The Top Line · Fierce Life Sciences

Putting patients first: from buzzword to business imperative (Sponsored)

·28 min·2 clips

Patient, GP and spouse each describe the same hypertension control differently, showing why Mark says all the jigsaw pieces are needed.

1. The Top Line, from Fierce Pharma and Fierce Biotech, devotes this sponsored episode from RTI Health Solutions to moving 'putting patients first' from buzzword to strategy in evidence generation, market access and medical communication. 2. Host Irina Lul speaks with Ash, a Senior Medical Affairs Lead who has run European medical strategy and launches, and Mark, who brings 25+ years of qualitative and quantitative health research across oncology, neurology and psychiatry. 3. Ash's thesis is that the patient voice is 'no longer anecdotal or symbolic' but 'a proactive catalyst' that should be built into strategy through shared work across R&D, medical, regulatory, market access and commercial teams. 4. Mark recommends formal, ongoing patient advisory boards of diverse patients and caregivers from early development, and validated PROs that capture daily function and health-related quality of life. 5. He adds that HTA bodies and payers increasingly want burden-of-illness data, such as time lost from work and caregiver costs, and that patient experts should be trained to give testimony at oral hearings. 6. Ash explains that patients, clinicians and payers define value differently, in terms of mobility and caregiver burden, randomized trial evidence, and 'dollars,' and she proposes patient-led medical writing, co-authored publications and patient ambassador programs. 7. Mark cites the Tuskegee syphilis study, which ran from 1932 to 1972, and a sickle cell anemia advocacy lead in the U.S. Midwest who told him that trusted people who 'look like them' influence trial participation. 8. Mark's hypertension joke, in which the patient, the GP and the spouse each describe the same blood pressure control differently, is used to argue for a 'jigsaw puzzle' of perspectives, and he proposes presenting clinicians with PRO vignettes, such as a 15% mobility improvement, in Delphi panels. 9. Ash recalls a colloquium where a patient described playing football with their child and driving again after a complete response, and she recommends that patient programs have no 'expiry date' and represent age, language, digital access and caregiving roles. 10. Suited to pharma, medical affairs, market access and HEOR professionals.

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