Sources of information: mobihealthnews – Full article here

Around the world, pharmaceutical companies are losing $637 billion in revenue per year from a multifaceted, but common problem: people with chronic conditions are not adhering to their medication.

“For pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, and pharmacy benefits managers, non-adherence significantly erodes profit due to prescriptions never filled and medications not taken often enough… non-adherence is also to blame for immense personal and societal costs beyond the financial, in the form of poor health outcomes, untimely death, lost productivity, and compromised quality of life.”

The problem isn’t new, nor is it getting smaller even though people are more aware of its impact, the report found. Globally, revenue loss has increased from $564 billion in 2012, and US-based losses alone increased from $188 billion four years ago to $250 billion in 2015. “Medication nonadherence is a serious global health issue that needs to be addressed immediately,”

What pharmaceutical companies need to do to address that, is to shift their focus from physicians to patients. While the physician has long been thought of as the customer, the evolving healthcare industry has become increasingly focused on the patient. Consumerization of the industry means more personalized products, addressing more complicated chronic conditions, in smaller patient populations.

Reaching all those different patients means learning more about their behaviors and what helps them adhere to their medications, the report found. Designing tools and methods for medication adherence with patients.