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| Mobile Spirometer--Courtesy of CoheroHealth |
Just a breath away from mainstream rollout, CoheroHealth's mobile and wireless spirometer to measure lung function passed FDA scrutiny and is now entering launch programs with a handful of partners. The unnamed pharma, payer and healthcare partners--undisclosed until deployment as part of the agreement--will recruit asthma and COPD patients to use its treatment device package that includes an inhaler tracker, mobile app and now spirometer through the end of the year.
Patients--and caregivers in the case of younger asthma patients--can have their personal respiratory information sent to their smartphones, tablets or even Apple Watch, and they can opt in to have the information shared with their physicians. Cohero, which means, "to adhere" in Latin, expects to have 5,000 patients using the system by the end of the year. Commercial rollout will begin in 2016, but early results are already promising. In initial trials, patients had a 2.5 times increase in medication adherence, and a 100% reduction in hospitalizations.
"In our deployments to date, patients are eager to equip healthcare providers with data that can be used to drive more seamless care," Cohero CEO and co-founder Melissa Manice told FiercePharmaMarketing, adding that people also want "telemedicine solutions (that) allow a patient to be managed in the home and less frequently have to visit a clinic."
Mike Marett, Cohero chief commercial officer, said the FDA spirometer approval garnered significant inquiries from potential partners, and included interest from some patients and caregivers. The sales and marketing effort to accompany the rollout is focused on business-to-business, but considering the interest, Cohero is exploring the idea of a consumer marketing effort further down the line.
While Cohero didn't name names, potential pharma partners with asthma and COPD drugs include GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK), AstraZeneca ($AZN), Teva ($TEVA), Sandoz and Boehringer Ingelheim. Development of smart devices to track respiratory functions has been brisk with players including Spirometrix and Propeller Health, the latter with which Boehringer sponsored a pilot last year.
- read the press release
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