Injectable Systems with Adherence Tracking Capabilities

West Pharmaceutical Services and HealthPrize Technologies are collaborating on a project to integrate HealthPrize’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) medication adherence and patient-engagement platform with West’s injectable drug-delivery systems. It was announced that the first two phases of this collaboration have been completed.

The aim of this four-phase project is to provide an end-to-end connected health solution for pharmaceutical companies and patients. The combined offering will provide voluntary, electronically connected drug-delivery systems that track when a patient takes his or her medication. The HealthPrize system engages and educates patients to increase adherence and medical literacy, rewarding interaction and compliance with prescribed treatment plans. Both companies believe that the technology has the potential to contribute to better health outcomes.

Phase 1 of the platform allows for patient self-reporting once the medication has been injected. Phase 2 simplifies the self-reporting process through bar coding or QR coding of self-injection systems, which when scanned, reports use of the injection system to the HealthPrize patient-engagement system via a secure cloud environment. Bar coding allows for the recording of other medication details, including manufacturing information, pedigree, expiration date, dosage and more. 

The final phases of development that are currently in progress are fully integrated injection systems with onboard monitoring and built-in wireless communication capability (integrated connected health) and the connection of legacy, mechanical injectors to the HealthPrize platform via an adaptive attachment (legacy connected health).

In all four phases, data captured over time will provide pharmaceutical companies insight into trends and analytics regarding the actual use of their products.

Non-adherence to medication is a widespread issue that causes poor clinical outcomes and costs the healthcare industry billions of avoidable medical spending. The HealthPrize platform leverages a combination of gamification, behavioral economic concepts, education, and rewards to maximize motivational impact. It is said that patients enrolled in HealthPrize programs demonstrate high engagement rates and materially higher adherence rates, nearly 50% higher than baseline, on average.

Source: West Pharma