from The Australian online today.... MedAdvisor: a dose of the...

from The Australian online today....

MedAdvisor: a dose of the right medicine

Tim Boreham
MedAdvisor (MDR) 5.2c

Amid the airplay about the level of waste in the medical system — we refer to Medibank Private’s last 50 public utterances — it’s underappreciated that 50-60 per cent of patients do not adhere to their medication guidelines.

This “inadvertent non-adherence’’, as MedAdvisor chief Rob Read dubs it, results in unnecessary hospital admissions and re-prescriptions — an obvious burden to the public purse.

MedAdvisor, which listed yesterday, has devised a cloud-based app that monitors usage and reminds patients when a dose is due. The app is free to the patient, with revenue derived from link-ups with chemists, drug companies and — in future — GPs.

Read says MedAdvisor has signed up about 25 per cent of the country’s 5400 apothecaries, with a target of signing up half. For an annual sub of about $1200, chemists can sign up unlimited patients to the app. The hook is that when it’s time for a repeat subscription, patients — who tend not to be loyal to the one chemist — will return to them.

With 100,000 patients signed up so far, MedAdvisor cites a 20 per cent overall improvement in adherence, although this varies widely from drug to drug. The next leg is a link with GPs by which patients can order a repeat prescription over the app without the need for a consultation (although doctors can still request a face-to-face visit). The third revenue source involves the drug companies paying for education and training messages.

Listed via a resource shell, MedAdvisor raised $5 million at 3c apiece. “I wasn’t expecting that,’’ Read says of yesterday’s 53 per cent stag gain.

MedAdvisor isn’t far removed from NZ-based Adherium(ADR, 65.5c), which listed last August after raising $35m at 50c a pop. Adherium’s Smartinhalers reduce medication noncompliance for chronic respiratory diseases.

MedAdvisor’s valuation is more palatable than Adherium’s and we prescribe a spec buy.