Healthcare communications agency OVID Health is starting a new journey and looking, aptly, for change through a new podcast aimed at “raising the the bar” in partnerships between pharma companies and patient groups.
Known as "OVIDcast: Patient Partnerships," the new podcast will seek to elevate the voice of health charity CEOs as they offer advice to pharmas on how to boost their own advocacy and engagement programs. The leaders will also show off what they see as their most successful tie-ups with companies and how they worked out in the real world.
Senior leaders from the Fabry International Network, the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS), the Patients Association, Ovacome and the Sickle Cell Society have already signed up.
“Partnerships between industry and patient organisations have improved considerably over time, but there are still challenges—some of which are easy to address through working differently and more colligatively while others will take a more ‘cultural and attitude’ shift for both life sciences sector and third sector/charities,” said Clare Jacklin, CEO of NRAS, in a press release.
“I hope life sciences companies are inspired by these podcasts to approach partnerships differently and to continue innovating to help patients.”
OVID runs the Patient Partnership Index, launched in 2020, which assess how well partnerships between industry and patient groups work.
This year, OVID is also launching its Patient Advocacy and Centricity Tracker (PACT), a tool to measure patient centricity and engagement. The new podcast dovetails neatly with these offerings.
A number of pharmas are getting into podcasts, including Novartis (though this landed the Swiss pharma in hot water in the U.K. recently) and AstraZeneca, which earlier this year launched a new podcast “That’s Understandable,” hosted by AZ’s U.S. head of external communications, Brendan McEvoy.
The aim is to take complex industry topics but break them down into more digestible and interesting pieces. Each monthly episode features McEvoy and a member of the AZ team speaking with an outside expert.