Sonara Health has been granted a U.S. patent for creating a tamper-evident label that facilitates the safe consumption of methadone at home to treat opioid use disorder and fight America’s opioid crisis.
Sonara Health’s remote medication monitoring system includes a tamper-evident label, a patient-facing web application to guide the patient’s daily consumption of methadone at home and a clinician-facing web application to remotely, asynchronously, observe patients dosing. The Sonara remote medication monitoring system helps eliminate the need for patients to visit a clinic every day, which is often a barrier for people who live far away from clinics or who have jobs and family obligations.
Methadone is among the most effective medications approved by the FDA to treat opioid use disorder.
“In a world where we send billionaires to space in reusable rockets, I thought we ought to be able to create a solution that helps patients with opioid use disorder to get their daily medication in a way that does not disrupt their daily lives, all while preserving the safety and efficacy of a proven delivery system,” said Michael Giles, M.D., and CEO of Sonara Health.
The Mark Cuban-backed health-tech company was designed to improve patient-provider trust and promote access to take-home methadone for opioid treatment programs and their patients. Sonara’s mission is to end the opioid epidemic. Staggering data from the CDC showed over 100,000 people died from drug overdoses last year and about two-thirds of those deaths involved fentanyl or another synthetic opioid.
The Sonara medication monitoring system is simple. The patient scans the QR code on the methadone bottle with their smartphone and follows the steps provided for dosing-at-home. Once scanned and opened, the QR code is voided and the label indicates that it has been opened. The phone’s camera then turns on and a video stream of the patient drinking the methadone is uploaded to the clinician-facing application for the care team to review and ensure proper medication handling.
Early adopters of Sonara include the following opioid treatment programs:
BayMark Health Services, Inc.
BAART, Market Street, San Francisco, CA
BAART, Norwood, Sacramento, CA
HCRC, New Bedford, MA
RSONM, Five Points, Albuquerque, NM (coming soon)
RSONM, Roswell, NM (coming soon)
CODA, Inc.
CODA, Portland, OR
CODA, Seaside, OR
New Season Treatment Centers
Augusta Metro Treatment Center, Augusta, GA