Alliance & Partnerships for Patient Innovation & Solutions deliberates on shaping future of health through real-world evidence

New Delhi: Organized by Novartis, the third edition of the APPIS Summit was held to address the evolving needs of patient organizations and focused on themes such as health literacy, health policy shaping, and digital health & communications through in-depth discussions on how to build meaningful partnerships to accelerate access for patients.

APPIS is a first-of-its-kind collaborative capability-building effort between Novartis and the Asia Pacific patient community and aims to overcome common challenges faced by patient organizations and enable deep-dive discussions around their needs so that the patient community can be more impactful.

The India Breakout session conducted on the first day of the summit was on real-world evidence, an aspect that is most relevant today. The closed-group discussion focused on the role of real-world evidence (RWE) in driving patient-centered care and empowering patients to actively participate in their healthcare journey.

This session highlighted how RWE provides insights into the effectiveness of treatments in real-world settings. This information can help healthcare providers make more informed decisions about patient care; help identify areas where there are unmet medical needs leading to better outcomes. This can also provide a more comprehensive understanding of a treatment’s safety and effectiveness in real-world settings, which can play a crucial role in shaping healthcare economics, policies, and practices.

Dr. Moni Abraham Kuriakose, Medical Director & CEO, Karkinos Healthcare, Kerala highlighted, “One of the main opportunities for RWE in India is to address the gaps in healthcare data. Most healthcare data in India is paper-based and fragmented, making it difficult to track patient outcomes and identify trends. RWE can help bridge this gap by providing real-time insights into patient outcomes, treatment effectiveness, and safety through proper patient registry. In the case of rare diseases, where clinical trials may be limited in size due to the small patient cohorts, RWE can supplement this limited data by providing insights into the long-term safety and effectiveness of treatments in real-world settings. This information can then be used to develop targeted interventions that address the unique or personalized needs of patients in India.

He further elaborated, “Additionally, RWE can help accelerate the approval and availability of new treatments, giving patients access to innovative therapies that can improve their health outcomes. Patients can make evidence-based decision making about their care, leading to improved quality of life for patients.

“Healthcare is about health and its care. For a complex market like India, while healthcare system strengthening is something that we all know is imperative, implementation of the policies and programs carved out by the Government of India, moving from generic drug focused reimbursement towards evidence-based decision making is vital and cultivating and deepening a strong IP regime, are critical. None of this is possible without accurate and comprehensive data from the real world. Patient communities are playing a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare and therefore, at the Alliance & Partnerships for Patient Innovation & Solutions (APPIS) India deliberation, we delved deeper into the applicability and role that patient communities can play in RWEs,” said Vaishali Iyer, Country Head – Communications & Patient Engagement and CSR, Novartis India.

She further adds, “We recognize that our endeavor is incomplete without enabling access to these medicines to more and more patients the role played by patient communities along with the other stakeholders in shaping and strengthening healthcare ecosystems is critical.”

Viji Venkatesh, Region Head – India & South Asia, The Max Foundation stated, “We laud and fully support APPIS 2023 and its goal to support the capacity building of patient organizations in the region. Real-World Evidence has the potential to revolutionize healthcare delivery and ensure maximum benefits for the patients through modern methods of data collection and dissemination.”