By Ravaut Benitez
For WisBusiness.com
Failure to take medications properly can be a prescription for disaster. Wisconsin-based iCura is looking to provide an affordable product and service that is lighting the way in guiding medication compliance for patients to protect and improve their health.
iCura is one of the two-dozen companies selected to present at the 2010 Early Stage Symposium in Madison this week. The company is being created as a stand-alone entity, using technology developed by company president Carlos de la Huerga of Telaric Ideas. Although de la Huerga is the only full-time employee for iCura, it has four employees and five others who assist them when needed.
The company is raising $1.5 million and has previously invested $500,000 over several years to develop the technology and market relations. The product and services that iCura intends to offer may end-up being a solution for many prescription catastrophes.
Every day, millions of people misuse or forget to take their prescribed medications. The World Health Organization estimates 50 percent of patients worldwide do not take their medications as prescribed, with a global cost of more than $100 billion in resulting hospital admissions and lost productivity.
“The Institute of Medicine reported it causes over 100,000 deaths and would be placed as the sixth [leading] cause of death if properly categorized,” de la Huerga said. “It remains the biggest problem in treating all illnesses.”
iCura’s products help patients take their medications correctly using the iCura health center home device with a smart labeled medication container. This medication container carries a radiofrequency identification label, placed on the bottom of the medication container by the pharmacist as part of the medication label. The label can be attached to any medication container, such as a vial, bottle or inhaler, and placed on the iCura health center.
The smart labels are programmed with prescription data to provide reminders and guidance to patients to properly take their medications. When a medication is to be taken, the iCura health center uses the RFID data to activate an alert (for example, a patient-selected “ring tone”) including a light panel indicator adjacent to or underneath the container. The iCura health center also:
* Uses cellular communication to automate refill ordering
* Provides advanced medical services
* Provides outpatients with medication specific information
The smart RFID label solution is targeted at 125 million patients who are prescribed medication for chronic conditions and consume most of the 3.9 billion prescriptions filled by its pharmacy partners a year.
Potential iCura customers are the 60,000 local, specialty and senior residence pharmacies selling medication and services to outpatients who take three or more medications and are generally more than 40 years old. In addition, iCura provides patients with targeted health messages twice a day and also offers on-line services.
Although, there are several barriers to entry, de la Huerga said, “the first is to have a great idea that you execute with speed and determination.”
The company anticipates five months of production development followed by a three months customer trial. Once the trial is completed, they expect to then sell their medication heath center and online services to independent living senior communities.
— Benitez is a student in the UW-Madison Department of Life Sciences Communications.
