Patient Engagement

Patients should not only be thought of as only candidates for clinical trials, but should instead be included in the design of drug discovery programs. This can help to ensure that study protocols are not overly burdensome to patients, and that treatment benefits are properly assessed. The result of this shift in thinking has shown that biomarkers and surrogate endpoints may not always be as meaningful to patients as other metrics, such as health-related quality of life or impact on daily activities. By putting patients at the center of research, we can help you:

• Improve trial design/protocols, recruitment, and retention by better understanding barriers to participation and adherence to study procedures
• Identify, modify, and develop new clinical outcomes assessments (COAs) to document treatment benefit from the perspective of patients
• Interact with key regulatory bodies (such as the FDA and EMA) to ensure the voice of patients is adequately captured in clinical trials, which may also form the basis of labelling claims based on patient-centered endpoints
• Conduct interviews with patients while they are in clinical trials to document their burden of disease and diagnostic journey (entry interviews) and the level of change they experienced while on treatment throughout the trial (exit interviews)

Regulators and health technology assessment bodies are increasingly embracing patient experience data and real world evidence, and this has helped to incorporate the voice of patients, their families, and caregivers into product development. Our teams have deep and diverse experience in:

• Patient and caregiver market research
• Identifying the burden of disease
• Patient needs assessment
• Patient profiling and segmentation
• Patient communications evaluation
• Social media listening, ad hoc and syndicated reports with Sonar
• Patient advisory boards and councils
• Patient experience data planning
• User experience and design optimization
• Real world evidence design and generation

We use a variety of market research methodologies to amplify the patient voice and generate relevant insights to solve your business issue, including quantitative and qualitative methodologies, self-ethnography and observational research, social media listening, advisory boards, and online forums.

A clear understanding and mapping of the patient journey can provide insight into the lived experience of those with a disease, validate the diagnostic and treatment management processes, and identify the primary stakeholders and key-decision influencers. Tap into our web-based digital mapping tool – Pathway – or allow us to design the patient journey research needed, whether it’s a tactical patient flow map, buying process, or an experiential journey complete with the clinical, functional, and emotional impact of living with a disease.

We have deep experience creating and conducting:

• Patient experiential journeys (custom, or via our web-based tool, Pathway)
• Patient treatment flows
• Identifying patient and HCP relationship dynamics and disconnects
• Treatment adherence and experience research
• Patient support program development and optimization research

Successful development and launch of a medical innovation requires an ecosystem of stakeholders, including patients, to develop needs-based patient engagement programs. We can help you develop a patient-centric vision and agile, innovative strategy and robust plan for your product. Our patient engagement experts can help you with:

• Patent stakeholder engagement strategy
• Point-of-care engagement strategies
• Patient scientific platform, messaging, and lexicon development
• Patient publication planning
• Multi-stakeholder advisory councils/panels
• Patient advocacy development

At launch and beyond, systematic patient involvement can help ensure effective and impactful adoption and use of medical innovations, improve the ongoing benefit-risk assessment, and identify possibilities for further development. Critically, ongoing engagement of patients and patient communities ensures that their needs are reflected in research program design, and supports adoption and lifecycle management. Patient advocates and associations are also important partners in the development of medicines, especially in the post-launch phase to support regulatory assessment, community engagement, and education. We can help with:

• Patient education
• Patient communications and publications
• Marketing support
• Multi and omni channel strategy, including social media
• Digital health strategy and applications
• Patient support programs
• Patient advocacy development and partnerships
• HTA assessments and engagement
• Metrics development and project assessment
• Marketing campaigns grounded in behavioral science expertise