Atlantis Healthcare lands multi-million dollar European patient support deal
Atlantis Healthcare announced today it has won a competitive pitch to conduct a groundbreaking, pan-European support programme for Alzheimer’s carers.
The multi-million dollar programme, which will launch in France and the UK this year, will be one of the largest of its kind ever undertaken in Europe.
The client is Eisai and Pfizer who offer Aricept, considered to be the world-leading drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The Altantis team, including world-leading Health Psychologist, John Weinman will design a programme to comprehensively support carers to better care for individuals with dementia, offering them personalised strategies for managing their own health and well being, as well as supporting them in the administration of medication.
Atlantis Group GM, Jonny Duder explains that research shows informal carers for people with Alzheimer’s are one of the most vulnerable groups of carers and often have high levels of stress, feelings of guilt, depression and other psychological problems.
The goal of the Atlantis support programme will be to reduce the carer burden, leading to improved emotional, physical and social functioning, as well as increased rates in adherence to medication. Duder says the programme is a hallmark of a global healthcare trend toward drug funding models tied to improved patient outcomes and greater accountability by pharmaceutical companies. “Around the world, governments and healthcare services are getting serious about reducing costs and improving patient outcomes. Patient support programmes have a huge role to play in achieving both objectives,” says Duder.
“We are moving to a scenario where pharmaceutical companies will sell integrated packages of medicines and services, including personalised patient monitoring and support, which is where Atlantis comes in.” Duder explains the shift is already evident in the UK and here at home in New Zealand. “The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is already looking at only giving funding for drugs where the pharmaceutical company can deliver the outcomes achieved in the drug’s clinical trials. The more expensive a drug is, the more it has to improve or extend life in order to meet the funding threshold.”
“Here in New Zealand, the Government is talking about expanding the role of pharmacists to monitoring patients’ use of prescription drugs to improve compliance and ensure better patient outcomes.” Studies around the world indicate that anywhere from one third to half of patients with chronic conditions do not complete their full course of medication as prescribed, robbing them of potential health benefits and triggering billions in downstream healthcare costs.
Atlantis UK Director, Hamish Franklin explains, “Noncompliance results in billions being spent on additional treatment and medication. Atlantis has demonstrated a proficiency in increasing compliance to 65% to 80% and higher through our patient support programmes for a wide range of conditions.” In addition to improving patient outcomes, Duder says patient support programmes represent a multi-billion dollar business opportunity within the $700 pharmaceutical industry.
“Our focus on building a patient adherence business is unique. We recognised back in 2003 that no one globally was specialising in solutions to address non-compliance. Since then, we have created and delivered 40 patient adherence programmes in 9 countries.” “We are finding that pharmaceutical companies around the world are gravitating toward Atlantis as a proven provider of personalised interventions underpinned by leading health psychology expertise and proprietary CRM technology.”
The Aricept project win will generate a trebling of Atlantis’ UK business in a twelve month period on the back of four consecutive years of 25% growth across its international operations. Atlantis Healthcare started in New Zealand in 1993 and now has 70 employees in Auckland, Sydney and London
