“A broader and more human view of psoriasis will help patients and their doctors understand the true nature of the disease.”
PatientsLikeMe says it will collaborate with Merck to evaluate the impact of psoriasis on patients and to inform a novel approach to improving outcomes. “A broader and more human view of psoriasis will help patients and their doctors understand the true nature of the disease,” says Ben Heywood, president and co-founder of PatientsLikeMe, an online patient community where people exchange and compare treatment experiences with each other.
The partners will work together with patients to generate insights about the disease that could lead to better approaches for patients managing the condition day-to-day, providers developing care plans, and researchers pursuing treatments.
Psoriasis, a non-contagious, chronic, autoimmune disease that appears on the skin is associated with other serious health conditions including diabetes, heart disease, and depression. It is estimated to affect over 7.5 million people in the United States, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation.
“Effective use of health information provides the path forward to patient-centered care and personalized medicine,” says Sachin Jain, Merck’s chief medical information and innovation officer. “Our collaboration with PatientsLikeMe is an important part of Merck's strategy to establish and apply innovative solutions that improve disease management and enhance the patient experience.”
The agreement calls for PatientsLikeMe to work directly with Merck’s clinical researchers and epidemiologists to analyze and interpret psoriasis data reported by nearly 2,000 members of the site that report on their experience with the disease and what they do to treat it.
Drugmakers, insurers, and other healthcare companies are all experimenting with ways to gain better insight into the real-world effectiveness of various courses of treatment by employing online tools.
In 2011, Pfizer piloted a virtual trial of an overactive bladder treatment to see if trial results reported by patients with mobile phones and online matched a more traditional trial of the same drug. Cambia Health Solutions said in April it would partner with GNS Healthcare to use its platform capable of examining trillions of data points and extracting the important underlying cause-and-effect relationships between treatments and outcomes. And in July, 23andMe acquired CureTogether, a forum for allowing customers to share quantitative and observational information on medical conditions and treatments to help it uncover new areas for research.
August 17, 2012
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-patientslikeme_collaborates_with_merck.html