Adherium Ltd. (ASK:ADR), which sells a smart inhaler technology in Europe and Australia, is reportedly looking to jump into the direct-to-consumer U.S. market in the first half of this year.
The New Zealand-based company has a deal with AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) to combine its Smartinhaler monitoring device with the Symbicort inhaler, but CEO Arik Anderson told MobiHealthNews that he is also looking for other opportunities to penetrate the U.S. market.
“Specifically, we’re opening up a direct-to-consumer channel in the US and we’ll be launching that in the first half of 2018, and a direct-to-payer channel as we work with insurance companies and with pharmacies on being able to go and get our adherence solutions into the hands of patients where it will dramatically improve their lives,” Anderson told the news outlet.
The company’s product installs directly onto a patient’s inhaler to monitor and boost medication adherence.The device records the time and date that a patient uses their inhaler and transmits the data to an app on the user’s phone or tablet. This feature allows users and physicians to track a patient’s medication usage patterns, according to Adherium.
Anderson said that the company is looking to follow in the footsteps of other companies that have successfully launched products in the direct-to-consumer market, like AliveCor and its connected ECG KardiaBand device.
“As we look at the asthma population or the asthma and COPD population, we recognize that there are key segments of that population that are great candidates for direct to consumer,” he said, specifically noting the pediatric asthmatic population and their caregivers.
“On the other end of the patient spectrum we look at the COPD patient, someone like my mother perhaps, still lives independently but needs to use an inhaler to help control her COPD. But I’m worried, living a thousand miles away from my mother, that she’s forgetting. And I have no way to help manage that situation, until Adherium provides a solution where now on my smartphone from 1,000 miles away I can look to make sure my mother used her inhaler this afternoon. And if she didn’t, I can call her friend who checks in on her and make sure everything’s ok and that she’s using her inhaler,” Anderson explained.
The company is reportedly planning to offer its system as part of a subscription model for $10 per month.
