While Australia enjoys the freedom of restrictions opening up and a substantial decrease in the COVID-19 deaths, vaccination rates across various States in the US remain dangerously low which has prompted one big pharma company to engage medtech company MedAdvisor (ASX: MDR) to slay the anti-vaxxers. 

For the unnamed big pharma company which has a market cap of more than $200 billion, it is hoped that MedAdvisor’s marketing efforts within under-vaccinated populations will help increase vaccination rates. Such promotional work will be delivered in the form of education around the availability and benefits of the COVID-19 vaccination. 

To run the program, MedAdvisor will be paid $4 million (USD $3m) to execute the digital awareness campaign. 

“COVID-19 vaccination rates vary substantially across different states in the US and there are a number of geographies and particular demographics that will benefit from text messages to educate patients on the availability of vaccines,” said MedAdvisor Managing Director, Robert Read. 

“This is our largest digital program in the US to date and if successful would scale well across our network.” 

The deal comes in the form of a Statement of Work which will be launched on MedAdvisor’s inMotion digital platform and is being labelled initially as a pilot program. 

MedAdvisor’s flagship product is software that provides users with access to a virtual pharmacists on their smartphone or tablet. The app connects users to their local pharmacy which can deliver advice on medication, offer pop up reminders and make prescription refill requests. 

In Australia, MedAdvisor has more than 65% of pharmacies listed on their platform which has connected with more than 2.3 million patients. 

Expansion in the United States has been part of MedAdvisor’s long term plan to capitalise on the hugely lucrative US pharmaceuticals market with MedAdvisor already working with more than 25,000 American pharmacies. 

Last month, MedAdvisor confirmed that Walmart had signed on for customer engagement via the platform which will include the full suite of its adherence solutions including digital, in-pharmacy print and direct mail solutions to Walmart customers. Walmart will also participate in Dynamic Engagement adding further digital scale to the MedAdvisor US network. 

MedAdvisor estimates that there are approximately 180 million accessible patients in the United States that they can connect to pharmacies for increased healthcare awareness and medication adherence.