Of course, my name’s Ross Carroll. I’m the Public Affairs Director for the UK and Ireland for UCB pharma. Within that role, I’m responsible for government affairs, for trade association and industry engagement, and for patient-group interactions.
BLACK
Ross: Yeah, in my role, I would regularly engage with patient groups. For UCB, more broadly as an organisation, compliant engagement with patients and patient groups is very important for us in our organisational strategy. The reason for that is that UCB is committed to developing and delivering the right medicines for the right patients at the right time. That’s within the context of our therapy areas of expertise. Of course, to be able to do that, we need to understand in greater depth and knowledge who the right patients are. Ultimately, I think the only way to be able to do that is to get much closer to patients and patient groups in a compliant way, in order to be able to gain a greater understanding of disease biology and pathophysiology, but also to gain an understanding as to the patient experience of their condition and their disease. Also, to understand what an optimaltreatment outcome for patients may look like. By doing that, I think that enables us to better target our discovery research efforts and better stratify those efforts, but also to design things like clinical trials in a more patient focus and patient-centric way.
Ultimately, when our patients come to market, we’re better able to focus those medicines and some of the patient support programmes, programmes and initiatives that we would develop in support of the medicines, to the patients that would gain the most benefit from those medicines. I think that hopefully results in turn, in the patients that gain the most benefit, getting the most value from our medicines, and of course as an organisation, and the NHS also getting optimal value as well.
BLACK
Ross: Yeah, in my role, I would regularly engage with patient groups. For UCB, more broadly as an organisation, compliant engagement with patients and patient groups is very important for us in our organisational strategy. The reason for that is that UCB is committed to developing and delivering the right medicines for the right patients at the right time. That’s within the context of our therapy areas of expertise. Of course, to be able to do that, we need to understand in greater depth and knowledge who the right patients are. Ultimately, I think the only way to be able to do that is to get much closer to patients and patient groups in a compliant way, in order to be able to gain a greater understanding of disease biology and pathophysiology, but also to gain an understanding as to the patient experience of their condition and their disease. Also, to understand what an optimaltreatment outcome for patients may look like. By doing that, I think that enables us to better target our discovery research efforts and better stratify those efforts, but also to design things like clinical trials in a more patient focus and patient-centric way.
Ultimately, when our patients come to market, we’re better able to focus those medicines and some of the patient support programmes, programmes and initiatives that we would develop in support of the medicines, to the patients that would gain the most benefit from those medicines. I think that hopefully results in turn, in the patients that gain the most benefit, getting the most value from our medicines, and of course as an organisation, and the NHS also getting optimal value as well.
WHAT IMPACT HAS THE INVOLVEMENT ON PATIENT EXPERTS HAD ON YOUR WORK?
Ross: One specific project and collaboration that we worked with a patient group on recently that delivered very good outcomes was an epilepsy service enhancement project in NHS Dumfries and Galloway. This was an exciting project because it was a collaboration across the public, private, and third sectors. It involved Epilepsy Scotland as a patient group, NHS Dumfries and Galloway,ourselves, UCB, and another pharmaceutical company, GSK.
I think the project was one of the first of its kind because of the cross sectorial nature of the collaboration. I think certainly from the UCB point of view, it’s very important to recognise the contribution that Guy Armstrong and Elena Coward made in particular to the project from conception, through to coming through to fruition and the deliverance of some of the outcomes that were achieved from the project.
Specifically, the project started because in and around 2010/2011, the neurology services were extensively remodeled in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, but despite that, an area of opportunity for further improvement was the epilepsy service. I think the partners that were engaged in the collaboration specifically noted that up-skilling of primary care healthcare professionals was an area of opportunity, as well as generally raising the awareness of epilepsy across primary, secondary care and beyond. It was noted that a lack of resource but also clinician time led to patients not necessarily receiving as much information or optimal education around their condition, which in turn
Ross: One specific project and collaboration that we worked with a patient group on recently that delivered very good outcomes was an epilepsy service enhancement project in NHS Dumfries and Galloway. This was an exciting project because it was a collaboration across the public, private, and third sectors. It involved Epilepsy Scotland as a patient group, NHS Dumfries and Galloway,ourselves, UCB, and another pharmaceutical company, GSK.
I think the project was one of the first of its kind because of the cross sectorial nature of the collaboration. I think certainly from the UCB point of view, it’s very important to recognise the contribution that Guy Armstrong and Elena Coward made in particular to the project from conception, through to coming through to fruition and the deliverance of some of the outcomes that were achieved from the project.
Specifically, the project started because in and around 2010/2011, the neurology services were extensively remodeled in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, but despite that, an area of opportunity for further improvement was the epilepsy service. I think the partners that were engaged in the collaboration specifically noted that up-skilling of primary care healthcare professionals was an area of opportunity, as well as generally raising the awareness of epilepsy across primary, secondary care and beyond. It was noted that a lack of resource but also clinician time led to patients not necessarily receiving as much information or optimal education around their condition, which in turn