Patient Advisory Boards allow pharmaceutical and biotech companies to generate detailed patient related information and insights to better fine tune overall strategy and drug development.
What are Patient advisory boards?
- A small group (often 5 to 10) of patient experts to discuss on certain topics of interest in product life cycle and provide key actionable feedback.
- Direct access to the patient insights is crucial in life cycle management of drugs.
Patient advisory boards can help with:
- Clinical Trial: Estimate feasibility of a clinical trial and enhance patient recruitment and reduce trial dropout
- Patient reported outcomes (PROs): Allow Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) team to test the importance of specific PROs
- Early access program (EAP): Help in co-designing an early access program (EAP)
- Patient centric marketing strategy: A tailored strategy to co-create solutions with patients
A well organized and facilitated patient advisory board can improve speed to market and return on investment (ROI).
5 things to know for a successful Patient advisory board
1. Selecting the right group of patient panel
Success of a patient advisory board depends on the right patient panel selection.
2. Comprehensive moderation guide
An effective and comprehensive moderation guide is a key tool for a successful patient advisory board. It outlines the structure of the discussion and help facilitate a balanced meeting.
3. Touching sensitive topics in discussion
It is important not to cherry pick topics which are positive from a product point of view for discussion. Sensitive topics like adverse events (AE) are equally, if not more, important as a part of discussion. When this type of sensitive topic is not discussed the drug launching companies miss an opportunity to get direct insights from patients about it.
4. Holistic impact
The patient engagement approach should be holistic from a cross functional (medical affairs, market access, marketing, and medical information) point of view of the sponsor.
5. Integrate outcomes with the unmet needs of the patient
Patient Advisory Boards can help in translating the meeting outcomes into clinical protocols, market access, core medical affairs or marketing plans and can address business requirements to cover the actual unmet needs of the patient.
Why partner with Inside Health Communication?
Organizing a patient advisory board requires thorough preparation, focused strategy, and thoughtful execution. The internal capabilities of Inside Health Communications in medical affairs, patient engagement and strategy can help sponsors get the most out of each meeting with patients addressing all the above five important points.