Thirteen years ago, Greg Simon, who was the Head of Policy at Pfizer at the time and was President of the Biden Cancer Initiative, asked our DPHARM audience when was the last time you thanked your patients for being in a clinical trial. No one raised their hand. Our immediate thought was that there was an urgent need for a conference on customer service for patients in clinical trials.

We began to research the topic within the pharmaceutical industry and received enlightening feedback: we can’t look at patients as customers, we can’t directly communicate with patients, there are privacy laws, we don’t directly work with patients, and more. We learned that often people who have direct contact with patients are not necessarily trained to work with patients to empathize with their condition and life style.


What Patient ​​​​​​​Research Taught Us

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Our research has overwhelmingly shown that involving patients early in the medicine development lifecycle results in more successful outcomes in clinical research. In 2010, we knew a paradigm shift in how the industry views and works with patients was paramount. We also realized that as researchers, we needed to start with patients. Getting patient feedback changed the way we produce our conferences and, more importantly, how we can affect positive change for patients and clinical research outcomes through a patients as partners in clinical research conference.

In particular, we learned the vital need to:
​​​​​​​1. Understand and incorporate the patient’s input in designing clinical trials
2. Vastly improve the patient’s entire experience in a clinical trial
3. Greatly expand access, diversity and inclusivity


​​​​​​​What To Do?

​​​​​​​We knew that something drastically had to change and a paradigm shift in how the industry views and works with patients was paramount. We also realized that as researchers, we needed to start with ourselves. We needed to make that paradigm shift in who and how we do our research. With that, thirteen years ago, for the first time we began to research directly with patients. ​​​​​​​The result was the first conference, Patients as Partners in Clinical Research in how to truly view patients as partners. Getting patient feedback changed the way we produce our conferences and, more importantly, how we affected positive change for other conferences globally and how industry, the FDA and non-profits now work with patients.

We are pleased to present the 12th Annual Patients as Partners conference. We invite you to view the agenda and let us know if you have any questions.

Best wishes,

Valerie Bowling
Executive Director
The Conference Forum

Kate Woda
Conference Director
Patients as Partners


​​​​​​​