Patients, partnerships and innovation – Exploring the future of rheumatology at EULAR 2023

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 09:11:10 +0000

Athanasia Gkiouleka, Rheumatology Mission

Vanco Vlastimi… Thu 01/06/2023 - 11:11

The future of rheumatology presents a level of optimism we have not seen before, with innovation and science consistently improving the lives of people living with rheumatic diseases. This is clear to see at EULAR – the annual congress held by the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology – held this month in Milan, Italy.

EULAR brings together experts from across the world to discuss the latest and greatest ground-breaking research in rheumatology across multiple diseases – many of which have remaining high unmet needs requiring effective solutions.

I’m excited to be part of the discussion in rheumatology alongside experts in the field. Here at ��ֳ�, we welcome the opportunity to transform the lives of people living with both immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and osteoporosis. At this year’s EULAR, we are presenting 23 abstracts that highlight not only our expanding rheumatology portfolio but also our enduring effort to advance care for diverse immune-mediated inflammatory conditions.

Our approach to supporting people living with chronic rheumatic diseases is centered on three things:

Patients – we deeply care about patients and want to understand their perspective, and so we listen and observe what they’re doing, what they need, what they want and what they hope for.
Partnerships – we partner with the medical community, patient organizations, payers and other stakeholders to offer the most appropriate solutions to improve patients’ lives.
Innovation – we are bold, not only in our science, our research, and our development, but we are also bold in how we connect to our patients’ world to deliver for them.

This approach underpins our entire rheumatology strategy and through our research, we push ourselves to address the prominent unmet needs of three key groups of people living with rheumatic diseases – our core populations for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), those living with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and osteoporosis, and lastly, new populations of remaining high unmet need such as in fibromyalgia. We’re delighted to present new data across two of these areas at EULAR – our core populations of PsA and axSpA, and SLE.

Enhancing quality of life in PsA and axSpA

The evolution of our rheumatology portfolio enables us to deliver and expand value for people living with axSpA and PsA, to support a better quality of life. At EULAR we are excited to present data in active PsA. In addition to this, we are also presenting results from studies which explore potential new solutions to treat the full spectrum of axSpA (encompassing non-radiographic axSpA and ankylosing spondylitis).i,ii We’re hopeful that these results will take us a step closer to improving the lives of people living with PsA and axSpA.

Our innovative pipeline

Our pipeline is focused on driving scientific advancements in chronic autoimmune diseases where there is an extremely high unmet need and great potential to provide long-term value for patients. We are determined to help ease the burden of people suffering from diseases like SLE and provide them with new options.

The future

We are lucky to live in an era that allows us to deepen our understanding of rheumatic diseases and explore innovative and novel ways to support patients. We are committed to continuing our work with patients, organizations, and the medical community to reduce the time to diagnosis and support quicker access to biologic therapies alongside our innovative portfolio of products in order to build our offering and further help people live better lives.

For me, what I ultimately hope is that we will not stop until we find solutions for all patients, and I’m excited for what the future holds and the possibilities we will be able to explore.

about ucb

365 Likes

New patient-centred framework informs ��ֳ�’s approach to R&D drug development and ensures patients are at the heart of creating our innovative solutions

Vanco Vlastimil (��ֳ� S.A.) — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:54:33 +0000

New patient-centred framework informs ��ֳ�’s approach to R&D drug development and ensures patients are at the heart of creating our innovative solutions

Becky Malone, Patient Value Development Solutions

Vanco Vlastimi… Mon 21/03/2022 - 11:54

As part of its commitment to create innovative solutions and transform the lives of people living with severe diseases, ��ֳ� has developed and implemented a new framework centred around its most important stakeholder – the patient. ��ֳ�’s new robust end-to-end framework, designed to ensure that patients and key stakeholders provide direct input as early as possible into the overall strategy behind research and development programs, as well as the entire drug lifecycle, will play a vital role in achieving successful outcomes for patient communities in the future.

Over the last decade, patients have been increasingly active and empowered when it comes to decisions concerning their health. Traditionally patients were viewed by pharmaceutical companies as simply customers, nowadays they are considered true partners working towards a collective goal. As a result of this patient role progression, the pharmaceutical industry has embraced the notion of patient centricity, which places importance on patients as ‘co-creators’ in the R&D process.

Patient engagement is no longer simply about validating assumptions or having patients participate in research; instead, it has become far more valuable to co-create solutions that tackle the diverse challenges that matter most to them as individuals and their caregivers.

Critical to ��ֳ�’s patient-centred framework is inclusion of the patient voice early in the R&D process, ensuring their needs are understood and embedded early in the research to help inform decisions. It is a vital part of gaining a holistic and 360-degree data-enabled view of the patient and involves working together to answer critical questions along the lifecycle of drug development.

This adds tremendous value by ensuring that patient perspectives form the basis of future operations and outcomes. In tandem, it provides an opportunity for patients to offer insights into unmet areas of need, on outcomes that matter most to them and potential areas of concern regarding study designs.

As an example, ��ֳ� recently constructed the formulation, refinement and first evaluations of a new evidence-based approach to measure fatigue in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), called FATIGUE- PRO (Patient Reported Outcomes) – developed in tandem with patients who described their direct and explicit experiences of living with the condition.

��ֳ� understood patients’ concerns that many instruments currently used to measure fatigue come with limitations such as not addressing the breadth of fatigue experienced by those living with the condition. The research team collected qualitative data throughout the process, refining the parameters, including physical fatigue, cognitive fatigue and susceptibility to fatigue, based on patient evidence. The final outcome was a new PRO instrument to measure fatigue that addresses the conceptional limitations of current tools, and that will have a significant impact on the lives of SLE patients.

The new patient-centred framework supports ��ֳ�’s scientists as they look to advance their understanding of human and disease biology. Listening and learning from patients at the earliest stages of research support a deeper appreciation of patients’ reality and unmet needs, allowing them to turn science into meaningful solutions that will transform the way diseases are treated.

In another recent instance of patient co-creation, ��ֳ� engaged with a Think Tank to ensure the patient voice was accurately reflected in their benefit risk assessments. By receiving this insight first-hand in a collaborative environment, ��ֳ� can better determine the risks and benefits of a treatment, leading to improved outcomes for patients down the line.

It’s clear that patients are at the heart of everything ��ֳ� does, and along with the pharmaceutical industry, as a whole, is embracing the role of patients as agents in their own healthcare journey. By partnering with patients in a specially designed patient-centric framework, and thus providing patients a more meaningful experience and role as co-creators, more impactful patient outcomes are on the horizon.

solutions

Patients R&D patient centricity SLE FATIGUE-PRO

597 Likes

SLE

Patients, partnerships and innovation – Exploring the future of rheumatology at EULAR 2023

Leave a Comment

New patient-centred framework informs ��ֳ�’s approach to R&D drug development and ensures patients are at the heart of creating our innovative solutions

Leave a Comment

SLE

Patients, partnerships and innovation – Exploring the future of rheumatology at EULAR 2023

Leave a Comment

New patient-centred framework informs ������ֳ�’s approach to R&D drug development and ensures patients are at the heart of creating our innovative solutions

Leave a Comment

New patient-centred framework informs ��ֳ�’s approach to R&D drug development and ensures patients are at the heart of creating our innovative solutions