West Pharmaceutical Services and HealthPrize Technologies are teaming up to reward patients for taking their medications.

West, an Exton, Pa.-based designer and manufacturer of pharmaceutical packaging and delivery systems, and HealthPrize, a Norwalk, Conn.-based digital health provider focused on patient engagement and medication adherence solutions, are collaborating to integrate HealthPrize's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) medication adherence and patient engagement platform with West's injectable drug delivery systems, to provide an end-to-end connected health solution to pharma companies and the patients they serve.

The combined offering will provide electronically-connected drug delivery systems that track when patients take their medication, educate and engage patients to increase adherence and medical literacy and reward them for compliance with their prescribed regimen.

Medication non-adherence is a leading cause of poor clinical outcomes and increased healthcare costs. Industry analysts estimate poor medication adherence costs the U.S. healthcare system more than $290 billion in otherwise avoidable medical spending. According to a recent study performed by Capgemini, a French consulting, outsourcing and professional services company, the global revenue loss due to non-adherence is estimated to be $564 billion.

"We believe the unique and exclusive combination of the West drug delivery platforms with leading patient adherence software from HealthPrize provides a powerful partnership to be by our customers' side to help improve patient compliance and health outcomes," said Donald E. Morel, Jr., chairman and CEO, West.

The HealthPrize platform leverages a combination of gamification, behavioral economic concepts, education and rewards to maximize motivational impact. Patients enrolled in HealthPrize programs demonstrate persistently high engagement rates and materially higher adherence rates, nearly 50% higher than baseline, on average. In collaboration with West, HealthPrize also will offer real-time verification of medication usage via wireless connection to West's drug delivery systems, including various biologics and other self-injected therapies.

The companies, in providing a universal solution adaptable for all types of devices and data transfer systems for wireless communication, also are implementing additional data transfer technologies into the platform, including smart labels, RFID/NFC and QR-code scanning. West intends to develop system technology that will allow both West drug delivery systems as well as existing drug delivery devices of other manufacturers to interface with the HealthPrize software.