The landscape of healthcare is constantly evolving. But today it’s all obvious that incorporating the patient’s perspective into value strategies has become essential.
Health agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are willing to approve treatments that the patient really needs. Healthcare agencies and, more generally, healthcare systems around the world want to provide care that is not only effective, but also patient centered. To achieve this goal, they need to understand and integrate patients’ needs, preferences and experiences into all phases of new treatment development.
This article explores practical ways of integrating the patient perspective into value strategy, to ensure that future patient healthcare solutions are not only clinically effective, but also fully meet patients’ deepest needs. To answer the question “How to integrate the patient perspective into your value strategy?”, we’ll start with possibilities on how to integrate the patient’s perspective right from the clinical development phases, moving on to possibilities during the market access phase and finally ending with suggestions once the product is on the market, including with certain subtleties depending on the therapeutic area.
Clinical development
Engaging patients in early decision-making processes is possible and advantageous. Choosing a patient-centric approach, as early as possible can be beneficial in order to select the soonest the solution that best meets the patient’s needs. Engaging patients from the outset can be realistic by involving them in the endpoint optimization process, for example. This can be very useful in ensuring that the primary and secondary endpoints match patient expectations.
Moreover, when assessing the feasibility of a protocol, it is also possible to integrate the patient’s point of view. Indeed, testing a protocol by asking patients directly to thank the Carenity community in order to optimize patient recruitment and retention is also a way of ensuring that the majority of future patients will be willing to take part in the study.
Involving patients in early decision-making processes can also help anticipate possible blockages in the target product profile as early as possible, such as improving the acceptability and adherence of a new drug.
Market access
Now regarding market access, understanding the burden of disease and everyday challenges in terms of quality of life for patients is essential. Indeed, it has become a key factor in the construction of applications for market authorization, price negotiation and reimbursement.
And to obtain this type of information on the burden of disease or quality of life, it’s obvious that asking patients directly about their needs, preferences and perspectives is the way to go.
Preference studies are a means of identifying which treatments are preferred (in terms of route of administration, for example) in order to justify to the regulatory agencies that the choices are validated by the patients who will be the users of the treatments.
The perspective of patients and their caregivers is now essential for regulatory agencies who want to authorize treatments on the market that will be useful and that patients really need.
Rare disease
Beyond the clinical development and market access phases, it is also important to collect patient data throughout the life of the treatment, including when it is on the market.
Integrating the patient’s point of view can also prove beneficial in therapeutic areas where there is relatively little literature, such as rare diseases. Indeed, reaching patients directly in this type of context, where data is hard to come by, is extremely useful in creating value where it is needed for the patient.
Conclusion
Integrating patients’ needs, preferences and experiences into all phases of new treatment development is possible, from clinical phases to end of product life cycle. Carenity, with its community of over 500,000 members worldwide, can help you to integrate the patient perspective into your value strategy.
