Pharmawizard: complete healthcare services in one app
Health and medicine are the second most googled topics worldwide. Health markets are also highly fragmented and are influenced by various lobbies. This, combined with an ageing population putting pressure on already overstretched public health services means that the need for information on medication use has never been greater. The PW (Your digital source for medication awareness: “Your health is a choice, choose to know”) project has used EU funding to develop a wide range of mobile app solutions to provide information to the public as well as players in the healthcare market. Citizens can ‘intelligently’ search, compare, purchase and manage medicines. Other end-users ranging from pharmacies and hospitals to pharma producers can assess their patients’ needs and promote their products accordingly. No need for wizardry with Pharmawizard Pharmawizard, currently available in Spanish and Italian, provides information on more than 19 000 drugs and around 1 330 000 parapharmaceuticals in Italy alone. “We developed an integrated digital health solution that empowers citizens to better manage their day-to-day health particularly related to medications and preventative care. Users can engage in a reliable and seamless customer journey,” emphasises Francesco Marcellino, project coordinator as well as founder and CEO of DataWizard SRL. Data includes drug uses and side effects, interactions and symptoms. Helping to bridge the information gap between public institutions, professionals and patients, the app delivers the required facts in an innovative, user-friendly, personalised way. Possible benefits include decreases in healthcare spending, money-savings for families and individuals, increased therapy adherence and preventing medicine-related errors due to lack of access to official medical information. B2C, B2B and B2B2C coverage Since the launch of the app, there have been 197 000 downloads and there are 53 000 active users every month. “Significantly, there are 16 000 unique users have used the ‘Therapy Management’ feature for therapy adherence. Following PharmaNow’s launch in April 2018, there were 507 purchase orders of medicine in the first month. From a fun/educational point of view, there is PharmaMemory, where gamers can learn about the body, health and common pathologies. The Pharmawizard White Label provides services for two large insurance companies in Italy, the largest medical consulting firm globally and the biggest network of doctors for home health assistance in Italy. To increase the scope of their network, partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies worldwide have been signed. Testing times during Pharmawizard development According to Marcellino, the most challenging part of PW was to sort out how to commercialise the project. He believes the key to success is to design the right business model. “Thanks to this H2020 Innovation Action, we have realised the right business model for DataWizard SRL which will offer us a clear path to market and sustainable commercialisation,” Marcellino concludes. “Identifying the right target players in digital healthcare in Europe proved more complex than we initially thought,” says Marcellino. Thanks to their marketplace awareness, PW concluded that insurance companies offering wellness and health insurance were well-positioned to lead in the digital healthcare revolution. A truly global future for Pharmawizard Presently active in Spain and Italy, the company foresees launching into Germany, France, Portugal and other EU countries. New features are in the pipeline and will help citizens travelling abroad find their medications in foreign countries. For example, an Italian travelling in China would be able to visualise the active ingredient of their drug in Standard Mandarin characters and show this to the pharmacist. Summing up the success of Pharmawizard, Marcellino emphasises, “What makes Pharmawizard truly unique is that our digital services are scalable at an exponential level without incremental costs, a significant benefit to large companies that serve millions of clients. We provide a way for technology to make existing systems more efficient therefore cutting costs for patients and companies.”
Keywords
PW, Pharmawizard, healthcare, app, mobile, pharmaceutical