What It Means to Be Patient-Centric

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome, everyone. I'm Dr. John Whyte, the Chief Medical Officer at WebMD. Patient centricity in artificial intelligence in drug development are two of the hottest topics right now. What do they really mean? What are people doing about it?

Well, to help provide some perspective, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Lykke Hinsch Gylvin. She's currently the Chief Medical Officer and Head of Medicine at Boehringer Ingelheim. Well, Dr. Hinsch Gylvin. Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Now, a big focus in recent years has been this concept of patient focused drug development. How has that changed what you do?

That really has changed. So first and foremost, at Boehringer, we do put the patients at the center of everything we do. However, for a long time in the industry, there's been a tendency towards talking about being patient centric.

But true patient centricity is actually to partner up with the patients. And we do that at Boehringer from a very early stage. So all the way from the research, all the way throughout our clinical development until the product is on the market.

We bring in the patients to consult us both on anything from patient needs, trial design, end points. Feasibility of the trials is also important. How can we drive clinical trials as a care option? This is, for me, patient centricity.

Now, has there been obstacles to bringing that on board? Everyone has not always embraced that. You know, medicine tends to be very hierarchical. As you know, as a physician, doctors know best. Do what I say. I'm the expert. How has the culture changed to embrace this concept of patient centricity?

That's a great question. Well, the environment is changing. And that includes how we value medicines nowadays. And also, decision makers are changing from being the health care providers to now also including both payers, regulators, and very importantly, patients.

Patients are nowadays taking more and more responsibility of their own disease, treatment, and care. And so it's an opportunity for us to really leverage that relationship and that knowledge that's patients are sitting on at the end. So they are they are the end users of the medicines and care solutions.

As a company, you've made a commitment to oncology. So I'd like to hear, why have you made that commitment to that space, as maybe opposed to cardiovascular or neuroscience? Not that you're not doing research in those areas, but you've made a point to say we want to have a focus on oncology. Why is that?

Well, we go where the patients need us, meaning where there's a high unmet patient need. And we know oncology obviously there is a need for I would say breakthroughs. There is a need for cure.

So it is important and our commitment in this space is meeting us, our heritage being with a strong foundation in innovation. And then the high unmet need that we want to serve with transformative medicine.

So if we talk about patient centricity and we talk about oncology, do we currently have the right outcome measures from your perspective? Because if we say, we typically don't look at cure, right, we look at perhaps its longevity, , a certain number of years or survival.

Or maybe we look at time that one is symptom free or minimizing one's symptoms. So when you talk to patients and you develop these drugs, and this is a very important space, how do you marry all of this?

LYKKE HINSCH GYLVIN: It is important, because the traditional endpoints-- and we need those for a certain purpose. We definitely need those to serve the purpose of regulators. But I am very, very glad to see that how we value medicines nowadays and in the future is rapidly changing to also include the elements of what incremental value do we actually bring to the patients, both in terms of maximizing efficacy through biomarkers, precision medicine, minimizing toxicology and improving the safety profile.

But also importantly, the quality of life. Because as we hopefully as an industry and through academia bring incremental benefits to patients, we need to think about those aspects as well.

What I've learned over the last few years, people like to use the word innovation or innovative. But I've been struck, you've been using the word transformative. So what excites you the most about technologies or tools or trial design that are truly going to be transformative in the care of patients with certain diseases? As you said, whether it's on oncology, cardiometabolic, neuro. What excites you?

Well, a lot excites me. How long do we have?

[LAUGHTER]

No, if we just stick to oncology, I completely agree with you that normally when I talk about innovation, I like to bring it into the innovation with purpose, because we can all innovate. But if it doesn't serve a purpose such as bringing transformative medicines to patients, it doesn't bring any value.

Transformative medicines, and where we are transforming, and if we just take the field of oncology, which is definitely a hyper focus for Boehringer, it is the fact that we are truly focusing on the real, on tackling the primary drivers of cancers, meaning that we are looking to turn cold tumors into hot tumors.

And we do that through cancer cell targeted therapies, as well as immune cell targeted therapies. We are leveraging some very innovative and complementary platforms.

AI is a is a different place where I also think we can leverage AI all the way from research and discovery of finding and identifying the right patients and patient profiles very early on, all the way to how can you build in AI throughout your clinical development program. But also, working with health care systems, how can we enable ACPs to identify patients early enough, identify the right treatment approaches, and thereby also help them make an integrated care plan? So I could go on. Very, very exciting.

Have we realized the value of AI in drug development? Or have we not even scratched the surface yet?

No, I believe it's the latter. The thing is, what really matters with AI is that we figure out where is it that AI will make an incremental impact, linking that to the transformation we want to see or generate in patients. I truly believe it's early days. At Boehringer, we're building that plane as we fly.

You're embracing it. You're embracing it.

Absolutely, embracing it. But in terms of identifying patients, how can we really leverage, as I said, healthcare systems and bringing the care to patients, finding patients, it's early days. And we need to have a good strategy for that.

Now, in drug development, it's all about leadership at multiple levels. And I'd like you to talk to our audience a little bit about your leadership style. And I also want to hear what everyone's probably wondering. What is that picture behind you?

Well, it actually, it's a nice question. It speaks to me as a person. It's an owl. I actually made it myself. And it says curious.

I am, I would say, it's really me as a leader. I'm a very curious leader. And that's what drives me every day. Leadership for me is really about serving people, serving patients, and unlocking the potential of the people that I work with in order to really bring that transformative elements to the patients.

Well, Dr. Hinsch Gylvin, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts today. We have covered a wide range of topics, from patient centricity to artificial intelligence, and I appreciate your perspective on that. So thank you.

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

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