PREFER is a five-year project funded by the European Commission’s Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) 2 programme to evaluate different ways of assessing clinical patient preferences. The project will establish recommendations to support development of guidelines for industry, Regulatory Authorities and HTA bodies on how and when to include patient perspectives on benefits and risks of medicinal products.
The European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) is one of the four patient organisations in the Patient Advisory Group of the project. The role of ECPC is to lead the Patient Advisory Group and to ensure that the methodologies identified are consistent with the specific views, experiences and preferences of patients.
In the latest issue of The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, PREFER researchers write about the importance of this project. The list of authors includes PREFER members from academic institutions and industry, patient organisations and HTA bodies, in addition to, the EMA. The patient perspective is important in all medical research, particularly in developing new treatments. Treatments are developed for patients, and there is an emerging consensus that patients should be involved at crucial decision points in the treatment life cycle. As such, taking into consideration the patient voice has become increasingly important not only for the companies that develop new treatments but also for the authorities that assess, regulate, and decide which treatments are effective, safe, well-tolerated, and cost effective.
“Giving Patients’ Preferences a Voice in Medical Treatment Life Cycle: The PREFER Public–Private Project” authors believe that the best possible outcome of the work would be a global and harmonized approach to the use of patient preference studies, where industry, regulatory authorities, HTA bodies, and reimbursement agencies will implement and use the project’s recommendations.
Read article in Patient: Esther W. de Bekker-Grob, Conny Berlin, Bennett Levitan, Karim Raza, Kalliopi Christoforidi, Irina Cleemput, Jana Pelouchova, Harald Enzmann, Nigel Cook and Mats G. Hansson, Giving Patients’ Preferences a Voice in Medical Treatment Life Cycle: The PREFER Public–Private Project.
* This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint undertaking under grant agreement No 115966. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EFPIA. *