Digital Pharma: First pharma iPad apps

Pfizer’s Mon Krono Santé app for the iPad

The first big pharma apps specially designed for Apple’s iPad have started to emerge, with Pfizer and Sanofi leading the charge with upgrades to their existing iPhone apps.

The free apps, a health record for chronic disease sufferers and another for making healthy food choices, are sure to be followed others as more companies tap into the enthusiasm for Apple’s touch screen tablet computer.

Pfizer’s Mon Krono Santé app is styled as an aide-memoire for the general public, and offers a health record for chronic disease sufferers.

Originally launched in March this year for the iPhone, it has recently received an upgrade that saw it become the first app from big pharma to be designed specifically for the iPad.

It allows users to store their personal medical information, including medical advice given to them, and synchronise the data with a computer – their own or their doctor’s - that has the PC or Mac version of the app installed.

Meanwhile, Sanofi-Aventis’ GoMeals app was first released for the iPhone last year and earlier this week became the second app from a big pharma company to be released in a version for the iPad.

Although the app can be used by anyone interested in healthy eating, it is aimed at people like diabetics, whose condition can make obtaining nutritional information critically important.

GoMeals combines three tools - a nutritional database, a food-tracking tool to record meals and a restaurant locator, and Sanofi’s promotional efforts behind it include a GoMeals Twitter account.

The availability of apps mirrors the internet’s own lack of geographical boundaries. So, although GoMeals is produced by Sanofi’s US arm, and Mon Krono Santé by Pfizer’s French operation, both seem freely available to any iTunes user.

Big pharma iPhone apps

There are already over 11,000 specially-created apps for the iPad, and the device will run almost all of the more than 225,000 already created for the iPhone.

These include a growing band of iPhone apps developed by big pharma, with not just Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis, but also Novartis and a number of others getting in on the act.

• With the transition of apps from iPhone to iPad already started, next week the Digital Pharma blog will present the next likely contenders with a roundup of big pharma’s iPhone apps.

Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.