Adherium looks to jumpstart medication uptake rates via Smartinhaler

Medical device manufacturer Adherium (ASX: ADR) is working on a potentially seismic shift in how medicine is consumed by patients.

In a presentation to the Joint Congress of the American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology and the World Allergy Organization in Orlando last week, Adherium presented fresh study results regarding its Smartinhaler technology.

Adherium’s Smartinhalers are modernised versions of traditional asthma inhalers that offer several layers of functionality that are able to improve patient outcomes.

Smartinhalers can track how often medication is taken, can provide audible reminders to patients, are able to communicate with other devices via Bluetooth and come touch-enabled as standard.

The functionality offered by Adherium has the potential to influence the rate of medication use and track the entire medication schedule for physicians to analyse and incorporate into the patient’s overall treatment plan.

Adherium supplies its products to patients, pharma companies, healthcare providers and research teams, in order to improve medication uptake rates and by association, raise positive health outcomes for chronic disease sufferers.

The medical device maker currently operates from its regional hubs in the USA, Europe and Australasia although it is actively expanding into territories further afield.

Medication fatigue

Sub-optimal use of medication, whereby patients do not complete their prescribed treatment schedules, has reached an alarming rate of 50%. In other words, only half of all patients that suffer chronic illness are likely to take the medicine they require.

From a financial perspective, the problem of incomplete treatment has bloated to around US$100-300 billion in the US and around US$564 billion globally.

Adherium intends to make its Smartinhaler range available on a wider scale, backed up by strong study results and over a dozen peer-reviewed studies done by the likes of The Lancet and the University of Auckland.

In one suchlike study carried out by the Lancet, the authors said that “use of the Smartinhaler platform improved adherence to preventative medication by 180% and reduced use of reliever medication by 45% in a study of 220 children conducted over 4 years.”

In its most recent study presented in Orlando, Adherium reported that mean treatment adherence in the treatment group was 81%. Results showed the treatment group experienced greater improvement (0.75 ACQ units) compared to the control group (0.19 ACQ units).

“Our clinical track record continues to expand. We have distributed more than 100,000 devices through commercial channels and clinical studies across more than 30 countries, including the US, UK, Singapore and Australia. In addition, our software and devices have been subject to studies and articles in more than 70 clinical publications. We believe the science is right, that technology – if correctly applied – can close the care gap in asthma and other chronic conditions,” said Arik Anderson, CEO of Adherium.