Spotlight on our current internship project

Since the beginning of March, Everyone.org has welcomed student Jort Hueting for a 3 months internship. Jort is currently studying International Business and Philosophy in Groningen and will start next year with his masters degree in Health Business Administration.?

Jort has chosen to tackle a problem that is very close to our mission of global health access: How can we make the latest innovation accessible to patients through early access programs??

In this article, I’ll be recapping his findings on early access programs and how Everyone.org can best support patients and their physicians to access the latest medicines:?

In his research, Jort concludes that:?

• The regulatory gap between approval and availability causes a delay for patients' access to new medicines.
• Patients and doctors are most of the time unaware of innovative treatment options.
• Patients and doctors are most of the time unaware of how to access these innovations.
• Pharma is window-dressing but most of the time neglecting/forgetting the patient’s and the doctor’s needs.

For both patients and their doctors, It is a challenge to navigate the fragmented information and to access the latest medicines globally.?

It is important to note that patients who are not eligible to participate in a clinical trial program for a new innovation may be able to access a not yet approved medicine outside of that clinical trial through an early access program.

When it comes to clinical trial programs themselves, the numbers that Jort collected are shocking:?

• Only 10% of eligible patients enrol for clinical trial programs.
• Patient recruitment takes up 30% of the duration of the trial process, longer than any other step of the trial.
• 37% of trials fail to meet their enrolment targets because they are lacking sufficient numbers of patients, and more than 10% percent of trials never end up enrolling any patients.?

It’s clear that there is a huge mismatch here that harms both innovative companies as well as patients who might benefit.

It is not acceptable that in 2021, patients still do not have access to the most innovative potentially lifesaving of improving medicines. As a patient access platform , we want to be the connection between treatments and patients who need them. This is why we are constantly looking for partners who will enable us to expedite access for patients all around the world. We believe that our next horizon will be one of partnership and new opportunities with like minded innovators and change makers in health and beyond.?

Are you a healthcare expert in the early access field? We’d love to know how we can work together to contribute to a healthier world.?

Thanks for reading.

-S