Connected drug delivery devices to complement drug treatments: potential to facilitate disease management in home setting

Abstract

Connected drug delivery devices are increasingly being developed to support patient supervision and counseling in home setting. Features may include dosing reminders, adherence trackers, tools for patient education, and patient diaries to collect patient-reported outcomes, as well as monitoring tools with interfaces between patients and health care professionals (HCPs). Five connected devices have been selected as the basis for a review of the clinical evidence concerning the impact of electronic tools on treatment adherence and efficacy outcomes. Disease areas covered include multiple sclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, liver and renal transplant recipients, tuberculosis, hepatitis C, clinically isolated syndrome, asthma, and COPD. From studies comparing the use of electronic feedback tools to standard of care, there is an initial evidence for a higher adherence to treatment and better outcomes among patients who use the electronic tools. To substantiate the assumption that connected devices can improve adherence in an outpatient setting over a prolonged period of time, further data from controlled randomized studies are required. Key barriers to the broader adoption of connected devices include data privacy laws that may prevent data sharing with HCPs in some countries, as well as the need to demonstrate that the tools are consistently used and generate a high-quality and reproducible database. If these challenges can be addressed in a way that is agreeable to all stakeholders, it is expected that the future value of connected devices will be to 1) facilitate and improve patient involvement in disease management in a flexible care setting, 2) enable early treatment decisions, and 3) complement value-based reimbursement models.

Keywords:

• home-administration
• self-administration
• connected drug delivery device
• adherence
• patient-reported outcomes
• real-world evidence

Supplementary materials

Table S1 Predefined research questions

Table S2 Data sources searched

Table S3 Search terms used

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge Magdalena Wanner for support in literature search and documentation. The authors would also like to thank Rachel Danks for assistance with the preparation of this manuscript. The literature review and editorial assistance for the manuscript was funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche.

Disclosure

BB, CSC, and JS are employed by F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.