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Thought leadership and innovation for the Pharmaceutical Industry

We have whittled it down to the final five. Here are the contenders for the Most Valuable Collaboration award

By Adam Chapman on Feb 12, 2019

What makes our species so unique is our ability to spread ideas. This cross-pollination has enabled peace and prosperity to flourish, and ignorance to be supplanted by understanding.

Each of the innovative programs recognized in this year’s awards have made a meaningful contribution to improving people’s lives. Perhaps they have eased the burden on patients, or helped HCPs navigate the demands of their job, or entered a fruitful collaboration. Through sharing their ideas, we hope you too will be inspired.

The winner of this award will be a pharma-pharma or pharma-non-pharma initiative which clearly brings a new proposition to customers and/or healthcare systems, creates new value and redefines what is possible in our industry with a degree of lateral thinking. There is no limit to the number of parties who might be involved in the collaboration, however each collaboration must involve at least one biopharmaceutical company.

Here are the finalists:

Embracing Carers ™
EMD Serono

Embracing Carers™ is a global initiative led by EMD Serono, in collaboration with nine leading caregiver organizations around the world, designed to increase awareness, discussion, and action about the often-overlooked needs of caregivers. Given that caregivers often put the needs of others before themselves, Embracing Carers™ seeks to build connections and implement practical solutions to support caregivers.

The topic of caregiving was identified through conversations with the global healthcare and patient community, identifying caregiving as one of the largest, unaddressed public health issues of our time.

In collaboration with the nine leading caregiver organization advisors, Embracing Carers identified four pillars of activity including; awareness raising, stakeholder engagement, healthcare system integration, and policy activation. The identification of global Embracing Carers activities seeks to further the goals of each of these focus areas.

Embracing Carers has generated a new bank of knowledge on the overarching needs of caregivers, the specific and unique needs of caregivers supporting patients with individual conditions, as well as opportunities for improved healthcare system integration of caregiver supports.

MyHealthysexualStory: Breaking down barriers in HIV vulnerable communities
Gilead Sciences, Health Unlimited

For all its ills, the internet has been a powerful force for good. It has spread liberal ideas and enlightened the ignorant. The MyHealthysexualStory campaign is a testament to this triumph.

The Healthysexual campaign by Gilead Sciences established a general platform to highlight HIV prevention. It launched first on Tumblr in 2017 and expanded in 2018 to include a central website supported by paid national TV advertising.

Gilead Sciences developed MyHealthysexualStory (MHS) to directly reach those most vulnerable to HIV and motivate them withempowering, sex-positive and stigma-smashing messaging that builds awareness of HIV prevention and encourages them to speak with their partner(s) and health care provider about sexual health.

Since the cascading launch on July 9, social media engagement increased on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook among black gay and bisexual men, transgender women, and Hispanic/Latinx communities about the empowering, sex-positive and stigma-smashing MHS campaign and content. The videos and accompanying clips have been viewed more than 287,000 times across the social channels (e.g., Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) of the influencers and CBOs.

Views on YouTube generated almost 24,000 additional views (11,500+ for Carmen, 7,200+ for Julian and 5,100+ for Daniel) for a grand total of 311,000+.

Hemocraft – Reimagining Patient Education
Pfizer Inc, Drexel University, National Hemophilia Foundation (NHF)

Gamification is a growing area of interest for pharma companies as they explore new ways to engage patients. Pfizer’s US rare disease team recognized its potential as an education tool for young patients, who feel out of step with outdated educational resources.    

In partnership with the Entrepreneurial Game Studio at Drexel University, the National Hemophilia Foundation, and members of the hemophilia community, Pfizer Hemophilia developed HEMOCRAFT—an educational tool that aims to teach kids the importance of staying prepared and sticking to their treatment plan.

The game allows players to explore a whole new world while learning the importance of managing their hemophilia and sticking to their treatment plan.  Students will follow a unique quest, where along the way, they will be forced to gather factor, assemble their own device and simulate the reconstitution process. 

Hemocraft has gained notable media traction. Twelve original media placements reached an audience of more than 25M. The press release was picked up by 310 online outlets including Yahoo! Finance, Seeking Alpha, and The Wall Street Journal. Readers shared the Hemocraft news on social media, with Twitter being the most popular channel, gaining more than 350 mentions by more than 270 unique handles, resulting in an estimated 1.2M impressions.

Those playing the game over this past year enjoyed it enough to comeback more 4 times per average user and to cumulatively spend over 3.5 hours each learning in this digital environment.  Looking forward, we will are planning to work with patient and provider groups to identify new settings where the game can be utilized.

Ensemble-Managing Cancer at Work
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation and Johns Hopkins Medicine

"You have cancer." Those three words can change life in an instant. Questions about the diagnosis, treatment options and managing work become top of mind.

That is why Novartis collaborated with Johns Hopkins Medicine to create Ensemble: Managing Cancer at Work. Ensemble is a supportive community originally developed by Novartis to help associates and their loved ones or colleagues whose lives are touched by cancer.

Novartis recognized the opportunity to partner with Johns Hopkins Medicine – which had launched its own Managing Cancer at Work program with a similar focus – to create the combined initiative.

Knowing that the cancer journey can be so complex, the program was designed with simplicity in mind and provides expert support from a renowned research and clinical center. Ensemble provides helpful resources and quality health, emotional and physical support with information on how to prevent cancer, recognize its early warning signs, and manage treatment to optimize health and well-being.

Nurse Navigators listen with compassion and complete confidentiality, providing guidance on medical resources and work issues, with the ability to direct questions to other appropriate resources.

Novartis implemented Ensemble as an extension of its mission to improve patient’s lives. Because of the success of Ensemble – and the increased awareness achieved with the Hopkins’ collaboration – the program is growing globally. Novartis often shares the story of Ensemble-Managing Cancer at Work with external organizations such as the CEO Roundtable on Cancer to highlight the power and value of partnership.

HemMobile® Striiv® Wearable
Pfizer, Striiv

The ease, interactivity and synchronicity of wearables and apps make them a natural fit for disease management. The HemMobile^® Striiv^® Wearable, the first wearable made for patients with hemophilia, offers an easy-to-use, comprehensive tool to track activity.

The device, which can be worn on the wrist, has several useful features including tracking daily activity levels and monitoring heart rate to measure intensity. The wristband integrates with Pfizer’s existing HemMobile^® app, which allows users to log bleeds and infusions, monitor their factor supply, and set appointment reminders. The data captured can generate personalized reports to provide a user’s health care team with insights that can help guide the discussion between a physician and their patient.

The HemMobile Striiv Wearable is available at no charge to anyone diagnosed with hemophilia in the US, regardless of what treatment they use, and more information about ordering can be found at patients’ doctors’ offices or hemophilia treatment centers. Patients should consult with their health care professional about which activities might be appropriate for them.

Since the launch last August, over 800 patients have applied for and received a wearable, which represents nearly 5% of the total US patient population, and we continue to receive requests from about 50-100 new patients each month. Most importantly, we believe this means that over 800 new conversations have taken place in the past year between patients and their physicians to better understand activity levels and how they impact hemophilia management.

Your exclusive opportunity to witness these, plus many other real world, successful case studies awaits! Find out more about the Awards Pitch Day North America here.