Introducing Payers to Clinical Research Earlier Could Benefit Collaboration

Doug Fulling, MA, president of Precision AQ, spoke about the pros and cons of introducing payers into clinical research earlier, with emphasis on how it could benefit patients, payers, and manufacturers alike.

This transcript has been lightly edited.

Transcript

We're really excited about this conversation, because we feel that there's an opportunity to really change the blueprint for access. We know today that a majority of drugs that are launched fail to meet expectations from a launch perspective. And from a manufacturer perspective, that's disappointing because they're expecting certain financial results but there's also patients who are not getting those drugs, who could benefit from them. And so we believe by bringing payers into clinical research earlier, that we can create a better collaboration to enhance access to these new therapies that are being approved. Today, you've got more complex therapies, more expensive therapies. So if we can work closely with payers to come along on that evidence journey, as we're developing these, we think there'll be greater success in the marketplace from an access perspective. And at the end of the day, patients benefit from access.

So the pros are simply that if a payer gets pulled into the clinical development plan from the manufacturer, they have the ability to influence what that trial is going to look like, the end points that are going to be collected, and they can start to see that evidence being generated as the drug is actually being developed. And so for us, we think that that's a real benefit, because oftentimes, payers get pulled in once the drug has been approved, or shortly thereafter. And they're going to be looking for information to justify the expense of the drug, and to answer the benefits to their patient population, and how patients are going to benefit from the therapies. So by bringing them earlier on into the development, we feel like they'll be able to shape and design what clinical trials actually look like.

The cons could be that the product doesn't improve patients' lives that much and you could also be exposing some of the lack of evidence earlier on as well. But we believe that the pros definitely outweigh the cons and that you have that partner who's going to help you shape and design something that is going to eventually benefit their members.