Cate Lockhart, PharmD, PhD: Patient Acceptance of Biosimilars

TranscriptWill the BBCIC’s work help with patient acceptance of biosimilars?

I think patients overall are much more sophisticated than people often give them credit for, you know, it’s people like me, people like you. So, I think not all of the patients are going to grasp maybe the nuances of what may come out of the research I’m doing with the BBCIC. But also, some of that comes down to how we communicate it. We can certainly put together a story that is appropriate for or is going to be meaningful for a patient or a patient group, or a patient advocacy organization for example, and we are engaging with patient organizations to help inform our research questions which is really helpful, so we’re answering the right questions for them to the extent possible within our constraints.

I think it’s both educating and providing evidence for physicians to make their decisions, as well as for patients, because the patient has a role in their healthcare obviously. Now more than ever patients are being a lot more in charge of their own healthcare. So, I don’t think we can necessarily split those or silo those. How we communicate our information and our science may be a little bit different depending on the audience, but I think its beneficial for everybody to understand their treatment and their treatment options.