With the number of asthma patients rising by the day, pharmaceutical companies are coming out with mobile apps to connect them with doctors for timely medical help.
According to estimates, 50 to 70 per cent of asthma patients in India do not adhere to prescribed treatment regimen, and suffer in the long run.
Up to 50 per cent of such non-adherence is on account of the patient’s forgetfulness to take medicines on time, and due to inadequate understanding of the prescribed treatment regimen.
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Sun Pharmaceutical Industries on Monday rolled out a mobile application that connects doctors and asthma patients.
The app called RespiTrack has been developed to enable doctors to track treatment progress of their patients and increase compliance to medication for better management of asthma.
The app provides recurring medication reminders and pre-programmed alerts.
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Abhay Gandhi, CEO, India Business, Sun Pharma said, “Unlike other chronic illnesses where non-adherence to treatment regimen could have significant impact on the patient’s health, asthmatics tend to be low on the short-run adversity impact of non-adherence.
“However, in the long run, the implications of non-adherence to prescribed asthma treatment can severely impede quality of life of these patients. By leveraging our digital technology capabilities, we believe RespiTrack can address this unmet need by reducing non-adherences incidences to treatment.”
RespiTrack allows complete monitoring of asthma attacks, symptoms and medications prescribed by the physician. As per a World Health Organization (WHO) report, India has an estimated 15 to 20 million asthma patients. Various studies estimate that nearly 40 per cent of asthma patients use inhalers and the rest prefer oral formulations.
Cipla, the leader in this segment with market share of 45 per cent and anti-asthmatic medicine revenues of Rs 1,420 crore operates its mobile app called My Breathfree, which a comprehensive patient app for asthma management.
It provides device demos in nine regional languages, and reckoner for dosage reminders, triggers, PEFR readings, common FAQs, and do’s and don’ts.
Lupin with a market share of 10.5 per cent and sales revenue of Rs. 332 crore from this business, runs its mobile app called Respinova. GSK’s mobile app My Asthma provides tips, practical advice and special monitoring tools to help patients or their children to control and manage asthma symptoms.