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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
Personalized Patient Engagement: The Future of Pharma
The gap between receiving a prescription and achieving successful treatment outcomes remains one of healthcare's biggest challenges. In this illuminating conversation with Ryan Janvion, VP of Sales and Partnerships at Medisafe, we explore how digital health platforms are revolutionizing patient support after that crucial first prescription.
Drawing from his unique background as a college football player at Wake Forest and former Patriots scouting coordinator, Janvion brings a fresh perspective to pharmaceutical patient engagement. He reveals how pharma companies are pivoting away from building in-house digital solutions to partnering with specialized platforms that better understand patient behavior and preferences. "Pharma has awakened to the idea that they need to invest more in what happens beyond that initial script," Janvion explains, highlighting the industry's growing recognition that medication adherence demands ongoing support.
The discussion takes a fascinating turn when examining how personalization drives better outcomes. Just as coaches tailor their approaches to different athletes, digital health platforms customize support based on individual patient needs - from "drill sergeant" reminders to gentler encouragement. With over 13 years of experience and billions of data points, Medisafe has refined its approach to engaging patients without overwhelming them. The platform serves as a "digital front door" connecting patients to copay assistance, nurse educators, and other support services when they need them most.
Looking toward the future, Janvion predicts growing adoption of PDURs (prescribing digital therapeutics alongside medications) and increased integration across the healthcare ecosystem. As price transparency regulations reshape pharmaceutical competition, brand loyalty fostered through digital engagement will become increasingly valuable.
Whether you're a pharma marketer, digital health innovator, or healthcare provider, this conversation offers crucial insights into creating patient-centered support systems that drive better outcomes. Subscribe now to join our exploration of what happens after the script is written - where the real work of patient care begins.
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.
Sorry. Hello and welcome to Postscripts, 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 we all hope drive better outcomes for patients. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or should it be used to influence any clinical decision-making. Patients should always consult their healthcare professionals. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Brian Carr from Medisafe, and, although any opinions expressed here are my own and not those of Medisafe or its partners today, we're thrilled to welcome Ryan Janvian from Medisafe. He's a digital health strategist, patient access innovator and former player turned technology leader. Ryan, welcome to the podcast. Why don't you introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:Thanks, brian, happy to be here. My name is Ryan Janvion, vp of sales and partnerships here at Medisave. I've been with Medisave for about six years and, like you said, had a very interesting journey getting into the digital health world. So kind of leveraged my background as a college athlete playing football at Wake Forest University and then had a stint with the Patriots as a scouting coordinator and then found my way into kind of different sales and partnerships role and eventually kind of landed in the digital health space for the last six years, which has been quite a fun and wild ride, both industry-wise and all the changes that have happened, but also here at Medisave. So excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, it's great to have you here, and I'm sure we'll get more into how your experience in your sports world brings and translates into the pharma world as well. So, ryan, let's kick it right off. What key trends do you think you're seeing there in how pharma embraces digital therapeutics and really these connected health platforms to really support and enhance adherence and persistence?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's an interesting trend right. We had kind of heading into the turn of the decade 2019, 2020, you had pharma companies kind of building their own types of solutions. You know they thought they could kind of bring on their own solutions, build it internally and then go launch it, and we've seen that pivot. You know, for the most part away from that and actually partnering with companies that are solely focused on building these solutions, I think pharma has awakened to the idea that they need to invest more in what happens beyond that initial script.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times historically, pharma spends a lot of their time and attention focusing on getting NBRX or new patient starts, and so a lot of their time and investment goes into HCP awareness and targeting HCPs, targeting patients, and I think what pharma is starting to realize is that you spend all this money and all this time and effort in getting patients on what happens after they get on right.
Speaker 2:And I think you know obviously it's not a not information that is very widely available of the fact that adherence is a huge problem, and so you know the average patient once you know they're prescribed you'd say you know majority of those patients are gone by the first six months and depending upon, obviously, therapeutic area. But a lot of that has to do with giving them the right tools to support themselves throughout the journey. And you know, when you think about ATPs and their lack of time to really properly educate patients, this is where we see the pharma starting to really embrace digital tools to be able to plug those holes and make a more streamlined approach and streamlined journey for these patients as they start their patient journey, once prescribed, so that they can ultimately have better adherence, better engagement and ultimately, better outcomes, which, when you really think about it, is a win-win-win for everybody.
Speaker 1:What's interesting is it's going to be more of a win in the coming months, because what the US administration is saying is they want most favored nation status for all medications in the US. Ie, what US consumers pay and patients and health systems pay for medications needs to be no higher than what's paid in Canada or Germany or other developed nations. So let's think that through what's going to happen. There is you mentioned new Rx. That's definitely a KPI and a big metric for pharma. Well, what you can imagine? A world where the price competition is out there, right, so your most favored nation, but some prices may be higher or lower for a similar therapeutic area. The other thing the administration has done is say, hey, doctors, in the whole life science space, there's going to be transparency and records. So for the first time ever, doctors are actually going to see how much medications are costing. It's very interesting to think.
Speaker 1:Now, if this all comes to fruition, we'll see. But you've got to understand, I think, the KPI there is going to be persistence on the same branded medication versus oh, this one's, you know, $10 cheaper or less expensive. You might see some switching. No, no, there's going to be a lot more about brand loyalty, so what we would call persistence marketers and KPIs are going to be about brand loyalty. No, they're staying on us. They've got a program with Medisafe where they feel loyalty, they see engagement. They're keeping them on longer there. Why would they switch right? So it's gonna be an interesting coming a few months coming up to see how that happens. So let's talk. You know solutions. How does Medisave really help pharma supplement their offerings with? You know the behavioral science and the data and we hear about AI and and things like that. What gives Medisave any leg up on that?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think you know, first, we started over 13 years ago, right, and so we have tens of billions of data points when it comes to what patients like and don't like when it comes to digital tools that help them better manage their treatment. And so I think the fact that Medisafe really started as a patient-facing solution, without even really thinking about partnering with pharma, really works to their advantage, because we bring that experience and say, you know, to our pharma partners saying, hey look, this is what patients really appreciate and what they like and don't like when it comes to the UI, ux of these digital solutions. You know being able to nudge patients without annoying them so that they shut it off, and with anything. You know something that I learned back in my days playing college football and as a professional athlete is everything is in the details, right, it's the minutia right, and the little things that make the biggest difference along the way.
Speaker 2:And so I think you know, as you think about the experience that we bring, you know being able to use behavioral tools in a way that fits in with pharma. You know regulate. You know regulatory MLR which I know can be, you know, quite a challenge but bringing those solutions that actively engage patients, so that, when you know these pharma marketers are standing up, all of these different support services, we can become that patient facing tool that educates the patient every step of the way, once they get prescribed, to help them understand what are the tools that are available and what are the tools that these pharma marketers have spent a lot of time and energy standing up, when you think about their CRM, their patient advocacy program, their patient services program. And so how do we become the digital front door to connect these patients to all of the different programs that are most relevant to them so that they can overcome, you know, the key barriers and challenges that they face across their patient journey?
Speaker 1:You know, when I think of you, I think you're. You know, as a, as a athlete, you've seen how, how coaches coach different players right. In other words, the different messaging they may give to a different player. They know how to talk to this one versus another one. You know, and it's all. Personalization, Personalization is a buzzword, right, and we see that in Medisafe too. Even the way that we've seen how it can talk to patients in a different way. We've done testing on this patient, a, you know, do better with a we'll call it drill sergeant, you know, get you into it. I remember there was one test we did was more the guilt and shame messaging, which was you know, don't let your family down, make sure you take your medications on top, things like that. So that type of personalization is real in what you represent. It's not just a buzzword around.
Speaker 2:So it's a good point, right.
Speaker 2:Like you think about the consumer in general, right, the patients, you know, when you boil it down, they're still consumers.
Speaker 2:And when you think outside of healthcare and you think Patients and consumers expect personalization, now, right, we expect tailored information based upon our likes and interests, and so we bring those expectations into the healthcare space, right.
Speaker 2:And so it's why patients are pushing back and demanding more from their doctors with personalized information, and also demanding more from their treatments, treatments from pharma. And so how can pharma leverage tools like Medisafe to be able to engage patients in a way that will be most helpful to them? You think about, kind of two patients patient A, you know, is very adherent and needs, you know, ongoing you know ongoing motivation to keep on track right, and ongoing encouragement. Where you have patient B that's showing signs of non-adherence and needs more encouragement to understand what are the benefits of taking their medication on time every single day and establishing those healthy habits that will lead them to success in their patient journey moving forward. So it is that, like I said, that minutia of being able to support patients with something that is, you know, an overall program, but being able to support patients with something that is an overall program, but being able to change and adapt quickly for the individual consumer that's using the solution in a personalized way.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:We've got real examples and testimonials. I remember David, right. He takes like 41 medications, he's got epilepsy and he was tracking everything with a paper notebook, right. So he came to Medisave very mature in his knowing when to take it and things like that. But the utilitarian nature of Medisave really helped him track diarrhea dosing, things like that.
Speaker 1:Then you have someone that was new to treatment, which is typically what happens with a lot of our patients. You know, now I'm on my sixth medication, just had a procedure done, I got instructions leaving the hospital. This is a titration of two weeks and I have to change my doses. You know, after week one, all that and it's just complicated. They come in and they're new to treatment.
Speaker 1:We can actually do a really, really impressive onboarding and titration schedules that are already built into the platform to help them out. So that type of yes, personalization, not only in how we remind you of your voice and you can, you know colors or whatever it is and how it looks, but also personalization on your particular plan and where you are in your treatment journey, as opposed to someone that started two weeks ago getting different messages and it's really compelling. You know, when you leave a hospital you're doing a treatment and you're told, by the way, this medication has to be taken out of the refrigerator 30 minutes prior. Right? So what? Our platform? I think you know. One of the things it will tell you is a reminder. Take it out now and we'll give you another reminder in 30 minutes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think the one thing, too, is, when you think about a lot of the pharma marketing tactics out there and the support programs, it's point in time solutions, right.
Speaker 2:You know, it's kind of an email here or a conversation with a nurse educator here, and there's very few capabilities or very few tactics that are being leveraged. That is filling in those gaps right On an ongoing, daily basis. There's very few things that patients are interacting with on a daily basis that pharma can really tap into. And so this is where you know, digital therapeutics and digital solutions are starting to gain more steam because we're able to engage the patient on a daily basis and on a multi-daily basis, depending upon their titration schedules, depending upon certain side effects that may occur, and so I think what pharma marketers and pharma in general is starting to realize is that it's a direct way to communicate to patients on a more frequent basis. That's truly helping them manage their medication beyond just the ongoing, you know programs that they've stood up that really just engage a patient, you know, at one point in time, and then there's a tremendous amount of gap before that next engagement.
Speaker 1:Right. And there's the bi-directional too right. So you may have patient support teams actively involved in 20% of the population. There's 80% over there that we assume they're doing fine because they haven't touched in. But it doesn't mean that we can't touch base with them. Or they suddenly have a question on their copay card or something like that, they can just tap to call in the app, get right to the program there. So even those adherent patients may have a question from time to time. You know, like even during hey, my, my insurance has changed. Yeah Right, we've got how. How would someone like that be handled?
Speaker 2:You know I have to go to a fax machine right, exactly, you think about the re, re, re verification process is a nightmare for patient support programs every year, and you know to your point. It's absolutely true, right? You know these, these PSP programs will have these touch points with patients. That's a one size fits all method, right? I'm going to contact the patient for a welcome call on day one, we're going to check in on day seven, and then it starts to spread out right Day 30. And then there's a certain point where they're checking in, like every couple of months. Well, a lot can happen with a patient in between that time, right? A patient can decide to fall off therapy in between those touch points.
Speaker 2:And what oftentimes I hear, you know, directors of psp, solution directors of psp say is that, you know, can we get more data on patients?
Speaker 2:And so what we're able to do through our integrations with PSP is to be able to show real-time adherence data for patients to the nurse educators so that they can prioritize their outreach to those patients based upon need, instead of treating everybody like a one-size-fits-all you know approach.
Speaker 2:And so now you can really empower your nurse educators to take a proactive approach.
Speaker 2:Let's just say, you know, nurse Sally, for example, is supporting 50 patients, she can get an alert saying you know Brian, for example, has missed her, you know his last four doses and and Sally can proactively reach out to to Brian to check in Right, to Brian to check in right. Whereas if you, without that type of solution, you would be waiting for that next touch point, which might be three, four, five, six weeks down the road, and at that point you've already made your decision to fall off therapy, maybe even switch therapy, and it's a lose-lose situation because you know, if someone was able to intervene and perhaps educate you in that moment where you're making that critical decision, we, you know we could have avoided that the conversations that that patient is having with their HCP, which then impacts the HCP's understanding and kind of overall sentiment of that treatment and prescribing it to other patients because they don't see it being very effective and so it can cause them to start to move to other medications that might be a little bit more effective.
Speaker 1:Right, and even the effective ways to communicate to someone like Ryan, who Ryan prefers a text message, right Versus Brian needs an email, or says, or there's also, do not call him after a certain time, like there's all these different ways to talk to people. You know, and it could be the same person needs different ways to, you know, depending on what, what the has to be sent over from the PSP. Uh, you know, and we'd take a step back from our real lives. We can order plane tickets, we can go to get concert tickets, we can do our banking online, we can get a pizza online. Everything's handled, you know, very personalized within our devices.
Speaker 1:And you know why not, why can't I talk to my, my nurse advocate or my PSP team? Right now, it's boom, tap it. Hey, I want to make sure you get that report. Or hey, we're missing your, your new author, new auth, want to make sure it's there. It's all really handled seamlessly. Talk to me a little bit about privacy for patients, right? So we talk about patient data whenever we mention podcasts or others there. What is patient data for Medisave? Right? You can be anonymous using Medisave, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 2:The nice thing is that we don't need to know who you are and obviously, from a reporting perspective, all of our reports are de-identified and aggregated data.
Speaker 2:We can obviously tokenize our data and match to actual claims data to show you know relevant lift, but that's going to be, you know, one of the major hurdles that you have to overcome in order to you know, as you think about kind of setting up a digital health company in order to work with pharma.
Speaker 2:That's going to be the first question, right, Especially when you're starting to get into MLR. And so the nice thing about Medisafe is that it has kind of two sides, right, there's things that patients can use that are stored on their device that we can't see and therefore don't report on, but then you actually have, you know, their anonymized data of you know what they're interacting with from a content perspective, their adherence numbers that can be shared to pharma to be able to better inform their decisions, and also when you think about kind of the content that they're creating on an ongoing basis. This is something that provides them real-time data that can be adapted quickly as they think about doubling down on content that patients are most likely to engage with, based upon what they're seeing in these digital companion solutions across the industry.
Speaker 1:Right and that data is only mentioned to pharma with the patient's approval right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of that is part of the onboarding process, is capturing that patient's consent right, and that's a whole science of being able to present that in a way that, one, the patient understands what they're consenting to and, two, that we get a high opt-in from a consent perspective because they see the value of the program and the impact that it could have on, you know, just helping them make their patient journey a lot easier.
Speaker 1:And you did mention so. For example, there is some data for, for example, I know there's instances where the diary data, where you need to take notes, the doctor has told you, hey, make sure you take some notes as you're getting on this new med, put it in your diary. That is all private between the device itself and the patient. That does not get sent into Medisave, for example a diary function, things like that. We've got those things settled in conjunction with our pharma partners All right. Well, ryan, really, in closing here, let's take a step back and ask for prediction time. What do you see digital health partnerships going on in the next, say, six months? It's a good question.
Speaker 2:I think you're going to see a lot more partnerships because of what Paduras is is is happening in the market and what's Paduras? You know? Paduras is this idea that you can prescribe a drug in combination with a digital solution, right, and so it's this true combo therapy if you have your drug and then you have your support around the drug being prescribed together. So it allows. What a PDUR allows these digital solutions to do is that when the doctor is prescribing the medication, they're also able to prescribe the solution in tandem with the drug, and so that can be that. You know, on the actual packaging of the medication, there could be a QR code that says in order to access and take this you know drug properly, you need to download this digital tool to help you know, guide you throughout the process. And I think a lot of people are starting to wake up and talk about it. You know, especially when you think about new launch drugs and how to position and kind of prepare for that on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 2:And I think the second thing I'll say is you're going to see a lot more partnerships across the industry, with digital health partners partnering with not just pharma but also across the ecosystem right.
Speaker 2:Can they integrate into EHRs, for example, can they get more connected into specialty pharmacy to really provide that end to end solution and ultimately bring more value, first and foremost to the patient, but also to pharma partners in partnering with them? You mentioned the mobile banking app, for example. The reason why mobile banking works and we don't even really call it mobile banking anymore, it's just banking is because it's all integrated. It's a kind of end-to-end journey to where I can do everything I need to do from a digital perspective, and I think digital health and the industry in general is not quite there yet but it's getting there and I think you'll see this with some of the partnerships that are being struck and how we are starting to work with specialty pharmacies, considering kind of direct EHR integrations and really broadening the scope of what digital health tools can solve for and impacting ultimately the patient journey experience for these patients so that we can help them get better outcomes, be more engaged and stay more on track with their treatment.
Speaker 1:Well, ryan. Thank you so much for joining us here on Postscripts. It was a pleasure having you Everyone. If you found this conversation valuable, please follow or subscribe for more insights at the intersection of pharma tech and patient impact. Until next time. Thanks again, ryan. Until next time, keep looking forward. The real work begins after the script is written. Bye everyone.
