evans and Firlik will explain how the drug-delivery systems will encourage and reward patients for taking medication.

The HealthPrize platform is “consumery and fun,” says Firlik. “It is a true loyalty program that offers education and rewards, through gamification.”

More than 20,000 patients have enrolled in current HealthPrize programs customized for a number of pharma brand programs, combining rewards from gift cards to merchandise to coupons and even charitable donations with patient education, self-reporting, and prescription refill verification.

Read the full article from our sister publication Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News at www.PMPnews.com.