Don’t worry about Big Brother, it’s Big Pharma that gets the latest award for invading your space. Dailywireless.org reports that drugmaker Pfizer (PFE) wants to boost the profitability of its cholesterol-lowering Lipitor by calling you to nag remind you to take your medicine. According to Dailywireless.org if every Lipitor pill prescribed were taken, Pfizer expects that to increase its sales of the cholesterol-lowering drug by an extra $7 billion a year. Pfizer intends to use Vitality GlowCaps to grow its Lipitor business to $17 billion a year.
Vitality GlowCaps, are a wireless, Internet-connected bottle cap, that uses light and sound to alert users and phones home if they forget to take their medicine. Vitality and automated communication company Varolii, developed the GlowCap. The Glowcap has an embedded computer chip that communicates via low-frequency RF with a cellular-connected nightlight. The nightlight sends information to Vitality via a GE864-QUAD chip from Telit, a leader in the machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, over AT&T‘s (T) GSM/GPRS network.
If a user misses a dose, an alarm will sound that gradually escalates “from a three-note arpeggio to an 11-note arpeggio,” Vitality President Josh Wachman told MobiHealthNews. The GlowCap can also flash a light, play a ringtone, send text messages or e-mails and even call the user’s mobile phone to remind them to take their medicine. The Dailywireless.org says that if the GlowCap remains unopened long enough, a patient will receive an automated call that asks a series of questions on why they didn’t take their medicine. GlowCaps also include a button that starts a call between the user’s phone and their pharmacy when the medication needs to be refilled.
Vitality CEO David Rose told MobiHealthNews that the company was developing an iPad app for its pharma brand managers to help them track in real-time the success of their GlowCap programs. As part of the deal, Vitality gave away iPads to any GlowCap customer. Mr. Rose said the freebies went to pharmacies and insurers. They distributed more than 10,000 GlowCaps to their customers. “With the secure app, they can see adherence patterns as they emerge, every day, in real-time. For example, they can see the total value higher adherence creates for the brand. The resulting cost-savings, in the case of insurers. Even how adherence varies by demographic slice or geography (media market),” Mr. Rose wrote.
The AT&T cellular-enabled GlowCaps which can be bought at CVS.com but no longer at Amazon.com comes with the night-light that connects wirelessly to AT&T’s cellular network, a bottle cap, and a six-month subscription to the service. After six months, subscriptions cost $15 a month.
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Talk about convergence! Mobile-to-Mobile + Connected health-care +Data protection. Any wonder why we need IPv6?
According to RCR Wireless, “Connected Healthcare” is a term used to describe a model for healthcare delivery that uses technology to give healthcare remotely. Connected healthcare is a sub-set of all Machine to Machine (M2M) devices which are expected to increase by 36 percent this year. Utilities, healthcare, and securities industries will lead the charge to a total of 2.1 billion “connected M2M devices” by 2020, according to research from Analsys Mason.
What do you think?
Does the idea of getting harassed by your own medicine sit well with you?
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.