While much attention has been given to the novel science behind cell and gene therapies (CGTs), the success of every precision medicine starts and ends with the patient.
The novel science behind CGTs receives a tremendous amount of attention — and rightly so. However, precision medicine must be as much about personalizing the treatment experience for patients as it is about personalizing the therapy itself.
Financial and logistical hurdles often stand in the way of patients gaining access to therapy. As manufacturers prepare to commercialize a complex therapy such as CGTs, it is critical to understand the challenging journey that patients and caregivers endure on their path to these transformative treatments.
Below are a few considerations when developing a patient support program for CGT patients.
Establish relationships with patients and caregivers
Patients and caregivers often experience an arduous clinical journey before becoming an eligible candidate for a CGT. This journey may include failing multiple lines of treatment, increasing complexity in their clinical regime, or diminishing willingness to try additional therapies. One of the most important roles of a dedicated hub team is to bring empathy to their work, something self-service tools can’t do — to educate patients and caregivers, answer their questions about the therapy, and help address their fears of the unknown. Building relationships and providing personalized experiences are key to establishing the kind of trust with patients and caregivers that enables hubs and manufacturers to identify challenges that stand in the way of access.
Guide patients through financial hurdles
Given the high cost and complexity of CGTs, the path to payer coverage and reimbursement is equally complicated. Payers typically require a multifaceted prior authorization process which may include several levels of appeals. A streamlined process can help accelerate speed to therapy for the patient. As experts in payer reimbursement pathways and patient journey navigation, the patient support program works directly with payers to help patients navigate the ongoing complexities of the reimbursement process.
Provide roundtrip support on the route to treatment
Ensure a seamless patient journey by establishing end-to-end solutions from doorstep to destination and back. This is necessary with medications that have very small target populations, for whom it’s critical to have individualized patient support plans in place to address even the smallest obstacles. Most patients need to travel outside their zip code to receive therapy. A dedicated case manager can help patients and caregivers along the treatment journey and respond to their needs in real-time. For other patients, lodging may be a pain point — particularly if patients and their caregivers need to remain in or near the treatment center for several days. An experienced hub can offer personalized travel plans, travel coordination, 24/7 assistance, and more.
Minimize logistical errors at every step of the process
Robust collaboration between the patient support and logistics teams — like a third-party logistics provider — is critical to precisely schedule and track every step in the process. For many cell and gene therapies, the process for developing the drug, transporting it, and administering it to a patient is highly complex — and it all revolves around the patient.
Leverage data to inform the patient support strategy
There are very few commercialization challenges that can’t be addressed with access to the right data. A quality data analytics program can enable manufacturers and patient services partners to extract valuable insights – data that can improve the patient experience, expedite access, and ultimately drive the commercial success of CGTs. The right data analytics strategy and platform provides visibility into every patient interaction, so strategies can be identified in real-time to support each patient’s journey. In addition, data can be extracted for patient-reported outcomes studies, which can help substantiate real-world value to payers and providers.
Plan your patient support strategy early
Even the best-planned product launch can be derailed if it lacks a clear strategy for supporting patients throughout their treatment journey. Planning a patient support program as early as possible is advised to align on go-to-market strategy development and creation / implementation of a thoroughly developed program. With patient services, it is not just about the number of patients; it’s about the complexity of the reimbursement process and the number of partners and stakeholders that need to be aligned to support the patient journey. It’s critical to bring together legal, IT, compliance, insurance, logistics, medical and other experts to identify potential barriers and create comprehensive and adjustable plans that address those challenges.
Interested in learning more about patient hubs for specialty therapies? Download our playbook to explore the essential connectivity between technology, data and analytics in shaping patient access and support services today.
Download playbook.
About Cardinal Health Advanced Therapy Solutions
Working closely with cell and gene manufacturers, Cardinal Health provides longitudinal solutions from regulatory, logistics, cold storage, patient access, real-world outcomes and beyond. Cardinal Health is focused on providing simplified yet complete offerings to ensure caregiver and patient access to complex therapies is uncompromised. To learn more, visit www.cardinalhealth.com/cellandgene