PharmaCommerce - ConnectiveRx Invests in HelpAround
A modularized approach will enable pharma marketers to grow patient starts and improve adherence
Many providers of patient-support services partner with various specialist services such as nursing, infusion centers and the like to complete the “wrap around” that specialty products generally call for. ConnectiveRx, a leading player in this field, is going one step farther by investing in a partner, HelpAround, and will be rolling out a new platform built on HelpAround that “creates a single point of access to important support services and connects patients and caregivers to helpful alerts, reminders, actions, and support communities, assisting patients along their journey to better health,” according to the firm.
The HelpAround service, centered on smartphone usage, includes SMS, mobile web, and a mobile app platform. For pharma clients, the offering will be modularized: the client can contract for the type of communication, and the pace of communications, as it sees fit. One novel module includes peer-to-peer networking, so that patients in the same disease state can share with each other. Alongside that, patient adherence will be boosted by providing educational info and videos, reminders about labs, appointments and refills and “all of the care management ‘to-do’s’ that happen in between their therapy doses,” says ConnectiveRx.
The service enables close tracking of patient acceptance of the services, enabling ConnectiveRx and its clients to tailor the service to what is most useful. “Specialty pharmaceutical manufacturers invest significantly in support services for patients, and most of them go underutilized because patients don’t know they exist or how to access them,” said Julia Laurin, chief product officer at ConnectiveRx. The HelpAround platform will provide “specialty brand managers with important insights on patient behavior and utilization of support services,” she adds.
HelpAround is not new to the patient-support field; previously, it had partnered with EnvoyHealth, the patient support service that had been offered by Diplomat Pharmacy. According to HelpAround and ConnectiveRx, elements of the partnership will be exclusive to ConnectiveRx. For its part, ConnectiveRx has relationships with 140 pharma companies, and has supported more than 540 brands.