CPHI Milan: Medication Non-Adherence Is a Design Problem

In part 1, of a 3-part interview, Ron Scarboro, CEO, Azurity Pharmaceuticals, argues that the question of how a medicine will be taken belongs at the very start of development, when a team first defines the product. Scarboro describes the company's focus on a gap between traditional pharma and generics: patients who benefit from proven medicines but need a better way to take or access them.

Rather than assigning ownership to a single function, Scarboro frames real-world usability as a shared responsibility built around three early questions: who will take the medicine, where they will take it, and what might make that difficult. "Product development should bring patient, clinical formulation, regulatory, and commercial perspectives together around those questions," he says.

Scarboro acknowledges that not every barrier is visible at the outset. Dosing instructions that are hard to follow consistently, or a format that works poorly for a particular patient group, may only surface after launch. Scarboro contends these findings should be treated as design information rather than as a sign that patients need more reminders. The link between medication inconvenience and poor adherence is well documented.

Scarboro describes a continuous loop. Before development, teams listen to patients and providers and test assumptions about intended use. During development, they weigh formulation, administration, packaging, and supply together. After launch, medical affairs and commercial teams need a defined path to relay friction back to research and development, quality, and regulatory colleagues.

"The question is not whether every medicine needs a new formulation, it is whether a meaningful barrier exists, whether we can address that responsibly, and whether doing so would make that medicine more usable in real life," Scarboro says. "That's how you turn listening to the patient into a disciplined development decision."