Placing Patients at the Heart of the Clinical Trial Ecosystem
Leads to successful trials & answering the needs of patients sooner
Hosted by Sanofi, the Heart of the Entire Clinical Trial Ecosystem symposium explored what patient centricity means to sponsors and site investigators in February 2022.
Patient-centric Clinical Research
Following presentations from Victoria DiBiaso, Global Head of Patient Informed Development & Health Value Translation and Ellen Price, Director of Patient Engagement with Meridian Clinical Research, it emerged that patient centricity takes an ecosystem fueled by the insight, energy and passion of site investigators, sponsors, clinical research organizations and most of all, the perspectives and real-world experiences of patients.
From a sponsor view, DiBiaso explained how Sanofi’s trials and clinical development programs are informed in alignment by the needs and priorities of sites and patients. With a key focus on trial optimization and simplification, Sanofi provides end-to-end support to sites, as they play a vital role in the clinical trial experience.
Sanofi’s research environment considers health value for the global patient community and physicians in its commitment to patient centricity, starting from the pre-clinical stages through post-approval of new medications. Patient-informed trials and development programs are shown to bring meaningful healthcare solutions to patients faster and offer a vital source of hope to people without available treatment options. Intentionally establishing elements of clinical trials and research programs based on patient insights, patient-reported outcomes and diversity and inclusion strategies is necessary to make clinical trials part of people’s health care continuum. After learning, from patient advisors how difficult it is to find studies, Sanofi launched Sanofistudies.com in 2021, which allows people to find clinical trials in their US geographic location (soon to be expanded to other countries). To illustrate the scope of Sanofi’s integrated approach, patients and caregivers advised 57 programs with 67 unique disease indications between Research and Development. This covers 100% of its clinical trials and they collaborated with Patient Advocacy Organizations from across 33 countries in 2021 on the advisement and public awareness of those studies.
Patient-centric Practices for Sites
Community advocacy is a critical component of site’s patient-centric toolkit. Price highlighted the power of partnering with advocates to build bridges between communities and clinical research sites. Patient participant advocates can help increase trust and access to study opportunities by successfully raising awareness, supplying educational materials and reassuring people that steps are taken to protect the rights and welfare of patients. Advocates also bring feedback to Meridian and their network of sites about barriers and obstacles to participation, allowing for improvement of the patient experience and Meridian’s operational processes.
The symposium concluded with breakout sessions for sites to share best practices on bringing the patient voice to the forefront of clinical trials. Several patient-centric trends at sites were raised, including fostering communication through patient testimonials on social media and local news channels, implementing decentralized clinical trials and collaborating on recruitment materials with sponsors.
