Captagón captado.../ TSRI Researchers Find A Way to Combat Pharmacoterrorism (cont.) / Prólogos

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Captagón captado.../ TSRI Researchers Find A Way to Combat Pharmacoterrorism

For at least a decade, the multimillion-dollar Captagon trade has been a fixture of the Middle East’s black markets.
It involves everyone from Bulgarian and Syrian gangs, to Hezbollah, to members of the Saudi royal family.

On Oct. 26, Lebanese police arrested Saudi prince Abdel Mohsen Bin Walid Bin Abdulaziz at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport for allegedly trying to smuggle 40 suitcases full of Captagon (along with some cocaine) to Riyadh aboard a private jet.

The past several years have seen the global trade in illegal Captagon skyrocket, as authorities across the region have observed a major spike in police seizures of the drug. Local law enforcement, Interpol, and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) all agree on the catalyst: the conflict in Syria. Captagon now links addicts in the Gulf to Syrian drug lords and to brigades fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who are funded by the profits, and, after years of fighting, are now hooked on the product. 

Captagon began as a pharmaceutical-grade amphetamine called Fenethylline. Patented by German pharmaceutical giant Degussa AG in the 1960s, doctors used it to treat a range of disorders, from narcolepsy to depression. But the drug fell out of favor in the 1970s, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed it too addictive to justify its use, with the World Health Organization following suit and recommending a worldwide ban in 1980s.This is where the free market history of Captagon ends and the hazier black market story — one told by drug lords, smugglers, and law enforcement — begins. 
What’s clear is that the counterfeit Captagon trade has flourished across the region over the past three years. A 2014 UNODC report noted that 56 percent of all amphetamine seizures in the world occurred in the Middle East; many of the seizures were of Captagon. In a single raid last year, police in Dubai seized 17 million tablets. At $10 a pill — a rough estimate, but one that is widely cited by law enforcement officials and drug treatment specialists alike — this amounts to a total street value trade of around $170 million. 

While the Gulf’s appetite for the pill is driving demand, much of the Captagon that finds its way there gets its start in Syria. Since 1999, the UNODC’s annual reports have cited Syria as a production and transit point for drugs from Europe, Turkey, and Lebanon. (...)

As for why Syria became a hub for manufacturing Captagon in the first place, it may have to do with the fact that, before the war, Syria had a vast pharmaceutical industry. With dozens of factories, Syria was the second-largest supplier of pharmaceuticals in the region. It’s not hard to imagine enterprising criminal gangs finding a way to divert some of the country’s supplies of drug precursor chemicals and pill pressing equipment. 

Syrian government officials refuse to comment on the thriving Captagon market. But Chamseddine, who confers regularly with various Syrian law and border enforcement agencies, says that, in the years before the war, they told him they were aware that Captagon production occurred around Homs. Lebanese security forces’ interrogations of a Syrian smuggling ring busted in 2013 also revealed a supply chain that stretched back to factories around Homs and near the Syrian city of Yabroud. 

Syria’s war has had a profound effect on its Captagon industry. In part, the war’s chaos has allowed drug producers to operate more freely. In a BBC Arabic documentary aired earlier this year, a Syrian opposition figure, businessman, and Captagon producer known as ‘Abu Sous’ said the manager of his underground factory near Homs saw the war as an opportunity to increase production. “I told him no problem, bring all of these things,” Abu Sous said. “And he did and our production increased. The truth is that we sold a lot.”

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Prescription Terrorism: ISIS Fighters Widely Reported to be Fueled by ADHD Drug 

So what is Captagon? 

In the end, Captagon could be considered to be a time-release pill containing Theophylline and Amphetamine. 
The effects subjectively would be very similar to taking Adderall XR and drinking tea or coffee. The effects are going to be milder than the same dose of Adderall, because half of the molecule being a Xanthine. There are some interesting effects on blood pressure, as Theophylline is a vasodilator while Amphetamine is a vasoconstrictor. 

What was Captagon originally intended for? 

Captagon was originally designed by Degussa AG, a German pharmaceutical company infamous for being the inventors of Zyklon B, used to gas people during the Holocaust.  
Captagon was invented in 1961 as an alternative to straight Amphetamine to treat ADHD, to work as an antidepressant, and to treat narcolepsy. 

It is of lower abuse potential than Amphetamine, and is actually quite comparable to Vyvanse in terms of effects. Essentially while not a nootropic, Captagon was designed to be a “smart drug” with a lower side effect and abuse potential than Adderall.

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Smart drugs en PHARMACOSERÍAS

Why is Captagon currently the drug of choice for the Syrian Civil War? 

Captagon allows soldiers to fight longer hours without fatigue. It doesn’t give the same level of rush or euphoria or mania that straight amphetamine would, but it allows soldiers to function for extended periods of time on little sleep and without significant decreases in alertness or performance. Eventually these soldiers are going to burn out, but it allows them to keep fighting, and potentially even to stay alive.(Más)

De "inteligentes" campañas sobre "smart drugs" / Ahora NZT-48 en la vida real se llama modafinil.

Modafinilo: la droga de inteligencia sin límites

Seguro alguna vez has deseado simplemente tomar una píldora que te motive y te de la energía necesaria para hacer todo lo que tienes que hacer y aprender todo lo que necesitas estudiar para tus examenes finales. 

Seguro, también, alguna vez deseaste que sea legal... ¿Recuerdas la película Limitless de Bradley Cooper? 

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NZT una píldora...de película: Limitless / Sin límites (para el Marketing, al menos)

Bueno, si no la viste te ahorraré el esfuerzo de desperdiciar 105 minutos de tu vida y te contaré brevemente de qué se trata antes de hablar del Modafinil, la droga de la inteligencia ilimitada.La película solo nos sirve de preámbulo para hacernos una idea de lo que son las llamadas píldoras de inteligencia. En la película, el personaje de Cooper es un escritor fracasado en medio de un vacío de creatividad que se encuentra con un viejo conocido, ex dealer de droga, que le ofrece una nueva sustancia (NZT-48) supuestamente legal que promete incrementar el funcionamiento cerebral al 100%. 

Lo que sucede inmediatamente después es impresionante. Tan solo una dosis de la píldora hizo que el protagonista no solo pueda volver a concentrarse en su escritura, sino que le permitió desarrollar todas sus habilidades físicas y mentales de una forma increíble. Digamos que se convirtió en un superhombre.



(...)

El NZT-48 de la vida real se llama modafinil 

Lamento desilusionarte tan rápido, pero el NZT-48 no existe tal como en la película. 
Lo que sí existe es el modafinil, o modafinilo, que es un neuroestimulante indicado para algunos problemas de somnolencia excesiva o apnea de sueño, así como en algunos casos de esclerosis múltiple. El modafinilo es un nootrópico de bajo nivel de adicción, sin embargo, los especialistas advierten que sí puede resultar muy adictivo en algunas personas, debido a su acción sobre la dopamina en el centro de placer del cerebro. Este tipo de drogas también son conocidas como drogas inteligentes, estimulantes de la memoria o potenciadores cognitivos. Y aunque no es claro exactamente cómo funciona, sí se conocen algunos de sus efectos secundarios entre los que se encuentran fuertes dolores de cabeza, náuseas, ansiedad, nerviosismo, diarrea y fuertes dolores musculares.(...) 

...mira este interesante testimonio de Christian Eaves. No se trata de un médico certificado, pero asegura conocer los efectos y potencialidades de esta droga. (Más)


 

Recientes revisiones (BMJ)

(y otras) parecen "dar un empujón" a este tipo de producto... 

The drug modafinil was developed to treat narcolepsy (excessive sleeping), but it is widely used off-licence as a ‘smart drug’ to promote cognitive enhancement, where qualities such as alertness and concentration are desired to assist someone with, for example, exam preparation. Past studies on sleep-deprived individuals have shown a strong positive effect of modafinil on these functions, but there has been less attention and scientific consensus on the drug’s overall effectiveness as a cognitive enhancer in people that are not sleep-deprived – presumably the majority of people taking it. 
Now, a new systematic review, published online in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology shows that modafinil does indeed confer significant cognitive benefits in this group, at least on a particular subset of tasks.

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Ratón de biblioteca: Como cambiar tu mente / Michael Pollan

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"Cómo cambiar tu mente. Lo que la nueva ciencia de la psicodelia nos enseña sobre la conciencia, la muerte, la adicción, la depresión y la transcendencia" (Debate; traducción de Manuel Manzano).

 

El título original funciona mejor: "How To Change Your Mind" puede traducirse también por “cómo cambiar de idea”, que fue precisamente lo que hizo Pollan (Long Island, Nueva York, 1953). Fumador ocasional de hierba, estaba a punto de cumplir 60 años cuando decidió ir un poco más allá en el escarpado camino de las sustancias alucinógenas.(...)

...Los detalles de la génesis de la primera oleada psicodélica son, como parte del gran relato de la contracultura, más conocidos que los de la segunda.  

Albert Hofmann sintetizó el LSD por casualidad en 1938 en un laboratorio de Basilea (Suiza), pero no fue hasta cinco años después cuando probó la poderosa sustancia (una simple gota es suficiente para pegarle a la conciencia un buen meneo de unas 10 horas). Aquel día, ­Hofmann se fue a casa en bicicleta. Durante ese viaje inaugural, comprobó por primera vez los inesperados efectos de su criatura.(...)

Ver: Todo sobre LSD en PHARMACOSERÍAS

La nueva droga, que se exportaba legalmente a Estados Unidos desde los laboratorios suizos Sandoz, gozó de una saludable reputación más o menos en la misma época en la que la experiencia con setas mexicanas de un banquero de Nueva York, R. Gordon ­Wasson, ocupó la portada de la revista Life (que entonces tenía una tirada de 5,7 millones de ejemplares).

Fueron los años de la luna de miel entre los alucinógenos y la ­opinión pública estadounidense. Ambas poderosas moléculas, la dietilamida de ácido lisérgico y la -psilocibina, empleada en México y Centroamérica desde hace cientos de años, dejaron una honda muesca en la historia social, cultural y política del siglo XX, desde el escritor Aldous Huxley, un temprano entusiasta, hasta el actor Cary Grant, que cantó las bondades de un buen viaje (en realidad, se sometió a 60 sesiones, al final de las cuales sintió cómo “se desvanecían la tristeza y la vanidad”, según contó en una entrevista en 1959). (...)

...En el libro, el periodista sostiene que es virtualmente imposible morir de una sobredosis de esta droga o de psilocibina, y que ninguna de las dos sustancias es adictiva. “Después de probarlas una vez, los animales no buscan una segunda dosis, y el uso repetido por parte de las personas le resta efecto.(...)

...En su libro deja fuera drogas sobre las que no existen estudios científicos, como la ayahuasca (que está viviendo un boom también fuera de los países de Sudamérica donde se usa desde hace siglos) o las microdosis de LSD, cuyo ritual —tomar en días alternos cantidades imperceptibles de la sustancia— hace furor en Silicon Valley como herramienta para mejorar el rendimiento y la creatividad. (Pollan ve ahí una lógica perversa: 

“Es la típica maniobra del capitalismo, cogen una droga como el LSD, con un alto poder subversivo y antijerárquico, y la convierten en algo productivo y útil, como tomarse un café”).(...)  

Ver: Todo sobre "smart drugs" en PHARMACOSERÍAS

...Así se viene trabajando desde hace años en instituciones como las universidades de Nueva York, Los Ángeles, Nuevo México, Zúrich o el Imperial College de Londres, que tiene un programa que estudia la influencia de los psicoactivos en la actividad cerebral. 
En septiembre, expertos de la Johns Hopkins pidieron a las autoridades estadounidenses que sacaran la psilocibina del saco de las drogas de mayor peligrosidad (donde convive desde 1970 con la heroína) para meterla junto al Valium o el Xanax en la categoría IV de sustancias con bajo potencial de abuso o dependencia. Para Pollan, la prohibición del empleo científico de las drogas psicodélicas durante décadas como consecuencia de los desmanes hippies en los años sesenta es como si se hubiese hecho desaparecer del botiquín de los médicos la morfina en respuesta a los estragos de la heroína.(...)

...el renacer psicodélico no tiene vuelta atrás, responde: “Diría que sí, sobre todo por la crisis mundial de salud mental que estamos viviendo. Necesitamos respuestas alternativas. No ha habido ningún avance relevante en ese campo desde el descubrimiento de los antidepresivos a finales de los ochenta. Estamos más cerca del día en el que se permita el uso medicinal de los fármacos psicodélicos que cuando empecé con el libro”.

A eso podría ayudar, añade, que en el contexto de la guerra contra las drogas, las psicodélicas están lejos de la primera línea de batalla de sustancias como los opiáceos o la cocaína.

El País Semanal 28.X.2018

“Tampoco parecen ansiosas las farmacéuticas por entrar: 

 no son rentables, no hay patentes que explotar 

y no se pueden tomar cada día. 

Y ya se sabe: a las grandes compañías 

les interesan más que nada 

los fármacos que te tengan pendiente a diario”.

ARGENTIINA: Prohibido Focus X, el "Viagra" del cerebro

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Este medicamento, denominado Focus X, puede comprarse por Internet, pese a que en abril del año pasado la agencia reguladora lo prohibió por no contar con registro sanitario. 
El fármaco es un verdadero boom de venta en el mundo, y promete mejorar “la memoria a largo plazo”. Además, se retiró un suplemento dietario que tambión se ofrece por redes sociales. 

Promocionado en redes sociales y páginas de compra y venta online como “el Viagra del cerebro”, el Focus X es un producto que gana popularidad en el mundo, un medicamento a base de supuestos productos naturales, que se presentan como “estimulantes de áreas de procesamiento de información y de memoria a largo plazo”. Su boom de ventas explotó el año pasado, pero por falta de registro fue prohibido en abril del 2016 para su comercialización en la Argentina. Pese a esto, en estos días es relativamente fácil conseguir el producto, por lo que la agencia reguladora nacional emitió una nueva alerta, donde recuerda la prohibición de su uso, por los peligros que representa para la salud. 

En abril del 2016, la a Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Tecnologías médicas (ANMAT) prohibió la venta y uso del Focus X. Mediante la disposición 3763/2016, publicada en el Boletín Oficial (ver archivo adjunto), la entidad sanitaria advirtió sobre la venta por Internet del “suplementos dietarios no autorizados”, entre ellos el “Viagra del cerebro”. 

La ANMAT informa a la población que se ha detectado, en distintos sitios web, la oferta de dos productos promocionados como suplementos dietarios, que no se encuentran autorizados”, destacó la disposición oficial. El Focus X figura elaborado por TSA, y distribuido por Focus X Latam LLC. “La comercialización de este producto fue prohibida en todo el territorio nacional a través de la disposición 3763/2016, publicada en el Boletín Oficial el 18 de abril de 2016. El producto mencionado no cumple con la legislación alimentaria vigente ya que el RNPA es falso y su rótulo carece de la información obligatoria”, remarcó la agencia nacional. 

“El Viagra del cerebro” se denomina Focus X, y es un suplemento vitamínico, que se presentan como “estimulantes de áreas de procesamiento de información y de memoria a largo plazo”. 
Según se advierte en la publicidad, el producto se compone de elementos naturales y orgánicos: soja y pescado, estereato de magnesio vegetal, silicato de calcio, dióxido de silicio, gelatina, extracto de eleuthero, ácido alfalipoico, vitaminas B12, B6 y E. Además, se afirma que “una vez que empieces a utilizar este increíble producto verás cómo mejoran las funciones mentales de tu cerebro”. 

En la publicidad del fármaco, se asegura que “pruebas con más de 2000 individuos, el Instituto de Neurociencia de la Universidad de Miami, Estados Unidos, reveló que incrementa la actividad cerebral relacionada a la memoria en un 138 por ciento, y la relacionada al pensamiento lógico en un 85 por ciento”. Focus X es parte de una tendencia mundial: la oferta de los denominados “medicamentos inteligentes”. 

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De "inteligentes" campañas sobre "smart drugs" / Ahora NZT-48 en la vida real se llama modafinil.

NZT una píldora...de película: Limitless / Sin límites (para el Marketing, al menos)

Cinema Paradiso: Sin límites (Limitless) / Neil Burger

Estos son drogas nootrópicas, que se convirtieron en una moda entre estudiantes y trabajadores con turnos nocturnos y largos, como doctores, enfermeras y pilotos, y aquellos con trabajos exigentes como los corredores de bolsa, principalmente en los Estados Unidos. 

 (Ver)

VIOXX: La "cocina"... Naked capitalism: The case of Vioxx and Heart Disease

Yesterday I caught a lecture at Columbia given by statistics professor David Madigan, who explained to us the story of Vioxx and Merck. It’s fascinating and I was lucky to get permission to retell it here.

Disclosure

Madigan has been a paid consultant to work on litigation against Merck. He doesn’t consider Merck to be an evil company by any means, and says it does lots of good by producing medicines for people. According to him, the following Vioxx story is “a line of work where they went astray”.

Yet Madigan’s own data strongly suggests that Merck was well aware of the fatalities resulting from Vioxx, a blockbuster drug that earned them $2.4b in 2003, the year before it “voluntarily” pulled it from the market in September 2004. What you will read below shows that the company set up standard data protection and analysis plans which they later either revoked or didn’t follow through with, they gave the FDA misleading statistics to trick them into thinking the drug was safe, and set up a biased filter on an Alzheimer’s patient study to make the results look better. They hoodwinked the FDA and the New England Journal of Medicine and took advantage of the public trust which ultimately caused the deaths of thousands of people.

.../...

Just as the financial system has to be changed to serve the needs of the people before the needs of the bankers, the drug trial system has to be changed to lower the incentives for cheating (and massive death tolls) just for a quick buck. As I mentioned before, it’s still not clear that they would have made less money, even including the penalties, if they had come clean in 2000. They made a bet that the fines they’d need to eventually pay would be smaller than the profits they’d make in the meantime. That sounds familiar to anyone who has been following the fallout from the credit crisis.

One thing that should be changed immediately: the clinical trials for drugs should not be run or reported on by the drug companies themselves. There has to be a third party which is in charge of testing the drugs and has the power to take the drugs off the market immediately if adverse effects (like CVT events) are found. Hopefully they will be given more power than risk firms are currently given in finance (which is none)- in other words, it needs to be more than reporting, it needs to be an active regulatory power, with smart people who understand statistics and do their own state-of-the-art analyses – although as we’ve seen above even just Stats 101 would sometimes do the trick. (Ver)

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VIOXX: Victimario...

How Gilead “Blew Out the Lights” / Sovaldi: The Legendary Blockbuster

Mark Schoenebaum of ISI Group compared hepatis C treatment Sovaldi’s launch to the launch of such other legendary drugs as Avastin, Gleevec, Revlimid, and more. Based on the chart, I think you’ll agree that Sovaldi is the most legendary of them all. Competitive launches and Sovaldi’s successor Harvoni will slow Sovaldi’s growth, but until then…wow! 

Despite ongoing criticisms of Sovadi’s pricing, patients and physicians clearly want this biomedical innovation—and wholesalers, pharmacies, and PBMs have come along for the ride. 

The chart compares quarterly U.S. sales for seven specialty drugs since their launch dates, which appear beside each drug’s name. Sovaldi's U.S. sales were $7.5 billion in its first four quarters. (Más)

  Sovaldi is the new “king” of Rx “first year” sales. Period…And given its limited, “specialty” market, the result is even more impressive.

The Keys to Gilead’s Success 

 So, given all that was in front of it, it’s worth asking, how did Gilead pulled this off? 
Here’s my theory:

1. The“Cure”Story 
2. “Cost Effectiveness” 
3. Smart Business Decisions 
4. Management Conviction Decision and Crisp Coordination between Gilead Operating Units

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"Pharma 3.0": POZEN’ a threat to outdated pharma marketing

For 25 years, Liz Cermak worked for Johnson & Johnson, one the biggest names in the pharmaceutical business. Now, she works for one of the smallest. And she says in terms of marketing, it’s giving the Goliaths a run for their money.

Cermak is the executive vice president of POZEN, Inc., a Chapel Hill-based pharma developer/manufacturer with no more than 30 employees. Since coming onboard in 2009, she has overseen the company attain FDA approval on two authentic combination drugs: Treximet and Vimovo—for migraines and osteoarthritis, respectively. No small feat, even by J&J standards.

But what Cermak is most excited about is POZEN’s fresh and unique approach to pharmaceutical marketing.

Instead of sending sales representatives to hospitals and doctors’ offices to promote their products, Cermak and her team pitch most their medicines online.

“The reality is that the current sales rep model of traditional pharma is obsolete,” Cermak said to a packed house at the Marketing Mondays series held at The Research Triangle Park HQ earlier this week. “Eighty-six percent of US doctors go online for product info now, and 82 percent are on smart phones.”

In-person sales pitching can be inefficient, she said, because all health care workers are overbooked and overbusy, and representatives must endure a costly wait just to get two minutes in with the doctor.

Two minutes. That’s the average rep-doc face time. But online, the average time spent by a physician on a single ePromotion activity is eighteen minutes.

Cermak has three rules for digital pharma marketing:

• 1. Develop products that deliver real value to customers. Be relevant and learn from your customers. Understand their needs and study their e-behavior. Most pharmaceutical companies need to broaden their apertures here, she said.

• 2. Make them affordable and accessible. Sermo.com helps physicians connect and share medical findings POZEN recognizes the strains today’s pharmaceutical pricing puts on doctors and patients today alike. As should go without saying, costs must be kept low to compete and to demonstrate a respect for your consumers.

• 3. Engage with customers in a meaningful but highly efficient way. This means using social media and online public networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, but also more exclusive, MD-only communities like Sermo or CogNet. Use push and pull marketing tactics; see what works and what doesn’t.

Cermak calls this “Pharma 3.0”.

“The change isn’t coming,” she said. “It’s here.”

We’ve seen this before with other industries, as well. Amazon now sells more books for the Kindle than it does in print, and Netflix’s superior, customer-based business model has Blockbusters closing up shop around the country. The global economy is now decidedly digitalized and will only continue to shift that way.

Treximet combines sumatriptan and naproxen sodium to relieve acute migraines.

Now, as POZEN enters the final testing and approval phase for its latest development, an ulcer-reducing aspirin compound dubbed PA32540, a viral campaign is already underway to spread the word.

Cermak stressed there is still utility in face-to-face interaction, though. Sending sales reps is important to explaining drug principles to doctors, learning about clinic demographics, and building a personal rapport with primary care physicians. However, there are not enough reps to go around as it is now, and focusing sales online will drastically cut down their jampacked schedules.

The biggest advice Cermak has for pharma companies looking to try this new approach is to not be afraid to experiment. To take risks. And to lose.

“Be ready to try and fail,” she said. “Absolute ROI of a given digital initiative cannot be accomplished with a high degree of certainty.”

No one expected it to work out for POZEN. But no one expected 30 people from Chapel Hill to get two drugs FDA-approved in two years, either.

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Ver también:

Embracing Change in the World of Pharmaceutical Marketing

Digital Tools and the Pharmaceutical Rep´s: Un reemplazo?

Packaging: New horizons in patient adherence.

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With medication errors and suboptimal use costing billions of dollars every year, it’s no wonder that multiple sectors of the pharmaceutical world are exploring new ways to improve patient adherence. 

Patient adherence, also known as patient compliance, is the degree to which a patient follows medical advice. In the context of pharmaceuticals, it means taking the right medication at the right time and in the right quantities. Poor patient adherence can cause healthcare problems resulting from forgetting to take a drug, taking too much or too little of it, taking it twice or simply taking the wrong thing. 

Poor adherence is a growing problem, and an expensive one too. Researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy and the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital analysed medication errors that resulted in serious medical problems in the US, and found that the rate per 100,000 people doubled from 1.09 in 2000, to 2.28 in 2012. The most common errors were taking (or giving) the wrong medication, incorrect dosages and taking medication twice. The categories most often associated with serious outcomes were cardiovascular drugs (21%), analgesics (12%) and hormones/hormone antagonists (11%).

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Adherencia al tratamiento/Patient Adherence en PHARMACOSERÍAS

Other research indicates that suboptimal use of medication, including taking too much or too little, costs $300bn in avoidable healthcare every year in the US. In simple terms, people who take their medicines promptly and correctly are more likely to stay out of the hospital or emergency rooms. So while serious errors are still thankfully rare, there’s still a lot that could be done to improve patient adherence to prevent health problems and reduce the load on healthcare providers. 

Patient-friendly packaging 

The simplest way to influence patient adherence is to include information on the packaging of a medication. While healthcare professionals will obviously provide their own guidance, this written information is the last chance to ensure compliance before the patient actually takes the drug. 

Patient adherence packaging plays an important role at multiple stages of a drug’s life cycle. During clinical trials, it’s crucial that patients take the Phase III product correctly, or investigators will draw wrong conclusions. At launch, patient compliance depends on starter packs featuring clear reminders, on the carton and possibly also on the blister pack. Later on, adherence packaging helps patients administer the drug and remember refills.

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Los prospectos, difíciles...en PHARMACOSERÍAS

 Standard package inserts are created primarily for health professionals, and their language and format may actually confuse patients rather than help them. To avoid this, more and more firms are creating separate patient package inserts, which tell patients what they need to know in clear and simple terms. 

Connected to the cloud 

New technologies promise to help improve adherence. As populations age and more and more people need to take medications on a regular basis, packaging that can remind them when to take it becomes increasingly valuable. Wearable devices could monitor effects such as patients’ blood pressure to show doctors how medication-taking behaviour is affecting them. Using the data gathered, predictive analytics could identify the patients who are most at risk of medication-related issues. 

Medical devices are another area of innovation, and traditional device companies are making more and more investments in connected health solutions. Drug delivery devices can communicate with a mobile device or directly with the cloud, opening up a range of possibilities from simple patient reminders through to valuable insights for carers, physicians, payers and pharmaceutical firms. Matt Jennings, president and CEO of Phillips-Medisize Corp predicts that patients could have as many as six connected items by 2020. 

 While smart packaging and devices may seem expensive, the growing commercialisation of expensive and sophisticated biotechnology-based drugs could provide the revenues to cover their costs. 

Whatever the future holds, patient adherence seems certain to remain a hot topic over the coming years.(Ver)

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Todo sobre "packaging" en PHARMACOSERÍAS