Prof. John Urquhart, MD, FRCPE, FAAAS, FISPE, FBMES, FAAPS, HonFPM, corrFRSE, the father of quantitative research concerning medication adherence, passed away at the age of 81 in Palo Alto, California, on March 19th 2016.
He co‐founded and was the Chief Scientific Officer of AARDEX Ltd. and, with his development of the Medication Event Monitoring Systems (MEMS), led the way in describing patients’ adherence to medication. He found that patients could be categorised approximately into six categories of which only one (so about 17%) executed their regimen with absolute punctuality. The others deviated in some minor way but all deviations could only be detected by the MEMS monitors.
In 1996, Professor Urquhart initiated the first LowLands symposium on medication adherence, which later became the European Society for Patient Adherence, Compliance, and Persistence (ESPACOMP).
From 1970, Professor Urquhart worked in pharmaceutical product development at ALZA Corporation, spending 15 years developing drug delivery systems and pioneering the use of membrane technology in drug formulation to create rate‐controlled drug delivery systems. He was research director for most of those years, a co‐inventor of the transdermal form of scopolamine, and designed the experiment that showed the unique therapeutic value of nifedipine when the rate of its delivery was controlled at a near‐constant level, giving that drug markedly different pharmacodynamic characteristics than when given in a conventional, quick‐release dosage form.
Professor Urquhart served as Emeritus Extraordinary Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands since 1991 until his retirement in April 2004, concentrating on graduate education and research, and was an Adjunct Professor of Biopharmaceutical Sciences at University of California San Francisco Medical Centre since 1986. He co‐authored 3 books, over 150 scientific papers, and was named inventor on over 40 US Patents. As Professor of Physiology at University of Pittsburgh (1963‐70), he studied the nonlinear dynamics of ACTH action on adrenal steroid secretion, recognized by his selection to give the 14th Bowditch Lecture to the American Physiological Society (1969). He served as Scientific Advisor and Director to a number of private companies, was an Advisor to the Centre for Drug Development Sciences at Georgetown University and a Trustee of Kettering University. His many honours included the Borden Prize for Presidency of The Biomedical Engineering Society (1976), NIH Director's Advisory Committee (1986‐9), the 1993 External Review of the FDA 's Biometrics Division, an Honorary Doctorate (University of Utrecht, 1997), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1998) and of the AAAS (1999), and CASE Visiting Professorship at FDA (2001). He was a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Professor Urquhart received BA from Rice University in 1955 and an MD from Harvard Medical School in 1959.
He is survived by his wife Joan and his family and will be greatly missed by his many friends.
Breckenridge, A. , and Hughes, D. (2016) Prof. John Urquhart. Br J Clin Pharmacol, 82: 573. doi: 10.1111/bcp.12974.