With the pharma, biotech and medtech sectors debuting new and potentially life-changing innovations for patients at a rapid pace, many are now gaining access to care that was once thought impossible.
However, a treatment regimen can only fully benefit patients if they adhere to the regimen implemented by developers – a challenge that has long collectively impacted the healthcare, pharma and health technology sectors.
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As adherence continues to present a key hurdle for companies in these segments, many are shifting their focus to figuring out new ways to improve the patient experience, with tools like digital health apps and wearables coming to the forefront in recent years.
At the 2026 HLTH Europe conference in Amsterdam, held from 15-18 June, Pharmaceutical Technology took a look at some up-and-coming patient adherence technology innovations, while summarising expert thoughts on how pharma can better engage with end users on their treatment journey and enhance their experience.
Pharma’s role in the patient journey
As the digital age continues to shape the way the healthcare industry operates, panellists at HLTH Europe 2026 were keen to discuss how the pharma industry can better focus on the patient journey. This talking point comes as the democratisation of healthcare is more important than ever, noted Andrew Menzies-Gow, VP R&I global medical at AstraZeneca, in a session on day one.
“We have to fundamentally change the power imbalance [between patients and healthcare providers],” Menzies-Gow said, adding that patients should be able to make decisions around their health and data, supported by informed guidance from healthcare professionals. This, Meadhbha Monaghan, chief executive of the Patient Client Council (PCC) NI, said this will require a cultural shift on the public and pharma side of the equation, where both parties share the risk, accountability and responsibility around health.
When improving the patient journey, Marta Nowotarska, director of consumer engagement at Novo Nordisk, added that the ‘consumerisation’ of health – referring to the shift in public knowledge through heightened access to information – requires the pharma sector to partner closely with payers, healthcare systems and patient advocacy groups to effectively navigate the regulatory landscape in a compliant and beneficial way for end users. This is particularly important, Nowotarska said, as the regulations were originally forged before the beginning of the consumerisation shift.
AI’s role in bridging the adherence gap
As health technology companies explore unique ways to enhance patient adherence and outcomes, many at HLTH Europe 2026 touted the promise of artificial intelligence (AI), which developers are incorporating into several contexts to track, cater, and adapt outreach approaches.
One of the individuals championing the use of AI in this context was Lirio’s CEO, Marten den Haring, who stressed the importance of providing flexible, data-informed and adaptive support to an individual when promoting treatment adherence. This is because patient adherence can decline over the long term when symptoms are controlled or when the treatment’s benefits are preventing progression, which patients may not directly feel, den Haring commented.
As patient adherence can change dramatically over time based on a patient’s circumstances, motivations, health status, or support systems, Lirio has developed an AI-powered personalised patient outreach and support system that operates at the individual level to promote long-term adherence.
“Health behaviour is a dynamic process shaped by context, so Lirio employs behavioural science and AI to adapt support to the individual over time,” den Haring said, adding that precision nudging can help identify the data signals that matter, and learn which behavioural techniques are suitable for a specific patient.
Engagement strategies should also differ from one geography to another, den Haring explained. This is because methods need to align with local values, incentives and perceptions of who the healthcare system is designed to serve, and what framing they are most likely to respond to. “The UK’s COVID-19 response is a clear example,” den Haring commented. “Messaging focused heavily on protecting the NHS and reducing pressure on the health system. It is hard to imagine an equivalent campaign in the US asking people to protect a payer or healthcare provider in the same way,” he added.
Gamifying health data collection
In recent years, the healthcare sector has increasingly sought out ways to incorporate wearables into routine care, as real-time data can allow clinicians to provide proactive care.
As wearables gain traction, Ai2Ai is taking a different approach – creating a ball-shaped interactive patient adherence device, coined PALL0, that the Finnish startup has designed to gamify physical rehabilitation and health data collection from the patient’s home.
Much like a wearable, the device employs sensors that can measure various elements of a patient’s wellbeing, such as grip strength and their ability to perform certain key movements – feeding back health data on the patient to clinicians and enabling them to tailor treatment choices, while encouraging the patient to engage with therapeutic activities such as memory training exercises.
At HTLH 2026, the health tech company’s CEO, Henrik Terävä, told Pharmaceutical Technology that PALL0 will likely hold the most potential in the context of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.
When creating adherence technology, Terävä believes that some of the most important factors centre around the tool’s ability to engage and encourage a patient through a straightforward-to-use interface.
A sharps bin with adherence monitoring potential
As wearables use continues to rise, HealthBeacon’s CEO, Keiran Daly, noted that at-home monitoring sensors will play a key role in promoting patient adherence, but primarily as an additive to the “human layer of care” in conversation with Pharmaceutical Technology. This approach, he added, could also allow healthcare systems to perform precision outreach and better prioritise follow-ups around medication adherence to improve resource allocation.
One of the health technologies that could drive this change, he said, is HealthBeacon’s US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared sharps bin. HealthBeacon built the technology to log the disposal of used syringes or autoinjectors against a patient’s prescribed schedule – sending them reminders via SMS to take their medication if the patient isn’t following the regimen.
The information gathered from the bin can then be used to send information back to a pharmacist, prescriber or caregiver, who can take appropriate action to help the patient take their medicine correctly – allowing for precision outreach that “need it most,” Daly commented.
According to Daly, creating a widely adopted health technology requires an intuitive and engaging design, while offering a ‘me first’ patient benefit that fulfils an unmet need.
Boosting adherence in elderly patients
With the global population ageing and many taking medications into their later years, there is a clear need for affordable adherence solutions that can help patients remember to take their daily doses, as health technology reimbursement remains a key hurdle across Europe and further afield.
To overcome this challenge, longtime health technology specialist Janus Hoeks, co-founded PicoCare, which he designed to log if a patient is correctly engaging with their medication based on interactions with the dispensing machine.
This approach could also hold significant benefit in clinical trials, Hoeks mentioned, as it can provide operators with fixed data on adherence, while removing the need for the time-consuming processing of data from patient diaries.
According to Hoeks, while new innovations in the health technology space are highly positive, the onus now falls on healthcare systems to implement such tools that are already on the market. He noted the importance of achieving this early, as it can reduce the burden on these overstretched systems.
