Drugmakers led by Merck & Co. and Novartis AG boosted investments in mobile phone applications and educational websites by 78 percent to get patients to take their drugs, eat right and exercise, an Ernst & Young report found.
Pharmaceutical companies initiated 97 projects last year aimed at using information technologies to improve patient health, according to the report by the New York-based consulting firm, which relied on analyst reports and press releases to reach its tally. That compares with 124 projects started in the four prior years combined. About 41 percent of the projects were smartphone applications, an increase from 11 percent since 2006.
Government-run health plans are pressuring drugmakers to prove their products are worth the prices charged, so companies are taking a greater role in making sure patients succeed with treatments. France’s 2011 budget reduced drug spending by 560 million euros ($755 million), mostly by cutting medications with marginal benefits, researchers said. The U.K. plans to set drug payments to match product benefits beginning in 2014.
“Pharma can’t exist the way they have existed; what is surprising is the pace of change,” said Carolyn Buck Luce, Ernst & Young’s global pharmaceutical leader, in a telephone interview. “The next big change in health outcomes is behavioral change, where medicines play an important part but not the only part.”
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