The National Pharmacy Association (NPA)'s Health Education Foundation (HEF) has funded a major study that aimed to test the SPUR tool and evaluate how effective
it was at measuring medicines adherence.
The study has been published in the British Medical Journal Open.
Dr Joshua Wells, a fourth year PhD candidate at Kingston University, who was awarded the NPA bursary, was the lead researcher for the SPUR UK study, under the
guidance of Professor Reem Kayyali.
Created by Observia, a health research group, SPUR is a self-assessment questionnaire which helps to detect a patient's risk of medicine non-adherence and aims to
accurately articulate the reasons for health behaviour.
As well as funding from HEF, the study was made possible via a partnership with Kingston University and Kingston Hospital.
HEF chair of Trustees, Dr Ian Cubbin, said: "We are delighted that NPA's Health Education Foundation has played a part in such an important study. This research could
lead ultimately to a far more personalised, tailored approach to medicines optimisation - recognising that people's medicines behaviour can be highly individual to
them."
At the Atlas Spinal Clinic our fundamental concern is getting to the root cause of health problems, rather than treating symptoms. Our Atlas Orthogonal (AO) work centers on what we call the pillar of life, the spinal column, a vital part of the body that directly affects its whole wellbeing.
New data on weight loss drugs that could compete with Novo Nordisk's Wegovy are raising expectations there will soon be more options, and possibly lower
prices, in an estimated $100 billion marketplace, doctors and pharmaceutical executives say.
Drugmakers are ratcheting up their research and aiming for new formulations that can be taken as pills, options to deliver higher weight loss or drugs that
reduce fat while maintaining muscle.
"It has really been an explosion of innovation," said Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief science officer at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), which receives
funding from both Novo and Eli Lilly and Co and just concluded its annual meeting in San Diego, California. "If there are multiple (treatments) in the market,
that will lead to some level of competition and greater access."