In Part 1 of this article, we discussed the enormous unreleased value being lost to pharma from a lack of patient adherence. One approach being used successfully by some pharmaceutical brands to get more measureable value out of their patient adherence programs is the 94.8 Analytics™ approach, which uses current market data to pinpoint the main causes of the problem for you brand, and then predict what program would have most impact on compliance/adherence for the brand’s bottom line.
For one brand that took this approach, the increase in patient compliance meant an extra $67m on the bottom line from improved compliance alone in patients already being prescribed their drug. This was achieved simply by understanding where the problems really lay for the brand, and which adherence programs would be most successful in addressing these problems to bring about real improvement in compliance and bottom line profit for the brand. This case study will be outlined here.
PATIENT ADHERENCE CASE STUDY
Background
A large pharma brand was a star performer for its company in a high revenue therapy area. As the years went by, it remained a large brand for the company and well respected in the market. However, the brand team noticed that the compliance rates were hovering around 50% and realized that if they could improve this, even slightly, their CMO and CFO would be very happy with the bottom line profit improvements, given the eroding annual growth.
To implement this improvement, they created numerous patient compliance programs, including putting significant budget into short message services (SMS) reminder programs to increase adherence. However, these programs were not having the desired impact on compliance and appeared to be wasting the significant resources being put behind them.
The brand sought a way to understand how they could identify which factors were having the greatest impact on reducing patient compliance, which programs would have the most impact and bottom line improvement and how they could better employ their budget to improve patient compliance. They chose the 94.8 analytics approach, which examined current market data in the key areas found to influence patient compliance. The brand was used to treat a chronic condition which was symptomless, but potentially fatal. The brand team knew that the adherence rate for their brand was only around 50% and had already implemented many different patient adherence programs in an attempt to address releasing some of the hidden value here. The brand team approached Eularis to understand which of their patient adherence programs were having an impact on bottom line results.
Actions
The analytics examined a number of intersecting areas that impact compliance and identified the relative importance of each for this brand:
• Product attributes
• Moderating factors
• Non-intentional non-compliance
• Compliance/Adherence programs
• Emotional factors
This data was then validated and put into predictive analytics, which showed that specific emotional factors were the primary reason patients were non-adherent with this brand, rather than non-intentional adherence, for which reminder programs like SMS might have been appropriate. It was clear from the results that only two of their eight patient compliance interventions were currently impacting adherence. In this situation, the company decided to:
• Refocus on key messages in the patient compliance program that addressed the underlying emotional factors shown to be impacting compliance the most.
• Implement patient-directed compliance programs that had the greatest potential to increase adherence rates as shown by the analytics.
• Reallocate the focus and budget to those measures recommended by the analytics.
Results
The results were impressive. Within six months of the analytics recommendations being implemented, the company was able to report that the compliance rates for their brand had improved significantly, meaning a bottom line increase from improvement in compliance alone of $67 million. This was significantly more than the cost of the programs implemented, providing a strong return and a very happy CFO. Needless to say, the career prospects for this team within the company improved considerably.
Conclusion
In conclusion, adherence to prescribed medications, particularly for long-term therapies, poses a tremendous challenge to the world’s pharmaceutical companies. Patient adherence programs are often unsuccessful because pharmaceutical companies only look at the problem from one perspective, without implementing appropriate analytics to understand how to address the multifaceted reasons for non-adherence and what can be done. Investigating and understanding the underlying brand-specific and therapy category specific reasons for lack of adherence, and developing and implementing programs to increase adherence can help brand managers increase dispensed market share and revenues for their brands, while significantly improving clinical outcomes for patients.
Author: Dr. Andree K Bates
For more information on this topic, please contact the author Dr. Andree K Bates at Eularis, www.eularis.com
