The Finnish startup’s platform can improve medication adherence and help engage patients by using innovative technology

HELSINKI, FINLAND, NOVEMBER 20, 2019

The pharmaceutical company Novartis and Finnish MedTech startup Popit have entered into an international collaboration agreement. The goal of Popit’s patient support solution to improve patient adherence and engagement. Popit’s mobile app tracks medication use through the innovative Popit Sense device, which easily clips onto a blister sheet of tablets. The startup’s cloud service sends bespoke messages to patients based on their medication habits, and in clinical trial use can collect real-time data.

Novartis, as a global healthcare company, is part of an ecosystem where digitalization is advancing fast. Collaboration with innovative health technology startups such as Popit enables new ways to provide patients with effective care faster, and more efficiently for the society. At the same time, innovation in the health sector supports economic growth and creates more exports and jobs in Finland and Europe.

Novartis has also entered into a collaboration with another Finnish startup, Precordior, to further develop heart disease detection using smart phones.

Medications are often missed

Only 30-50% of medication for chronic conditions are taken as prescribed. (1, 2)

“Medication nonadherence is a major issue in treatment of patients. Better treatment outcomes could be achieved, if medication was taken as prescribed. As a pharmaceutical company, it is very important for Novartis that the patients benefit from their medication in the best possible way, and Popit’s solution can potentially help with this,” says Antti Viitanen, Managing Director of Novartis Finland Oy. The first pilots on Popit’s technology are starting during 2019 with a focus on neurology in a number of European countries.

When the device manufactured by Popit is attached onto a medication blister, its sensors automatically detect when a tablet is taken. This information is sent to the app and to the cloud. If the tablet is not taken on time, the app reminds the patient. The intelligent cloud service automatically sends support messages based on medication consumption.

”The strength of our solution is its applicability for all kinds of medication blisters, which are the dominant form of packaging for solid drugs globally. At the same time, it does not require any changes to the packaging. It is unlike other products on the market,” says Teemu Piirainen, Popit’s CEO.

”The smart reminders and support messages have been designed to help and engage the patient during the treatment. Additionally, the technology makes it possible to gather real-time data for example in clinical trials. We are making medication connected and basically extending the Internet of Things to pills,” continues Piirainen.

Data and digital technologies can advance new treatment development

”It is in everyone’s best interest that the right patient is given the right treatment at the right time. This requires fast identification of symptoms, but also patient’s commitment to treatment,” says Antti Viitanen.

New technologies and digitalization make the development of new operational models possible. Currently, more health data is being collected and used than ever before. Utilizing it has become part of disease prevention, but it may help providing more targeted treatment to the right patients faster.

”The collaboration between Novartis and Popit is an example of how a small company from the superb Finnish startup scene can scale up to a global level with the help of an international partner. Also, the Finnish health sector growth strategy has been key in creating an ecosystem where innovations like this can thrive and increase wellbeing,” says Antti Viitanen. ”The global collaboration between Novartis and Popit stems from last year, when a group of Finnish startups together with Business Finland and the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health visited Novartis’ head office in Basel.”

About Popit

Popit is a pioneer in improving patient adherence through smart consumer devices. The Company is dedicated to improving adherence by digitizing medicine, a major opportunity that offers benefits for patients, healthcare payors and pharmaceutical companies. Popit works with the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, like Novartis and Pfizer. Find out more at www.popit.io

About Novartis

Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people’s lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world’s top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach more than 750 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 109,000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more at www.novartis.com

Media contact: Timo Heikkilä, Co-founder
Twitter: https://twitter.com/popitmed
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/popitmed
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/popit-ltd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/popitmed

References:

1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1690707
2. https://www.who.int/chp/knowledge/publications/adherence_full_report.pdf

Butterfly Ventures as the lead investor, funding used for bringing product to market

Helsinki, Finland, August 23^rd 2017 – Popit, a Finnish startup focusing on medical technology solutions, has raised over €1.2M ($1.4M) in seed financing. The capital was raised from Butterfly Ventures with participation from six private investors and Business Finland, the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation. The funding consists of an investment and a loan, and will be used for bringing the pioneering device Popit Sense to market.

Popit Sense tackles medical adherence, a problem that needlessly burdens the healthcare system and leads to lives lost. The small easy-to-use device attaches to a regular pill sheet where it automatically detects with patented technology when a pill has been popped. This information is sent onto a free app that supports the treatment by tracking medication effectiveness, remaining pills and medication usage patterns. It also reminds the user or a loved one if a pill has been forgotten.

Teemu Piirainen, Popit’s CEO: “The investment will enable us to pursue our vision of quantifying medication. Like step counters track activity, we track pills and support the patient in staying on track with medical treatment. This kind of technology hasn’t been available before and it opens up exciting new possibilities. For example, caregivers to their parents will be able to see from the mobile phone if mom or dad has taken the medication. Likewise, patients will be able to see how taking medication has had an impact on wellbeing.”

Juho Risku, co-founder and partner at Butterfly Ventures explains why they invested in Popit: “The cost impact of patients not taking pills that come in blister packs is well over 100 billion dollars annually. Vast majority of these costs could be avoided by improving medication adherence. Popit’s product tackles the problem in an intuitive way. The team has done excellent and systematic work in unraveling this complex issue and I firmly believe Popit is going to take a significant share of the adherence market.

The solution will be first available for the 100 million birth control pill users. For this purpose Popit is preparing to launch a crowdfunding campaign in November. The company also sees tremendous untapped opportunity in supporting patients on chronic disease medications, where a staggering 50% of patients are not taking their medications as prescribed.

The smart pill reminder solution will be available in Q2 2018.

About Popit:

Popit is a pioneer in improving patient adherence through smart consumer devices. The Company is dedicated to improving adherence by digitizing medicine, a major opportunity that offers benefits for pharmaceutical companies and consumers alike. Popit is planning to expand support to other major medication groups like hypertension, cholesterol, type 2 diabetes and migraine pills, which combined have an addressable market of over 1 billion users. For more information like videos and product images, please visit popit.io.

Media contact:  Teemu Piirainen, CEO
Phone: +358 44 222 6666
Email: teemu ät popit.io
Web: popit.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/popitmed
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/popitmed
Youtube: Popit Smart Pill Reminder

Popit participated in the unique Tahko Ski Lift Pitch event on April 21st. The competition was arranged at the Tahko ski resort and started off with a 3 minute pitch battle, taking place on a ski lift. Coming out victorious from the 1st round, we made it into the finals and eventually the top-6 out of 30 great startups.

M.D. Janne Sahlman, Popit’s Chief Medical officer and co-founder sheds some light into the intricacies of the competition: “It was a welcome change to pitch outdoors! It is always a challenge to describe our disruptive solution in a brief manner, but having no slides made it especially interesting. The positive feedback and recognition pushes us forward.”

The Finnish National Broadcaster YLE also was there. You can see a clip here: http://areena.yle.fi/1-4121072 (Popit appears at 0:31).

We’re proud to announce that Popit was chosen as a top-20 startup in the Accenture HealthTech Innovation Challenge!

The jury consists of health industry experts and leaders from BUPA, Shire, Pfizer, Novartis, Eli Lilly, UCB, to name a few.

The competition received over 500 high-quality entries from all over the world and the finals will be in San Francisco on Jan 9th, 2017.

Teemu Piirainen, CEO of Popit Medical Technologies says that this is an achievement that highlights the innovativeness of Popit Sense. “There is no other similar solution on the market to track medication in push-through packages, also known as blister packs”

“Companies in healthcare understand the benefit of being able to boost medication adherence with a reusable, cost-efficient, and universally compatible device. Apps alone simply do not achieve a level of retention that would be meaningful”, says Piirainen.

Wish us luck!

 

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