Nexus6’s Smartinhaler Dramatically Improves Medication Adherence

Link here. July 23rd, 2014.

Results published today in the prestigious Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI) announce a ground-breaking increase in adherence with asthma medications for patients provided with a novel device called the Smartinhaler, manufactured by digital health company Nexus6 Ltd.

The research was conducted by the highly regarded Woolcock Institute of Medical Research by world leading respiratory investigators Dr Juliet Foster and Professor Helen Reddel. Their study also showed that patients who were provided with an interventional Smartinhaler were much less likely to experience a severe asthma exacerbation compared with patients managed under usual care or usual care with personalised adherence discussions.

Furthermore, investigators Foster and Reddel measured these outcomes in a real world setting in which patients were provided the Smartinhaler by their General Practitioner (GP) with little intervention from the investigation team.

At 6 months, the Smartinhaler had doubled adherence to prescribed maintenance treatment. This was delivered by the proprietary features on the Smartinhaler, including audio and visual reminder technology, and also wireless communications to a cloud based analytics and reporting website.

Dr Doug Wilson, Nexus6’s Chairman noted “These findings represent one of the biggest breakthroughs in respiratory care since the launch of combination therapies in the 90’s. Outcomes are crucial differentiators in the respiratory world where up to 20 new inhaled products recently obtained or are close to market approval in the US, EU or Japan. Foster and Reddel’s independent findings prove that Nexus6’s Smartinhaler fundamentally shifts patient behaviour regardless of standards of care, with a major potential impact for disease management.”

It is well known that it is difficult for patients to remember to take daily preventative medications over a long term as required for the management of many chronic diseases. For respiratory conditions such as asthma, it is common for patients to take as little as 30% of prescribed preventative medications. This was seen in the control group of Foster and Reddel’s study, a confirmation of the real-world conditions in which the study was conducted.

Garth Sutherland, Chief Executive Officer of Nexus6, said that the benefits delivered by the Smartinhaler technology are independently verified by a strong foundation of clinical evidence. “In this study we see that patients like me with moderate persistent or severe asthma are much less likely to have a severe attack if they are provided with a Smartinhaler than without. These results demonstrate the meaningful impact on outcomes for patients and Nexus6 is now working with a global pharmaceutical company to evaluate a new version of the device on a large scale.”