Making medication access more patient-centric
Ross Glover explores how Canadian policy should be refocused to meaningfully improve access to medications (360 words, 2 min)
“Canada often comes up short on patient access to drugs,” said Ross Glover, general manager of Taiho Pharma. “But it’s not a disaster. We can fix this. If government and Pharma work together, we can bridge the gaps.”
During a virtual presentation at the 15th National Pharmaceutical Congress, Glover (photo below) spoke on how Pharma can more accurately address patient needs and values when developing access to medications in Canada. “It’s a hot topic because the industry is always working hard to make access to medications easier.”
Pharma companies have different ways of listening to and garnering feedback from patients, Glover said. Some Pharma companies go one step further and directly provide patients with access to a therapy—in some instances, patients can gain early access to a new drug during the review process.
However, “it’s often unclear what kind of alignment to patient values [Health Canada] undertakes in their reviews,” said Glover. “How they weigh patient values versus the clinical and economic considerations of the drug is often lost in the review. They need to put more weight toward patient values in the reviews themselves.”
“Of course, data needs to be clinically meaningful for an approval,” Glover said. “But that clinical meaningfulness is [currently] defined by physicians and not by patients. Perhaps in the future, patients can have more of a say in the clinical meaningfulness of a drug when it’s going for a review. There also needs to be consideration for how a subset of patients might benefit and be approved uniquely for the drug.”
He noted there is currently no weight put toward dosing changes to reduce potential side effects. “The price seems to outweigh everything. Price is often commented on early in the process, and the weight of those comments tend to outweigh clinical meaningfulness or patient values,” Glover said.
So how can Pharma do better as an industry?
“We should always be meeting patients’ unmet needs first and foremost with our submissions and bringing our innovative drugs forward for Canada,” said Glover. “We can look at improving how data is presented [in submissions] and beef up the alignment to patient values [to highlight] the daily struggle our patients face. Perhaps then we would have a better system that we could call patient-centric.”
Further reading: A recent review comparing Canada’s HTA programs to those in other developed countries found that other agencies emphasized patient access, while CADTH predominantly focused on price. Read more.
THIS WEEK 11/30/21
Merck announced that Health Canada granted conditional approval for Keytruda (pembrolizumab), an anti-PD-1 therapy. Keytruda is meant to be used in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of locally recurrent unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in adults whose tumours express PD-L1 (Combined Positive Score [CPS] ≥10) who have not received chemotherapy for metastatic disease.
Janssen announced that Health Canada has approved its single-shot Covid-19 Johnson & Johnson vaccine for people aged 18 and up. This decision was based on preliminary findings from the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE study, which proved that the vaccine was 85 per cent effective in preventing severe disease and Covid-19-related hospitalization and death.
Novo Nordisk announced that Health Canada approved Wegovy (semaglutide injection) to treat obesity in adults. Wegovy is indicated in combination with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity for chronic weight management in adult patients with obesity and at least one weight-related disease such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, or obstructive sleep apnea.
Gilead Canada announced that Health Canada granted Notice of Compliance to TRODELVY (sacituzumab govitecan) to treat adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC) who have previously received therapy for metastatic disease. The authorization is supported by the data from the Phase 3 ASCENT study, in which TRODELVY showed a 57 per cent reduction in the risk of disease worsening or death.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Season Five of the NPC Podcast explored Pharma’s purpose, process, and people with a diverse list of guests across eight episodes. Podcast host Peter Brenders spoke with guests on clinical trials, laws and regulations, investments in life sci, manufacturing, working with the Canadian government, and implications of Covid-19. Did you miss an episode? Catch up now!
CANADIAN HEALTHCARE MARKETING HALL OF FAME
The Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame awards were established in 2002 to honour healthcare marketers who have contributed to our vocation and inspire others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee’s view, they stand for a representative cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. Each week, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honouree.
2014 Inductee
John Helou
Montreal
Editor’s Note: Helou was President of Pfizer Canada until February of 2020. He is now retired.
The career of John Helou, president of Pfizer Canada, is one of a man finding a way to engage his passion for teaching and leading wherever life’s twists have taken him. On his uncle’s advice, Helou pursued a chemical engineering degree to equip him for teaching and potentially open other opportunities for him.
After graduation in 1980, Helou began working for Dupont in a role that involved taking ideas from the labs, scaling them up, and implementing them at the customer level. After a year on that project, a colleague on the business side at Dupont identified Helou’s potential in sales and marketing.
Helou followed this advice and took a sales rep position for Dupont’s pharmaceutical division in 1985. After working for 17 years with Dupont in a variety of functions and responsibilities, he left to start up Agouron Canada, a biotech company specializing in HIV/AIDS and oncology treatments. Agouron was acquired by Warner-Lambert and integrated into Pfizer in 2003, and Helou was appointed Pfizer Canada’s director of sales for its Specialty Business. He continued to embrace new responsibilities with Pfizer, being named Vice-President, Public Affairs and Stakeholder Relations in 2006, and then head of Pfizer Canada’s Specialty Care Business Unit when it was formed in 2009. In 2012, he was named president of Pfizer Canada.
Through all these transitions, helping others grow and succeed is “the thing I take the most enjoyment in, and the most pride in,” says Helou. “I have an opportunity in my position to guide, liberate—inspire, if you want—teams to do more than they think is possible. I take a lot of pride and joy in seeing people I have interacted with over the years assume positions of greater responsibility and leadership. I learn a lot from them, and I help them become the best they can possibly be.”
Helou says every role he has held in the pharmaceutical industry has enriched his experience and provided opportunities to apply those skills to help himself and his teams solve new problems. It is vital to be open to learning and evaluating the input of others, says Helou, or you risk looking at a challenge not as a positive exercise but a negative one.
As for the future, Helou says he thinks the Canadian pharmaceutical industry is changing dramatically. “I am in a very privileged position to be heading Pfizer, one of the largest companies in Canada, a company that is aspiring to be a leading global, innovative biopharmaceutical company,” says Helou.
“I have the opportunity to play an active part in shaping how the industry is evolving in Canada. Through industry collaboration and stakeholder relations, we can work together to change things. I look at that as an important responsibility.”
NEXT WEEK
In the 12/07 edition of the NPC Healthbiz Weekly, more from the powerhouse panels of the 15th Annual National Pharmaceutical Congress. It’s easy to get your no-charge subscription and have the issue sent to your phone or inbox each Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. sharp.
Stay safe, stay sure, and stay on your game. We’ll see you again next week.