MeadWestvaco Corp. has acquired AARDEX Group SA, expanding its capabilities in adherence packaging with the Medication Event Monitoring Systems (MEMS) Cap for bottles. AARDEX Group designs and uses electronic medication event monitoring systems and applications to measure, analyze, and manage patient adherence in clinical drug trials.
 
AARDEX Group is led by scientists Dr. Bernard Vrijens and Dr. John Urquhart, who pioneered electronic medication event monitoring for compiling patients’ drug dosing histories during clinical trials. A small microcircuit, integrated into the drug package, records the time and date of each opening of the package. This technology has been employed in more than 500 clinical research studies.
 
“This acquisition builds on MWV’s long-standing commitment and scientific approach to showing medication packaging’s impact as an important adherence intervention,” said Bruce Thomas, president, MWV Healthcare and senior vice president, Global Innovation. “With the acquisition of AARDEX Group, MWV will now be able to provide customers with a complete range of packaging, data analysis and service solutions that address non-adherence to medications, from phase II clinical trials all the way through commercialization.”
 
 “The trend to measure patient adherence in the clinical drug development process is clearly growing,” said Dr. Bernard Vrijens, managing director, AARDEX Group and adjunct professor, University of Liège Faculty of Medicine. “MWV’s history in and commitment to better patient adherence, its ability to help AARDEX Group scale up its business, and its presence as a global and strategic supplier to many pharmaceutical companies make this a great fit for both companies.”
 
The AARDEX Group management team will remain in place and the team of 12 employees will become MWV employees. Dr. Bernard Vrijens will serve as managing director of AARDEX. Dr. John Urquhart will continue to work in the new organization as senior scientific advisor.