Abstract:
Pharmaceutical companies face the problem of how to project the persistency patterns of patients who are taking their manufactured medications – i.e., how to determine the percentage of patients who will continue to refill a given prescription on a timely basis. The authors have developed a probability model with a well-grounded story for the dropout process. The model, which can be implemented in a simple Excel spreadsheet, provides remarkably accurate forecasts as well as other useful diagnostics about patient persistency. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2007