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- Publish Date: Posted ungefähr 2 Jahre her
- Author: Laura Hulley
Welcome to RARE a blog dedicated to the rare disease industry by Laura Hulley, a Recruitment Consultant at SciPro.
RARE - Ivo Moreira
For this instalment of RARE, I decided to try something a bit different and welcomed Ivo Moreira to talk about his experience working within rare disease. Ivo is based in Portugal and has recently moved into a new global marketing role within Thermo Fisher Scientific but spent a segment of his career at Shire as a Product Manager, progressing through the company as they were acquired by Takeda within their Rare Disease Business Unit.
In this conversation, Ivo tells us about his experience working within the commercial area of rare disease, how this differs from his previous experience and his thoughts on the future of commercialisation.
Key takeaways:
Ivo’s experience within several functions such as medical and marketing allow for a global spectrum of responsibilities in his new role as Global Marketing Manager where he wants to apply his knowledge and experience in a marketing role as part of an innovative and fast-growing scientific space.
When he graduated, Ivo was unsure of what career path he wanted to take and felt the same as a lot of people do after university, not knowing what direction to take. Within his course he had studied a module of Pharmaceutical Marketing and Management which he had enjoyed. This, teamed with some previous experience in community pharmacies and hospital pharmacies (and a bit of time spent within a lab in Finland) motivated him to apply for a Marketing Trainee vacancy at Baxter Healthcare and he has never looked back.
We cannot exclusively talk about commercial need in the rare disease space without considering first the need of the patients and the HCPs in the area. Patients and their families need not only the treatment (which may not be available or even exist yet) but also need emotional support, patient organisation services and information about the disease amongst others. From the HCP perspective, there is a need for disease awareness campaigns, medical information, effective diagnosis, and therapy biomarkers to assess treatment success.
The digital world is completely transforming the way we communicate. The pandemic has accelerated the innovative approaches to communication and can be used as a resource to increase disease awareness amongst patients, families, and HCPS, potentially reducing diagnosis timing. We can leverage email marketing campaigns, conduct webinars, create videos, and create teleconsultation and virtual appointments to increase the amount and speed of engagement across the community.
Moving forward, Ivo talks about an omnichannel approach, particularly in rare disease where support is also needed in person, mixing traditional methods of communication along with digitisation of some aspects of engagement such as home therapies, teleconsultation, or remote monitoring where suitable.
Finally, Ivo ends by highlighting that resilience and perseverance are needed when working in this area. Sometimes rare diseases are extremely under-diagnosed, less prioritised with a significantly smaller patient population. The time from first symptoms to diagnosis can sometimes surpass 10 years which can generate frustration but ultimately leads to the work done in this arena having a massive impact on the lives of patients and their families.
Thank you Ivo, for taking the time to share your perspective and experience of working in this area!
SciPro does the Marathon!
Here at SciPro, for Rare Disease Day this year, we decided to focus on raising awareness within our company across all of our brands. We have pledged to raise money for the manufacture of the second SciPro Wizzybug, produced by Designability, an electric wheelchair for physically disabled children living with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy and any other condition that may hinder the child’s ability to walk. To do this, SciPro will be taking part in a 26-mile walk in September 2021 and we need your support and encouragement! Our JustGiving page is now live so please do take the time to sponsor SciPro on our walk to raise money for the Wizzybug, any donation or support is really appreciated!
Throughout this blog series, it is my intention to highlight some of the work that goes on across the industry, and of course, if there is a particular topic that you would be interested in hearing about then please feel free to let me know!
For more information about rare disease check out some of the websites listed below and please remember to sponsor SciPro on our quest to fund another Wizzybug!
https://www.rarediseaseday.org/
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sciprowizzybug2
Author Details
Laura Hulley - l.hulley@sciproglobal.com