The Science

The inappropriate use of medication is a major cause of death in the U.S. and around the world.

Fragmented healthcare systems have prevented physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers from adequately addressing the issues associated with polypharmacy: taking several medications, prescribed by multiple providers, all at the same time. Since the 1970s, healthcare providers have relied on traditional drug interaction systems that only analyze one-drug-to-one-drug interactions and simply report that this information “has been found in the literature.”

Until GalenusRx.

Healthcare providers need a trusted tool for optimizing medication safety and efficacy

Almost 40% of adults in the U.S. take three or more prescription medications, and often alongside over-the-counter, herbal, and recreational drugs. Traditional drug interaction systems cannot evaluate multi-drug, multi-gene interactions simultaneously. The multiple comparisons required to assess the appropriateness of a medication regimen result in time-intensive workflows and contradictory alerts. And the results are binary, without insight into the underlying drug disposition processes causing the interactions.

With GalenusRx, this can be done in 15 milliseconds with precise results.

Current Situation

Drug-drug interaction software that exists today works through an assortment of disconnected tools. They assess single one-drug to one-drug interactions at a time.
The multiple comparisons required to assess appropriateness of a drug regimen in patients with polypharmacy result in an inefficient workflow and in contradictory alerts.
Even by doing so, the results are binary – there is no insight into what underlying drug disposition processes are causing the multi-drug interactions.

Case Example

An individual’s medication regimen comprised of 17 different prescription and over-the-counter medications required a pharmacist clinician 40 hours to identify the multi-drug, drug-gene, and the ingestion of other data to identify the APPRAISE Level of Concern manually. The automation that GalenusRx has developed took less than 15 milliseconds to process with precise results.

Personalized, precise, and predictive medication safety technology

GalenusRx has developed a concrete, complete, and scalable way for healthcare providers to assess how multi-drug regimens interact with each other, and with a patient’s genetic makeup and health conditions. Our proprietary algorithms and visualizations provide an instant understanding of complex clinical information, leading to early detection of medication safety concerns—especially in patients with multiple diseases taking multiple medications.

Newly developed, proprietary algorithms created using clinically informed artificial intelligence and machine learning from human data.

Proprietary visualizations for a rapid understanding of complex information leading to early detection of medication safety concerns

A unique interpretation of pharmacogenomic results, considering "phenoconversion" and other factors

The underlying science of medication safety

The APPRAISE™ (Actionable PolyPharmacy Risk Assessment Index for Safety and Equity) has been 100% custom designed by GalenusRx. The platform creates an ‘Appraisal’ index of medication safety based upon population or individual medication regimen and disease complexity. The APPRAISE gives patients and providers the knowledge they need to improve medication regimen safety and promote better health outcomes, including reductions in total medical cost.

Our clinical team has developed proprietary algorithms that consider five types of drug interactions in the body. These algorithms consider the latest scientific findings in pharmacokinetics (how the body affects drugs), pharmacogenomics (how genes affect drugs), pharmacodynamics (how drugs affect the body), and chronopharmacology (how the biological clock affects drugs).

Five factors of drug interactions

Drug-Drug

Drug-drug interactions occur when two or more drugs react with each other. These interactions can cause unexpected side effects including making medications less effective and even harmful. The APPRAISE provides actionable insights to resolve and avoid preventable adverse drug events.

Drug-Disease

Drug-disease interactions are important considerations because inflammatory diseases have been shown to change drug metabolism in the gut, warranting dosage adjustments. The APPRAISE is the first tool of its kind to consider how drug doses can be adjusted based on drug-disease interactions.

Drug-Gene

Drug-gene interactions occur when an individual does not have one or more genes required to activate or eliminate a medication. The APPRAISE can incorporate pharmacogenomic test results to pinpoint these interactions. Furthermore, the APPRAISE considers phenoconversion: when an individual’s genes act differently than their genotype suggests, based on environmental factors such as multi-drug interactions.

Drug-Drug-Gene

Drug-drug-gene interactions occur when multiple medications require one or more of the same gene pathways for metabolism. The reality is that each gene pathway can only metabolize one drug at a time, so the medications must “compete” with each other, causing one or medications to be less effective and even harmful.

Drug-Food

Drug-food interactions occur when a certain food makes a medication less effective or causes unwanted side effects. Examples include grapefruit interacting with cholesterol-lowering drugs (e.g., statins) or leafy green vegetables interacting with blood-thinning drugs (e.g., warfarin).

Our Predictive Platform, in Practice

Clinical users can address multi-drug interactions in patients with an array of chronic diseases, also in consideration of their pharmacogenomic test results, lifestyle, and medication care goals, and other factors.

Pharmacogenomic (PGx) test results are incorporated into the APPRAISE solution with computational tools for easy pharmacogenomic data interpretation. Clinical users can quickly detect concerning drug combinations and take action to avoid adverse drug events, based on the patient’s genotype and observed phenotype.
Clinical users can easily narrow down medication choices and personalize medication regimens, including precision dosing.
API/embeddable suite of solutions that integrate into existing health platforms (EHR/EMR). Easy-to-use interface with real-time notifications with demonstrated high likelihood of user- adoption.

Medication regimens identified with high concern can be improved when actionable insights are implemented.

The APPRAISE science benefits every patient and every healthcare provider

Patients

Individual patients benefit by having their medication regimen made safer, more effective, and personalized just for them. Precision Clinical Pharmacists help reduce concern levels, giving patients piece of mind, improving health outcomes, and avoiding preventable adverse drug events—including the potential for premature death from their medications.

Providers

Healthcare providers benefit from having the support of GalenusRx’s advanced science for efficient medication regimen analysis along with actionable insights and recommendations. APPRAISE clinical decision support saves time by simultaneously processing many types of drug interactions, and allowing for real-time simulation of regimen changes. In addition, improved clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes are highly valued by all types of payers including self, government, and commercial.

GalenusRx brings an advanced solution, scalable model, and 3:1 or greater ROI that can be implemented within sixty days and realized in the same year.

Over the last four decades, founders of GalenusRx have contributed over 200 peer-reviewed articles in the literature that support improved outcomes from drug-disposition science-based technologies and implemented recommendations by highly skilled and trained pharmacists.

Inappropriate use of medications is a top five major cause of death and morbidity in the US and around the world.