GUEST POST from Julie Anixter
Sheila Babnis, head of strategic innovation for product development at Roche, shared, at the Front End Innovation conference earlier this year, new ways that her company is working in innovation in drug development; and how empathy and patient-centricity are shaping both drug development and clinical trials. Co-creating with patients is a core pillar of the new way Roche is working and an area of deep focus for Sheila and her team.
During the conference, attendees were curious to learn more about this exciting journey. I asked Sheila to “take us back” to when Roche’s innovation journey in patient co-creation began. Here Sheila recalls:
THE PERFECT STORM
“The perfect storm was brewing in healthcare, and external factors were changing the landscape we had known for so long. The pace of change and use of technology were accelerating; health care costs were skyrocketing; patients and doctors were empowering themselves and becoming more vocal participants in health and wellness; and payers and governments were shifting their views on drug priorities and value.
The world was changing all around us. And we had not really changed how we designed and developed drugs in a long time. It became clear that if we wanted to keep our edge – that is, to stay valuable, relevant, and ahead of the curve – we had to change our way of working. And so, we began looking at our business from multiple perspectives, starting with the patient.
We decided to go beyond listening to the voice of patients in our drug development efforts. We decided to co-create.
As Sheila shared her story, we learned that to do so, the strategic innovation leadership team took action in two areas:
- Influencing and revamping how the organization approached new drug development work at Roche, and in particular the Product Development organization, by bringing the outside in and using human centered design.
- Reaching out and working with others in new ways to co-create the future of healthcare and medicine – building what Roche Innovator in Residence, Ayelet Baron, coined a “Connected Network.”
HOW DID THEY HELP MAKE THESE SHIFTS?
Sheila shared with us that ”These ideas were not necessarily revolutionary but really helped a big company like ours move faster and accelerate the impact we’re having in the world and society.”
First, they reached out internally to their own Product Development employees around the world. They knew they needed to make this change together. Leaders recognized it didn’t have all the answers. They wanted more diversity in thought and perspective so they shifted to an ‘inside out’ perspective. As a result, the Strategic Innovation team began designing their first crowdsourcing campaign to help solve three big challenges:
- How do we access information better?
- How do we think differently about our patients?
- And, how do we stay current?
The response was truly overwhelming: 500 ideas and 10,000 votes. They picked three big ideas to work on:
- Creating an environment that makes it simple and easy to do our work
- Finding new ways to work with patients and bringing the trials to them
- Setting up a HUB that enables the creation of an environment where we can regularly test new ideas and concepts
Crowdsourcing ideas and engaging employees directly, led to a shift in the organization. Sheila described, in her talk, how it facilitated getting great ideas out, testing them and engaging in new ways of working. A great example of integrating high impact ideas was working with patients like Sean, a Crohn’s patient who joined their Advisory Board. (will link to past IX blog)
At the same time that they reached out to employees, they also looked outside and talked to other companies; they learned to ask for help and seek unusual partners. The team used an Open Innovation Platform to engage with patients, and other solution seeker and finders; they created channels for real time advice from physicians – even sharing their intellectual property in some cases – all of which were unprecedented in our industry.”
HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN ENABLES PATIENT CO-CREATION
Through Design Labs and the HUB, they gained insights that helped improve trial design and increased their ability to listen and demonstrate value of co-creation. “We are using Design Thinking to increase our empathy and really understand our stakeholders’ needs, building new relationships with regulators, payers and physicians, and keeping our decisions focused on patients.”
The teams are tackling some of the most pressing issues their patients have identified, such as ease of patient participation, bringing trials to them and using new ways, including biosensors and apps, to support and enable them to maintain and manage their healthcare experience. By listening, they have refined their goal as “conduct quick, cost-effective experiments, learn from them, share the knowledge, and iterate our process so that it becomes standard practice of care and clinical studies.”
OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO SUCCESS
Not surprisingly, Sheila acknowledged, “The culture change has been the toughest part of the journey.” Trying to bring change about in an environment where people are already successful is never easy. People understand that the world is changing but it’s never easy to create a common understanding of what innovation means to each person and help them make the change.
To tackle this major shift, Sheila and her executive team looked at what new behaviors were needed in their organization and called out risk taking, fostering creativity, courage, and innovation. They also set up a recognition and reward program to highlight the ways teams were changing the way they work. This program helped reinforce the new behaviors and created a common language around what it means to be innovative in drug development.
Roche has always been a leader in medicine. Today, they are a key part of changing the course of medicine. In 2013 alone, they had more than 65 teams across the company trying out different innovations, doing things differently. They have given out over 200 awards to teams and individuals. And they regularly follow up by sharing their impact and their stories.
BRINGING STRONG BOTTOM LINE IMPACT
Sheila shared that there has been a shift; “we are excited that we are meeting unmet medical needs; after all, each of us can become a patient at any time.” The results speak for themselves as the team, under her leadership helped achieve the following results:
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