After an unexpected illness, I found myself taking medication twice a day. My doctor and pharmacy were supportive, recommending a reminder app to keep me on track. At first, I liked the idea, but with all the notifications I already get, I lost interest in the app pretty fast.

Despite being motivated to take my medication (and making a half-hearted effort with the app), I often second-guessed myself. I’d stare at the pill bottle in the morning, trying to recall if I had taken last night’s dose, and debate whether missing a pill or doubling up was the right thing to do. By the end of the first month, I had five extra pills. By the second month, nine. I was worried my skipping was turning from a short-term holiday to a long-term vacation. This inconsistency sparked my curiosity—why is something that seems so simple actually so hard to keep up with?

It turns out, I’m far from alone. Nearly 50% of prescribed medications aren’t taken as directed, and adherence declines over time — a slippery slope with severe consequences. Poor medication adherence is a major public health challenge: it compromises health outcomes, drives up costs, and undermines treatment effectiveness. It’s cited as one of the top ten leading causes of death in the U.S., with preventable hospitalizations and complications costing the system hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Even a minor improvement—just 1% better adherence—could save Medicare and Medicaid $3 billion annually.

Despite remarkable advances in healthcare, some areas remain stuck in the past. Physicians still rely on fax machines, and pill bottle design has barely changed since the introduction of child-resistant caps in 1973. This lack of innovation led us to ask:

What if we can create a better pill-taking experience?

Current interventions and research primarily aim to transform non-adherent patients into adherent ones. While this strategy has the greatest potential to improve adherence rates, it is complex, expensive, and has achieved only limited success. The challenge mirrors a principle in marketing: acquiring new customers is significantly more resource-intensive — often costing seven times more — as it requires substantial investment in outreach and engagement. Retention strategies, on the other hand, focus on maintaining existing relationships through efficient, cost-effective means.

In healthcare, the same logic applies. Improving strategies to sustain and support adherent behaviors can prevent patients from becoming non-adherent in the first place. This mitigates the difficult and costly task of “reacquiring” patients who have become non-adherent.

This reframed our original question:

What if taking medication could be not just easier, but habit-forming—something people stick to effortlessly?

Enhancing adherence among already-engaged patients represents a powerful opportunity. Keeping people on track with their medications not only improves health outcomes but also fosters brand loyalty. In addition to making the pill taking seamless within patients’ existing routines, our approach needed to be:

• Simple

• Cost-effective

• Scalable

We ruled out solutions that were overly complex, expensive, or required patients to change their habits. Instead, we focused on simplicity. Our guiding question: What do people already do when taking their pills? The answer was clear—they remove and replace the cap.

So, we set out to design a cap that could enhance this existing habit. What if the cap itself could help track the next scheduled dose? Inspired by Richard Thaler’s Nobel Prize-winning nudge theory, RedCap uses visual and auditory nudges that encourage patients to develop an adherence habit by making it easy for them to follow dosing schedules.

RedCap is compatible with most industry-standard bottles, dosing schedules and high-speed fill lines and can be customized (e.g the shape, look, feel, size, sound and color of the cap can be changed) by your supplier or ours.

We’re proud to be based in Massachusetts, where we collaborate with our partners, including Fikst Product Development (a Re:Build Manufacturing Company), EPTAM Precision, F&M Tool & Die and Roehr Tool Solutions.

At the heart of our mission is a simple belief: small changes can make a big difference. Something as unassuming as a pill bottle cap can improve lives and ensure that every dose counts. With 5 billion prescription pill bottles used annually, we envision a future where RedCap becomes the gold standard—making the pill-taking experience better for everyone, one dose at a time.

Stein Skaane, Co-founder

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