admedicum and HollandBIO presented the Patient Engagement Guide (PEG) at this year’s Dutch Biotech Event on June 29 in Utrecht, NL.

This practical online manual helps companies incorporate the patient’s voice within their organization, in a structural and guiding manner. Engagement of patients in every phase of the value chain is essential for better therapies and business success.

The Dutch Biotech Event is a platform organized by HollandBIO for biotech companies to share their expertise.

Maryze Schoneveld von der Linde, Rare Disease Advocate and Strategic Partner of admedicum® Business for Patients, and Philipp von Gallwitz, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of admedicum, led a workshop on Patient Engagement. Participants engaged passionately in the discussion about experiences and best practice approaches in patient-industry-interaction. Maryze and Philipp visualized a first time contact scenario with a role play, using a case study of the Patient Engagement Guide. By sharing her experiences from a patient’s point of view, Maryze gave valuable insights into reality examples of how respectful interaction in a cooperation between patients and industry, academia and even with the EU (!) should not look like! However, there are also more and more very good examples for how patient industry interaction can create real value for patients and companies alike.

Engaging with patients is crucial for companies of the medtech and pharmaceutical industry. Incorporating the patient perspective into every phase of the product development process has become central for a patient-relevant and successful market access including pricing and reimbursement. Patients and their caregivers know best what a medical device or a drug should do or not to have relevant impact on the patient’s life. Additionally, patient’s input can boost the product development process, both in terms of speed and quality. Patient engagement thus not only lead to faster access to better drugs and products, it also makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.

“Engaging patients may seem obvious and easy to do at first sight”, says Philipp. “In practice however, it quickly becomes clear that it is highly complex and requires skills, experience and networks new to many companies. It all comes down to a key question: how to organize patient engagement in a way that is meaningful and value-adding for all parties? Our experience shows that the required skills and insights don’t come natural to every organization.”

To offer companies a helping hand, HollandBIO and admedicum teamed up to develop the PEG. The PEG is an online guide that zooms in on real-world patient engagement cases, providing an extensive amount of information and insights on this topic. Additionally, the guide contains very practical tools and checklists, that allow every organization to get into motion and discover the mutual benefits of patient engagement.

You can get free access to the PEG here!