Patients can now provide pharmaceutical manufacturers with real-time feedback on prescription medicines they are taking following the launch of a new app by rXperius, a Raleigh, NC-based company that specializes in the design of innovative technology platforms.

The MedXer app, which can be downloaded from the Apple and Google app stores, is the first prescription survey app that allows patients to give feedback on their medications in real time, and over time. MedXer pays patients for their experiences.

The insights collected by the app will support the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to further improve patients’ lives by providing actionable data on patients’ individual experiences. MedXer is designed to complement other data analytics on consumer insights that drugmakers are already collecting.

“We know how hard it can be for pharma to reach their true end users – patients. Pharmaceutical companies only receive direct feedback from a limited number of patients. Often, they have to rely on second- or third-hand information to gain any kind of understanding of patients’ medicines experiences. MedXer will bring the patients’ story to the manufacturer in a dynamic and actionable way,” Steve Castillo, Founder of rXperius said.

Pharmaceutical companies will have access to an interactive dashboard that is updated daily to reflect the latest information collected through the app. All patient data is anonymized and aggregated before it is shared with third parties.

The stakes for the pharmaceutical industry are high; manufacturers only have around five to seven years to recover the money they invest in bringing a medicine to market. A company will typically spend around US $ 3.5 billion developing and launching a drug, but 40 percent of recent drug launches have failed to achieve a return on investment.

Since the launch of MedXer on January 1, approximately eight percent of people who have viewed the app have downloaded it, above market trends of 1-2%.

MedXer, which is currently available for migraine and depression medications, will be expanded to include medicines from other disease areas following completion of the initial launch phase.