The news: Discount prescription drug platform GoodRx scooped up consumer education HealthiNation for $75 million in cash, per Fierce Healthcare. HealthiNation gives pharma manufacturers a platform to inform patients about healthcare through videos explaining healthy living, disease, and the effects of withholding treatment.
The bigger picture: Easily digestible video content could be key to helping drugmakers and startups like GoodRx enhance US consumers’ health literacy, which directly affects medication adherence.
- Health literacy refers to whether people understand basic health information and services that inform their healthcare decisions—and poor health literacy often leads to worse health outcomes. Over 90 million US residents suffer from poor health literacy, according to the most recent data by Center for Health Strategies. This means a sizable portion of the US population has trouble comprehending health issues like medication, which can lead to poor adherence and worse outcomes: For example, someone may not understand why they need to complete their full course of antibiotics if they feel better after a few days.
- It makes sense for drug platforms like GoodRx to boost health literacy among their users, since they benefit if patients understand why they should stick to their drug regimens. Informing patients on why they need to take a certain medication could lead to higher levels of medication adherence and sales for the likes of GoodRx and Blink Health: GoodRx’s high Q4 2020 revenues were primarily driven by prescription transactions.