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EXCLUSIVE LIFE SCIENCE FEATURE leaders LIFESCIENCELEADER.COM JANUARY 2015 22 s we fast-forward nearly four years, her words seem even timelier today. And while much has evolved in health- care since the delivery of her memorable message, one thing that hasn't is patient need — a point punctuated by the shrill of an ambulance siren whirring past the chief medical officer's East 42nd Street New York office. During today's discussion, Lewis-Hall states that, "In our medical organization, the patient has always been our North Star." And though Pfizer has been imple- menting patient-centric programs and platforms for years, it wasn't until 2013 that the company took patient-centricity on as a named strategy. Leadership realized that to better enable patient engagement throughout the entirety of the drug discov- ery, development, and delivery process, the company needed to be more systematic. "As an organization, we needed to organize our patient-centric thinking, systems, and processes to make it consistently part of what we do every day," she states. To Become Patient-Centric Requires Learning, Listening, And Collaborating One of the first steps Pfizer took toward getting organized around patient-centricity involved — and still involves — learning and listening. "Our teams are looking for opportunities to understand better what patients, caregivers, and patient advo- cates can share as insights to help us clarify their needs, and then to help us better meet them or to problem-solve," Lewis-Hall states. While some of these insights have been gained through positive experiences, she admits others have been learned through Pfizer misses. "Exubera would be a good example," she says. The first U.S. insulin option indicated for type 1 and 2 diabetes not administered via injection (it was an inhaled insulin), Exubera received FDA approval in January 2006. However, this once-anticipated blockbuster was with- drawn from the market in October 2007. Its removal was not the result of drug safety concerns, but the lack of consumer demand. "This amazing science, incred- ible engineering, and true breakthrough frankly did not resonate with patients and their lifestyle," Lewis-Hall says. "We realized we hadn't asked all the right questions of the right patients at the right time, and yet we continued pushing forward." As a result, Pfizer took a $2.8 billion charge when it wrote off the drug, including $661 million of Exubera inventory. One of Lewis-Hall's favorite examples of a Pfizer miss turned patient-centric oppor- tunity occurred shortly after she joined A PFIZER: PUTTING THE PATIENT AT THE CENTER OF ITS DRUG DEVELOPMENT UNIVERSE By R. Wright Don't Miss The Opportunity To Balance Your Social Media Equation Just about every biopharmaceutical company has a presence in social media. Pfizer is no different. According to the company's chief medical officer, Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, the company now uses social media in two ways. "One is to help get information from patients," she states. "We have a great example with our Get Old platform. It allows us to be part of an organically grown conversation about people and their attitudes toward healthy aging." The second use for social media is to provide patients with information on timely topical issues. "Through our Get Healthy, Stay Healthy site, for example, patients are able to connect with our medical information group and ask questions about diseases, wellness, and prevention. They end up sharing information with us, such as how they feel about the topics we've covered. The questions patients have are just as informative as their willingness to actively engage." While social media has a lot of upside to improve biopharma patient engagement, there is another side to it, with which Lewis-Hall admits Pfizer is grappling. "The potential of social media to have a negative impact in the clinical trial environment is fairly significant," she affirms. "For example, what happens when patients are blogging about their experience in a clinical trial, trading tricks about how to get into a trial, sharing information about how they feel or what they are experiencing during the trial, and whether or not they think they're on the standard of care, placebo, or the new experimental product?" Obviously, these kinds of issues could affect everything from patients' willingness to participate to how and what they report about their own experiences to an investigator. Nevertheless, Lewis-Hall believes social media represents an opportunity for companies to do more than just make clinical trials better or more accessible for patients. It can also help to educate and interact with clinical trial participants to help them understand the potential negative consequences of online conversations. "Interrupting the conduct of a clinical trial can prevent new treatments from getting beyond the trial and into the hands of patients who need them," she attests. While she understands many of these conversations are meant to be helpful, they need to be conducted in such a way as to minimize the risk to the trial. If you want to get the most out of using social media as a patient engagement tool, Lewis-Hall suggests striving to educate beyond diseases, products, treatments, and trials.