Aligning global operations for improved patient advocacy and engagement

How do you bring together multiple operating companies to shape consistent and effective ways of engaging with patients?

This UK-based pharma company is active in more than 150 markets globally. Over the years, they had established mature practices for capturing and embedding patient insights and managing relationships with patient organisations. But they lacked a joined-up approach to applying these practices across their global business. 

The company came to Baringa with an ambition to achieve greater consistency in the way they used patient insights throughout the product life cycle. The ultimate goal? To drive better decision-making and improve patient outcomes.

To turn their ambition into reality, we designed a new operating model, enabled by a central network of experts

We worked with the company’s global patient-focused development team to align on a purpose and vision for how they would deliver patient engagement and collaborate with patient organisations, all in line with their broader patient impact mission.

From this starting point, we defined a set of global ambitions. These underpinned what effective work with patients and patient organisations would mean operationally, from research through to development and go-to-market. We engaged both global teams and local markets to sharpen their focus on the new ambitions. We also drew on their expertise to better understand existing regulatory nuances, which could impact the effectiveness of driving real change. 

Our next step was to partner with functional teams across the organisation to develop best-practice guides to align the entire business on what effective patient engagement looks like. We subsequently established a global patient advocacy and engagement network –

connecting specialists from across R&D, global functions and commercial business units to drive innovation and share advice, support and guidance.

Delivering better outcomes by understanding and sharing the real patient voice 

The company now has a clear understanding of how to make positive and lasting change in the consistency and quality of its engagement with patients and patient organisations. Their newly established network of experts holds clear accountability for driving cultural change, supporting capability growth amongst members and acting as advocates for optimising patient insights across the organisation. 

Their continued success will also be key to achieving the company’s 2023 global R&D cultural objective. 

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