Creating a Lifecycle of Patient Engagement
We believe that the relationship between healthcare companies and patients is a partnership, and a patient-centric approach at each stage of a treatment or device’s development will help companies build trust and meet patient expectations throughout the development lifecycle. Continual follow-up is a key to enriching the patient journey, evaluating satisfaction, and improving outcomes.
Continue reading to discover how you can create a lifecycle of patient engagement to benefit patients and provide you with impactful insights and measurable results to your business.
Among other benefits, patient insights lead to:
- Maximized clinical trial planning and execution effectiveness
- Targeted business development and marketing strategies around real patient unmet needs
- Increased HTA assessment success by presenting better outcomes to health authorities
- Consolidation of the company’s patient-centric vision and culture
A true patient-centric approach benefits from three foundational milestones that drive partnership:
- Clinical trials should be designed with a full understanding of the patient’s journey. According to FDA Guidance: “Work directly with communities to address participant needs and involve site coordinators, patients, patient advocates, and caregivers in the design of clinical trial protocols in order to determine which elements of the protocol may discourage participation and how the study can be optimally designed to enhance recruitment.”
- Drugs should gain approval with the involvement of patients in the HTA process. While regulatory bodies such as FDA and EMA have a strong collaboration with patients in their approval boards, still a very few number of HTA agencies like NICE and SMC are already including patients’ opinion on their drug assessments.
- Launch plans should be designed by defining a strategic and tactical approach that supports the long-term needs of the patient, far beyond solving or curing symptoms.
“Patients with knowledge or experience of a condition will be able to provide a true picture of what it is like to live with a specific condition, how care is delivered, how that impacts their lives, their careers and families, and how medicines and other treatments can change their quality of life and meet their needs.”
Patient Engagement across the Lifecycle
Opportunities for patient partnerships exist at every stage of the development lifecycle. Understanding where, how, and with what business functions, to engage and implement insights will improve patient outcomes and experiences.
Our Vision for Patient Engagement
We design tailor-made Patient Engagement solutions to business function throughout the organization.
Our approach is centered around five functional pillars to engage patients, helping to capture and actionable insights to enhance the potential of a product.
Patient Centricity Strategy
Our team works with organizations to develop a complete process to analyze the company’s needs and set the vision and roadmap to help develop a true patient-centric culture. Additionally, our top-down, transversal approach shows companies how to leverage current resources while creating a new patient-centric vision and business plan.
Patient Advisory Board
A panel of patient experts is critical when pursuing strategic objectives. The voice of the patient helps ensure that detailed information, particularly those that contain nuances and sensitive details, are addressed in the planning process. Our Patient Advisory Board helps keep the patient at the heart of every strategy through:
- In-person Patient Advisory Board
- Online Patient Advisory Board
In order to focus on what really matters to patients, the Boards create a set of invaluable first-hand insights to enrich existing strategies and plans.
Patient Knowledge Center
Our powerful tools enable us to design a range of tailored deliverables that uncover unmet patient needs at all stages of the product life cycle.
- Quantitative/qualitative market research with patients, caregivers, and associations
- Ethnographics
- Clinical databases
- International guidelines
- Scientific publications
- Competitors’ public information and industry publications
- Syndicated databases
- Social-media listening
We provide companies with clear lines of sight into patient journeys and in-depth analyses of healthcare system flows to inform strategic decision-making processes.
Patient Mobilization Program
Patient recruitment can be challenging when entering a new category. Our program provides the opportunity to speed up this process across different stages of the research and development process, including enrolment in clinical trials.
Patient Support Program
Support for the patient to better manage the condition is critical in some disease categories. Additionally, the opportunity to collect PRO’s in order to better inform market access activities makes this tool very useful for this purpose.

Annabel de Maria
Vice President, Patient Engagement at Alira Health
“We firmly believe that patient voices must be heard. By bridging our clients and patient advocacy groups, we empower patients to help the healthcare industry deliver what they value most in their care. We facilitate true and fruitful interactions that serve stakeholders across the ecosystem and benefit all patients. We know that patients are instrumental in every treatment’s outcome, which is why we propose to continually revisit and enrich all stages of a drug or medical device’s lifecycle with their participation and insight. Our goal is to move from advocacy to true partnership in both patient care and patient outcomes.”
How can your organization keep patients engaged at each stage of the lifecycle? We help organizations engage with patients in a compliant manner to maximize product potential, outcomes, and experience. For more information, contact Annabel de Maria, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
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