The future of patient value

Ahead of the 2019 eyeforpharma Barcelona conference, we asked speaker and awards judge Heather Moses – head of medical affairs at Roche – what she is looking for in winning patient initiatives and how Roche is approaching the future of the industry.

Tell us about your current role

Roche UK’s head of medical affairs roles encompass the leadership of the medical affairs organisation as a whole, as well as focussing specifically on strategic coaching of franchise disease area medical management, and above-franchise specialty services, excellence, and operations.

My current focus is on our innovative Medical Information group; Medical Excellence and Operations, which empowers the Medical Affairs organisation through structures, value metrics and competency; Medical Writing towards high impact Health Technology Assessment submissions; Medical Affairs Programmes such as Early Access to Medicines Schemes (EAMS), key GXP programmes, and holistic patient access and data generation strategy; and our Medical Final Signatory organisation, enabling teams to focus on the right work, in the right way.

What are likely to be the biggest trends that will affect your work in 2019?

We all need to make sense of the complexity of today’s vast research and healthcare data, transforming the way we seek targets, develop medicines, and offer value in outcomes for patients, by using insights from data and analytics.

We also need to be more efficient in every aspect of our product development, delivery, and access mechanisms to be ready for the future – a future where ‘big pharma’ may not be the only type of organisation offering holistic patient solutions. Therefore the scope of who we consider competitors (and collaborators!) will significantly expand.

We are operating in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, and this is only going to increase. Therefore the way we work as companies, using agile practices, purpose-built networks, and external strategic partnerships will become more important to maintain flexible and innovative organisations.

What kinds of engagements with patients and the medical community do you think will be most important in the near future?

To support Roche’s vision of improving patient access and delivering personalised patient care, it’s critical that we engage with key stakeholders to appropriately shape the regulatory and payer environment for access to new technologies and acceptance of these new approaches.

One of the keys to success is the digitisation of health data. A very positive trend is seen in the relatively widespread adoption of electronic medical records in the US and EU5 – therefore in Europe, national government engagements will be important in driving this adoption.

Today, most clinical cancer data is owned by individual centres and is kept siloed. However over the next 10 years, new engagements to bring these healthcare centres together – into Cancer Centre Consortia aiming to pool data into large, clinically relevant data sets – will need efforts and investment from the pharmaceutical industry.

We also need to partner with innovative companies who have developed technology and relationships that will make Roche stronger towards our purpose of personalised healthcare, such a Flatiron Health, and Foundation Medicine – and Roche is actively seeking new partnerships with those companies that share our vision of what the future could look like.

Most importantly, Roche’s partnership with patients will bring our efforts into focus – to understand patient needs, barriers and enablers, and support trust between patients and the company. We will have the opportunity to entirely re-think what healthcare value and systems look like, and patient partnership is at the heart of this opportunity.

How can pharma best collaborate to bring value to patients?

We want to shape a collaborative future in healthcare, where deep insights drive more effective and efficient research and allow for better decisions for patients. However we cannot do this alone. Valuable data is coming from a multitude of sources, and importantly from real world patient information, as well as many independent and government collaborators – bringing everyone together to a common goal is the only way we will harness the potential for the next level of personalised healthcare.

For example, today data is not always shared or turned into insights, and therefore strong partnerships combined with an understanding that organisations need to work together to realise the full potential of these resources are bringing about a collaborative environment.

Together, we must ensure high standards for data collection, aggregation and analysis so that the data can be used to generate meaningful insights, and in turn, better outcomes for patients.

The real value to external stakeholders is defined by the stakeholders themselves. It requires commitment to innovation and partnership – beyond developing drugs – that delivers for all of society.

What will you be looking for in each category when judging initiatives for this year’s eyeforpharma awards?

When judging I am looking for many aspects of what our healthcare ecosystem should look like in the future. It is also important to have customer and patient focussed initiatives, with firm metrics in order to demonstrate outcomes that positively impact clinical practice; bringing value to the clinician, patients, and society.

I am looking for initiatives that represent a model that many companies in many disease areas could follow. Simple effective systems with valuable content generation, diverse use of channels, and a long term plan.

What are your tips for those presenting at the finals day?

Be comfortable, be yourself, and know your ‘why’. Make sure the audience knows the important unmet need you are meeting for your customers or for patients – and your learning journey highlighting your efforts and discovered insights to achieve positive results. The audience will want to feel your passion, and know that you have made a big impact with your project!

Why is it important to raise awareness of patient and HCP initiatives?

 We often speak about best practice sharing within an organisation, however when it comes to projects that will benefit healthcare systems and patients, it becomes more important to cast our net more widely, and be willing to learn from, and collaborate with, one another in industry. Awareness of valuable HCP and patient initiatives will drive inspiration and innovation, and as an industry group will influence the positive impact we can have on society, strengthen our reputation, and set the bar for the next key initiatives in the future.

About the interviewee

Heather Moses will be speaking at the 2019 eyeforpharma conference in Barcelona in March.

Moses is head of medical affairs within the UK at Roche.  She plays a key role on the Medical Leadership Team, with an aim to bring a broad understanding of drug development and commercialisation, innovation, collaboration, and inspiring leadership to the team. Heather represents Roche's view towards patient centricity in all of Roche's initiatives, particularly related to medicines access, education, and patient engagement. She brings her perspective from previous roles including global scientific communications director with the multiple sclerosis team based in Basel.