12 ways pharmaceutical companies can benefit from mHealth apps

A recent article published by research2gudiance explains how smartphone applications can be instrumental for pharmaceutical companies.

The author, Ralf Gordon Jahns, names eight reasons and we at Aerotel Medical System added four more based on our own experience.

• Potential reach:  High growth rates will enable pharmaceutical companies reach 20% of the world population by 2015, mainly in developed countries.

• Differentiation: The potential for mHealth apps to support patient adherence and compliance makes them the ideal add-on for pharmaceutical products. Pharma companies offering applications will not only be providing a service, they will also differentiate their products from those offered by the competition.

• Facilitate improved patients outcomes: Manufacturers have an opportunity to support patients by developing applications that assist them in achieving compliance, thereby improving their outcomes.

• Contemporary marketing: Drug makers should re-allocate marketing budgets to applications, which are cheaper, more innovative, and represent a real value. 

• Learn more about patients: Apps provide direct usage information which can assist in understanding patients' habits.

• Saving costs: mHealth applications have the potential to offer various cost-saving areas.

• Improve relations with doctors: Apps are very personal tools and are one of the few things that doctors always carry with them. It represents new possibilities to interact with physicians and other healthcare professionals. 

• Increasing revenue: With the price for mHealth apps at $5 to $10, the possibility to develop apps that enable automatic replenishment of drugs based on patient consumption and electronic prescriptions exists.

We would add to the list:

• Faster development - Sharing emerging health info between users thorough mobile apps can help research-based pharmaceutical companies and medical laboratories identify disease patterns and develop new solutions in a faster and safer way.

• Clinical trials – Participants in clinical trials are required to provide information on their day-to-day moves. Using mHealth applications allows monitoring these patients in real time gathering critical data.

• Pharmacovigilance – Mobile applications can be used to allow faster detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of unexpected side effects of new medicines. By using mHealth solutions, drug manufacturers can quickly gather such information from a large group of users who are located in different areas.

• Fighting counterfeit medicines – The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 10% of medicines on the global market are fake and that in developing countries the some 25% are counterfeit or sub-standard. By using mobile applications, manufacturers can verify the authentication of their medicines.