According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the market for medication compliance monitoring solutions is still in an early stage with an estimated 138,000 connected devices in use in EU28+2 at the end of 2016.
However, there are several promising business models for medication adherence solutions that are rolling out on the market. Berg Insight forecasts that the number of connected medication compliance monitoring solutions in EU28+2 will grow at a CAGR of 58% to reach 2.2 million by 2022.
“Substantial business opportunities are emerging for solutions targeted at the social care sector. There is an opportunity to leverage medication dispensing solutions as a replacement for manual labour. Many patients rely on frequent visits from their home care provider for medication dispensing. Many of these visits can be reduced or eliminated through the use of medication dispensing solutions”, says Martin Backman, IoT analyst, Berg Insight.
Pharmaceutical companies have launched the first connected medication monitoring solutions that are bundled together with specific drugs. In this market, increased adherence can improve treatment outcomes as well as increase the sale of prescription medications.
The costs of an adherence monitoring system can in many cases be offset by a small increase in the sale of drugs. Furthermore, monitoring solutions can be very useful for drugs that have side effects or limited efficiency when adherence is poor.
Another target market is payers, which can reduce their total healthcare expenditures by decreasing indirect costs that arise from non-compliance. A barrier to adoption in this market may still be the limited clinical proof available on the positive effects that a specific adherence solution has on the total healthcare costs.
The Netherlands became the first country to implement a reimbursement code for medication dispensing, enabling home care providers to use a remotely monitored medication dispensing solution to replace some home visits. There is also strong interest from home care providers and municipalities for this use case in the Nordic countries.
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