Taking a Patient-First Approach to Delivering New Medicines

Written by Brad Bailey , Senior Vice President and General Manager, US at Genmab

Breakthroughs in medical innovation and transformation of care are driven by a strong and central focus on the patient. Today, the need to listen to each patient and ensure their unique and diverse perspectives direct our work as an industry is more important than ever before. More than that, we have a responsibility to think differently about how we optimally discover, develop, and deliver new medicines to best serve each patient.

This responsibility, and the wave of possibilities afforded to us through new data, technologies, and perspectives, have shaped how at Genmab we are approaching bringing our antibody-based medicines to patients in the United States. In so doing, we’re making a concerted effort to redefine what it means to be truly “patient first.”

Integrating the Patient Voice Through Data and Advocacy

First, we need to put the ever-increasing amount of data that we have across the healthcare community to good use for patients. We’re now able to gather and use data to tailor treatments for precise patient populations, and even to individual patients. One of the few positive side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic was the accelerated digitalization of healthcare . By necessity, more people became familiar with health technologies that can monitor and share data with their care teams.

Having access to these tools and data means we also have a responsibility to use them to develop and deliver truly novel science and innovation. It’s simply not enough to deliver incremental improvements on the same basic treatments. ?

And, we need to listen carefully to what patients tell us about their care needs and community. This means not just looking at biology, but also at the socioeconomic factors that affect how care is accessed and delivered.

Now that we’re able to listen to patients more thoughtfully when they tell us what they need, the insights we glean should be embedded at all levels of our work, beginning with the moment we start researching and continuing through commercialization.?

At Genmab, we’re closely working with patient advocacy and professional organizations to understand the nuances of living with or caring for someone with a serious disease to inform all aspects of our work. We’re also focusing on ways to educate patients about how our treatments work and where they can find resources to make their care experience work better for them.

More than that, we’re exploring how we can use data science and digital technologies to not just listen and understand the needs of patients in real time, but to rapidly translate those insights to inform the science we pursue and the patient support and access models we offer.

Making Access a Priority

Adopting this more individualized, data-driven approach means we can be better at pinpointing the challenges that we can affect. This is especially important when it comes to doing our part to address health disparities. As an industry, we can only impact the lives of patients and their loved ones when our medicines reach those who need them. So how do we actually move that needle? We must support patients and their care partners through expected as well as unforeseen challenges throughout their treatment journey with comprehensive patient assistance, education, and access support programs. But that’s just table stakes.

To go beyond that, we need to recognize and act upon the knowledge that each patient’s needs are unique – and their needs do not end the moment treatment is administered. At Genmab, we have teams of professionals who deeply understand the patient’s treatment journey and are on hand for patients and their care partners who request help navigating their experience. By acting with compassion, and by actively and continuously listening, we can provide the ongoing support that patients tell us they need.

Living Up to Our Purpose and Responsibility

Making sure that patients can access treatments is only one part of driving positive impact surrounding their care. Being “patient first” will require organizations like ours to continuously enhance and adapt our research and commercialization efforts to best meet evolving patient needs.

This requires embracing what it means to be a purpose-driven company. It’s not enough to just say you have certain values as an organization – you need to act on them in real, tangible ways.

This is something we’re serious about at Genmab. We all come to work with a shared belief in who we’re working for and why. We build our teams from the start to put each patient’s unique needs at the center of what we do. We make decisions based on what’s best for the patient. With this focus, we empower our colleagues across functions and at all levels to be curious and willing to break barriers when out-of-the-box thinking may help patients.

By being bold and even at times unconventional, we’ve been able to build a unique organization that’s approaching commercialization with a real sense of purpose and value, committed to delivering real innovations that make a difference.

Ultimately our success will be measured by how well we improve the lives of patients in need. When all of this comes together – the dedication to using data to better understand and serve patients, the focus on ensuring our medicines reach those who need them, and empowering our teams to deliver on our responsibility and purpose – we can maintain positive patient impact as our North Star and ultimately realize our commitment to transforming cancer treatment.

Learn more about our US Team here .