21 Oct How To Negotiate a Transformative Patient-Pharma Partnership: A Case Study
The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, once said: “Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds”. A comment that could not have been more evident during the pandemic as scientists, data crunchers, communicators and healthcare professionals all came together to combat a pandemic.
But how do we elevate the ‘cooperation of many minds’ to benefit patients? One of the most unique projects I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in recently involved advising a life sciences company and a major charity how to agree a transformative partnership for patients and their families in a prevalent disease area.
And this experience got me thinking. What role can communicators play in guiding great minds in the charity and pharmaceutical sectors to collaborate on behalf of patients?
OVID were asked to ‘broker’ a partnership off the back of our industry-leading work with the Patient Partnership Index. The brief was to establish what each partners’ red lines were, what were fruitful areas for future partnership projects, and how resources and expertise could be pulled together to deliver impact around diagnosis.
When OVID Health first set up the Index we pledged to ensure that the learnings from it were shared far and wide so others could benefit. In this spirit I have shared below my top ten reflections to consider if you are in the process of pulling together a public affairs/patient advocacy/communications partnership.
- Work out what the ‘guiding star’ of the partnership needs to be and thrash this out with both sides right at the start. This is what will hang everything together.
- Agree the foundations of your partnership against shared principles: mutual trust and understanding; open and timely communications; agreed shared goals; and a willingness to compromise.
- Be open to ambiguity and flexibility. Things change. Studies are published, politics and policies move on. Patients want to know you will be consistently on their side.
- Decide where to co-brand activities and where one partner should take the lead. It will mean you focus your efforts on both sides most efficiently.
- Make sure you can effectively and appropriately resource the activities you want to co-deliver. It’s ok for one partner to be more ‘time poor’ than the other – just be transparent about this at the start.
- Have a conversation about compliance: don’t presume what the patient partner does or doesn’t know. Talk about the impact on timelines that compliance will have on any partnership activities so expectations are managed.
- Have an up-front conversation about any potential financial investment (and what it is reliant on) so you can plan the right level of activities. And don’t forget that expertise and not just funding can make a big impact.
- Ensure the principal of patient voice is enshrined in any over-arching paperwork where possible.
- Spend a lot of time (more than you’d think) ironing out the ways of working. Be clear and precise about what will or won’t work for you or your organisation.
- Think carefully about how you will communicate the partnership and don’t forget your internal stakeholders. They can be a hugely effective allies in getting the word out, and they will be proud of what you are trying to achieve.
During this process I asked everyone involved to make a personal pledge or commitment to making the partnership work. My final piece of advice is to make sure you renew these pledges on at least an annual basis to cement individual as well as corporate/organisational commitment to the partnership.
If you want to hear more about this case study or further reflections, then come and join us at the Pharma and Healthcare Comms and Reputation Conference 2022 on November 8th where I will be taking part in the patient engagement panel: https://thepharmaconference.com/
I look forward to seeing you there!