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Postscripts Rx
Conversations Beyond the Prescription. Where pharma, HCPs, life science and digital health solutions meets patients—after the script is written. Conversations on digital health, engagement, and real-world impacts that are re-writing the future of patient engagement.
Postscripts Rx
Digital Marketing and Ai: Cathy Zaremba of Medisafe
Cathy is the Sr. Director of Product Marketing at Medisafe, driving marketing efforts that make patients the center of digital solutions that make a difference.
PostScripts Rx is not intended to constitute medical advice, nor is it intended to influence prescribing decisions or any other medical or clinical decision-making. All medical and clinical judgment and decision-making, prescribing decisions, and all related considerations remain exclusively the responsibility of providers and patients.
Hello and welcome to Postscript, the podcast exploring what happens after the first prescription. We cover the latest innovations in patient access support, digital tools, hcp engagement and pharma marketing that drive, hopefully, better outcomes for patients. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or should influence any clinical decision-making. Patients should always consult their healthcare professionals. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Brian Carr and I'm the Senior Vice President of Medisafe, although any opinions expressed here are my own and that of my guests, and not necessarily those of Medisafe, its partners or the guests' partners as well. So let me, without any further delay, introduce our guest, kathy Zaremba of Medisafe. Hello, kathy.
Speaker 2:Hello Brian, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course. Of course, good seeing you again. And you know Kathy is a key voice at Medisafe and, you know, a driving force behind digital therapeutic engagement. She brings forward an inside look on how digital health tools are transforming how the life sciences industry connects with, supports and retains patients, from lowering drop-off risk to building omni-channel experiences that actually fit into patients' lives. So, with pharma brands and life science companies under pressure to do more, with tighter budgets, rising expectations for patient engagement and a complex post-launch commercialization landscape, digital, when executed well, is now becoming a make-or-break factor for many, many teams. So why do digital companions matter? Now, before we get into questions with Kathy, let's just set ground ourselves in some of the why behind why we're talking today.
Speaker 1:You know, when we think of traditional patient support models, they've often relied heavily on call centers and paper enrollment forms and reactive support solutions. However, research has shown that you know these legacy models are no longer efficient. Consider that only 50% of patients adhere to chronic condition treatments over the long term, and you know that's a gap costing the US healthcare system an estimated 300 billion or more annually. And that's from the CDC. Mckinsey Report recently found that digital health engagement can improve medication adherence by 15 to 30% and reduce abandonment of specialty medications pre-initiation by up to 22%. So patients, too, also now expect personalization from their digital tools 71% say they want digital experiences that align with their personal habits and routines. That's according to an Accenture health and life survey last year. So enter the Medisafe Digital Companion a personalized, seamless, integrated platform that adapts to each patient's individual journey.
Speaker 1:So let's shift our attention to what pharma innovators, marketers, access leaders want to hear from Cathy. Here's some of the questions we're going to explore. Cathy, let's start. Not everyone listening may fully grasp how MetaSafe operates behind the scenes in collaboration with pharma or or life science companies, so we'd love to understand your unique role at the heart of the ecosystem. So tell us about your role within the company.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and I'd love to explore what our Medisafe mission is too. So at Medisafe, our mission is simple but powerful. We help patients succeed with their treatment every single day. We believe that if you give patients the right support at the right time, that personalized to their needs, you're going to improve not just their adherence but also the quality of life and the health outcomes. So here at MetaSafe, as Senior Director of Marketing, my role is to bridge product innovation with real-world pharma needs. I work closely with our commercial team, our product development teams and also directly with pharma partners, and we understand what the brand strategies are and how to shape digital companion experiences that are, at the heart of it, patient-centric and also brand-aligned. So we're really operating as a true digital partner, not just a vendor, and we want to help our pharma partners maximize adherence, engagement and data-driven insights across the whole therapeutic lifecycle.
Speaker 1:Okay, great. Can you further define what is a Medisafe digital companion and how that might get used by pharma brands today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, sure. So. At Medisafe, our digital companion is a personalized data-driven platform that walks right alongside patients throughout their therapy journey, and so, unlike a static reminder tool, our digital companion adapts in real time, and we call that our JITI technology, or just in time interventions, where we're delivering the right message, the right resource or action at exactly the point where it's going to be the most impactful for patients and for Pharma Brands. What that means is it's not just a tool for reminders, but it's actually an integrated part of the patient journey. It supports onboarding, helps navigate patient symptoms, reinforces their confidence actually in the therapy, and it even connects them to financial assistance, if that's something that they need. Because it's also interoperable, it can complement the hub services and also connect with nurse navigator programs, crm systems and all of those types of things, without adding complexity.
Speaker 1:Got it, and it goes beyond the companion too, and all of those types of things, without adding complexity. Got it, and it goes beyond the companion too, because one of your new innovations I read about is MetaSafe Via. So what is that and how does it elevate that patient experience? You think even further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking and it is an exciting new innovation that we've just launched in the market. So Via is our voice intelligent agent and it is an exciting new innovation that we've just launched in the market. So VIA is our voice intelligent agent and it is our leap forward into patient interaction. It's going to combine conversational AI, voice technology and data signals to create a truly personalized and natural feeling experience. So, instead of someone having to just scroll through menus or click buttons, a patient can just ask hey, when is my next dose, or what should I do about this symptom, and then they're going to get really relevant support right at that moment. We have seen this reduce barriers for patients and it's also creating that sense of connection that's human also creating that sense of connection that's human, even though it's powered through.
Speaker 1:Ai Got it, and I'm going to put a link in the show notes to MetaSavir, where people can take a look and hear some calls from themselves. It's interesting because it is an automated voice agent, what we would call AI, and I think what first people are going to say well, I don't want to talk to a robot, right, but I guarantee you, year from now, when you're on the phone with someone and they say hello, you've contacted X company, insurance company or whatever, and you're 25th in the queue, so we'll get to you. People are like or you can talk to someone right now. That's a voice agent. People go yeah, I'll talk to that.
Speaker 2:Let's just go, so Exactly.
Speaker 1:So what do you think you've learned about behavior design and digital therapeutics that pharma teams may underestimate, especially when Medisafe has such scale?
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, uh-huh. This is fascinating and actually one of our big lessons is that information alone doesn't change behavior. So you have to motivate, you have to build confidence and timing also matters. So a lot of times, pharma, digital tools they front load education at the point of initiation, but it doesn't keep them engaged after the first few weeks. So behavior design means that thinking about the patient journey. We're thinking about that in terms of, like micro moments and understanding when does the patient feel a little uncertain, when do they need a little boost of encouragement and when are they at their most receptive moment for action, to take action on what's happening? So digital therapeutics are really going to be successful when they're able to continuously adapt rather than just taking this one-size-fits-all approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can see where that would work on a new script. Someone just got prescribed and they're just starting out, or they may have forgotten when they were shown how to inject themselves at the hospital before they were discharged. Right, sometimes you'll get that. But so how does Medisafe support patients through their entire therapeutic life cycle, not just at the beginning?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a great point because it's all about the entire and the total journey, not just one particular moment in time.
Speaker 2:So we definitely support across the entire life cycle. So, when you think about pre-initiation, what we want to do is be able to deliver educational content to sort of set those expectations, address any fears they may have about therapy or how it's going to be administered, and smooth that onboarding process. So that's at the pre-initiation stage, early in the life cycle, of them addressing and being on therapy, we're able to provide that proactive guidance and encouragement to prevent early drop-off from therapy. And then, as they move through, as they're in the maintenance phase, we reinforce those positive routines, help them manage different symptoms that they may be experiencing and surface those jitty moments, those timely nudges. We can even address access and affordability, where we're going to connect patients to financial assistance if that's something that they need. And this holistic 360 view of the journey is what keeps patients on therapy longer and for us it's actually why the average Medisafe user sticks with Medisafe over 17 months, compared to most apps where there is a drop off within the first 30 days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because I've seen also data where, even if they for some reason weren't using Medisafe because they've been doing it for three years, they haven't uninstalled it from their phone. And we've asked them why? Well, because if I somehow fall off my treatment or I forget, I want to make sure it's there and get me right back on track again. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and our engagement is through the roof. I mean, 70% of our patients are actually interacting at least once a day.
Speaker 1:So you have to create that sticky experience.
Speaker 2:So how does Medisafe solve for adherence? That's a great question. We really view this as how do you combine personalization with that jitty real-time intervention experience? And it's not enough to just tell somebody what to do. We help them to overcome the why not? And so, for example, when a patient has a therapy question, we can immediately trigger educational content or connect them to a nurse navigator and really reduce that risk that they'll abandon therapy. Across multiple brands, we've seen double-digit increases in persistent rates, sometimes extending time on therapy by several months, which is, hey, a win for both the patients and the brands.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, and if I'm on a brand team, I can get my weekly and monthly reports, maybe even quarterly, on. Here's the new RXs that were filled in my region this week, this month, this period. Here's the refills that were done, but is there other data insights Medisafe is delivering back to pharma teams that, frankly, they previously were invisible to in regular models?
Speaker 2:It's incredible when you think about all of the data that we are capturing literally over 50 billion data points that we're collecting on all of these patients globally we really are able to give pharma insights that they have never seen before. So we're not just tracking if a dose was taken, we're actually capturing why a dose might be missed, or when engagement is going to drop off and what interventions actually are effective in re-engaging patients. So you know, for example, we can see patterns like patients tend to disengage around day 17 if they've experienced certain symptoms. Well, that insight triggers our JITI engine to preemptively send targeted support at that exact point in the patient's journey. Preemptively send targeted support at that exact point in the patient's journey. And that's the kind of behavioral intelligence that is just not available if you're looking at claims data or traditional hub reporting.
Speaker 1:So if I'm a patient listening to this, I might be a little concerned about privacy. How does Medisave handle my private data if we're sending it to pharma companies?
Speaker 2:Well, privacy is paramount, and so we absolutely. It is a consent-based situation. Patients opt in to participate in the first place. It's their data, they own their data. We are HIPAA compliant, we are GDPR compliant, so we really elevate and make sure that we are keeping patients' data secure.
Speaker 1:And what surprised you the most. In what patients are telling you about, you know what they value the most in their digital support tools.
Speaker 2:Oh, the biggest surprise. Honestly, I think that patients are more emotionally invested than we really think, so we assume that they would want pure utility. But what we hear a lot is that this makes me feel seen, this makes me feel heard. We hear from patients regularly. We have so many app store reviews where they're saying MetaSafe really saved my life. This is really bringing patients through their ups and downs and not just pushing alerts at them. Through their ups and downs and not just pushing alerts at them. So you know, for example, we've done A-B testing and we've shown that simple, empathetic language like we know it's hard, but you've got this has improved engagement by over 40% during challenging therapy points. So we're really addressing this when they're facing the biggest challenges. And patients aren't just engaging with tech, they are engaging with trust and that's shaped our design principles going forward.
Speaker 1:And caregivers as well, because sometimes they can add a friend or something right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bed friend, very effective. We've seen that that actually has a huge contribution to patient adherence. Just knowing that they've got someone walking alongside them in that journey Got it.
Speaker 1:All right. So collaboration is often where the biggest digital health challenges lie right. So how does Medisave partner with pharma and life science companies, versus just trying to sell a solution?
Speaker 2:is we are really integrated within the pharma teams. So we go and conduct pre-launch workshops. We really align to their launch objectives, we train the field so that they understand what is going to be launched and how to utilize it and how to put that out there for patients to adopt and we don't just drop the product and walk away. We partner cross-functionally, across commercial teams, across the IT and security, across access teams and with this we are ensuring that there is internal alignment and external adoption, because digital success comes from really connecting that ecosystem and not just doing it in a silo.
Speaker 1:Great. And my last question as digital health rapidly is evolving here and ever changing, where do you see Medisafe heading over the next two to three years?
Speaker 2:So Medisafe over the next two to three years. That is really we are adapting and really doubling down on our AI interventions. We are really looking forward to where can we layer this in across multiple health ecosystems? So we're advancing AI integrations for predictive adherence. We are expanding into other integrations like EHR systems, pharmacy services and things like that, and, of course, we're global. So we are global in every way and we're making sure that we are adaptive to all of the needs. We have SDK modules that we're able to integrate with so pharma. Their needs are really evolving I'd say rapidly and they are being confronted with value-based care and how do they handle that? What's a digital-first intervention that's going to work and really deliver on that patient ROI? So we are ready Medisafe is ready to scale across this with handling and dealing with the complexities, while still staying grounded in our roots of empathy, evidence and engagement.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much, kathy, for joining us today. What you and the Medisave team are really building represents this new blueprint for how pharma and life sciences can really move from just transactions to trusted relationships. And you know, the real metric isn't just prescriptions written, it's really prescriptions completed. You know we're improving lives and you know removing barriers and really helping people on their journey. So thank you for much, so much for joining us today. On Postscripts A pleasure to be here, brian. Thank you All. Right, everyone. If you found this conversation valuable, follow or subscribe for more insights at the intersection of pharma, tech and patient impact. Until next time, keep looking forward. The real work begins after the script is written. Have a good day everybody.
