Adherence packaging also boosts patient Rx persistence
The survey, conducted by US contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) Catalent and healthcare analytics specialist SDI, looked at persistency, or how often patients refill prescriptions.
The CMO’s research team looked the impact adherence packaging had on the rate at which patietns refilled prescriptions appropriately using anonymous data collated from pharmacies across the US over a 12-month period from a group of around 200,000 patients
The analysis revealed that packaging featuring adherence technologies such as unit dosing information, reminder prompting and or printed instructions increased persistency rates by 17 per cent compared with conventional 30-pill count bottles.
Cornell Stamoran, Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Catalent Pharma Solutions said that: “Every element of dose form and package design can be selected to improve patient treatments.
“Previous studies have identified packaging as one of many means to increase patient adherence, but none have focused on the impact of packaging alone."
This is significant because, according to data from a BCG/Harris Interactive study quoted by Catalent on its website, at present over 30 per cent of prescriptions issued in the US each year remain unfilled as a result of inconvenience, forgetfulness, or confusion.
Previous work
The findings fit with those from a a previous survey conducted by researchers at Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy research
That study compared traditional bottle packaging with a Catalent blister card package and showed that the number of on time refills in the blister cohort was 4 per cent higher than in the traditional bottle packing group.
It also showed that participants on chronic cardiovascular medication packaged in the PillCalendar blister pack group experienced 49 per cent reduction in blood pressure versus 18 per cent in control group.
