How You Can Achieve Patient Focused Drug Development

How You Can Achieve Patient Focused Drug Development By Monica St Claire The application of a sociolinguistic lens can glean hidden meanings within seemingly ordinary communications. On the Society of Linguists website, Walt Wolfram, director of the North Carolina Language and Life Project at North Carolina State University said, “We use language to send vital social messages about who we are, where we come from, and who we associate with.” Wolfram says that we can learn much about a person just by their choice of a single word.1 In the area of health communication, linguists identify [...]

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Nov 2018By |0 Comments

“Learn something from every patient” – Dr. James Allison, Nobel Prize Winner

"Learn something from every patient" By Kathleen D. Hoffman, PhD “I’m an exceptionally lucky guy,” the newest Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine said in a recent interview.1 Dr. James P Allison, Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center, was “just trying to understand the immune system” 2--and that curiosity led to a discovery that has revolutionized cancer treatment. Allison described the beginnings of this interest in the immune system during a press briefing at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference in New York, held October 1 after he received notification from the Nobel [...]

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Oct 2018By |0 Comments

Listen to People Impacted by Rare Disease

Listen to People Impacted by Rare Disease By Kathleen D. Hoffman, PhD “The success (or failure) of the majority of rare disease drug development programmes rests on surrogate outcomes (e.g. laboratory measures, organ size) that may not reflect treatment benefits that patients value.”1 ~Morel and Canto Thomas Morel and Stefan Canto’s position paper from 2017 clearly describes the dilemma faced in rare disease research. Lab measures and organ size don’t speak to what patients with rare diseases experience, need or value. This focus on measures that are not meaningful impacts the development of rare disease treatments [...]

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Oct 2018By |0 Comments

Rethinking patient engagement in clinical trials: Be part of the solution

Rethinking patient engagement in clinical trials: Be part of the solution By Kathleen D. Hoffman, PhD Seated in the waiting room of a large medical center, I overheard the bright eyed, young man behind the reception desk ask a new patient, “Would you like to learn more about participating in our research?” I smiled and thought, this is part of the solution. But it is a small part. I’ve been going to the same clinic for five years and today is the first time I’ve heard this question. I wondered if anyone would ask me - [...]

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Sep 2018By |0 Comments