Highlighting the vast scope of the adherence problem, a study published by The National Centre for Biotechnology Information found in 2018 that between 25% and 50% of patients worldwide do not take their medications as recommended. In the US alone, suboptimal adherence has been linked with 125,000 deaths, 10% of hospitalisations and costs of up to $289 billion annually.
Elsewhere, the UK’s Department of Health estimates that the overall cost of wasted medicines to the NHS is more than £300 million each year, with around £110 million worth of medicine returned to pharmacies and £90 million worth of unused prescriptions being stored in homes, partly due to non-compliance…
