Patient Centricity Articles

Purpose & Ideals

An Accord for a Healthier World: Working Together to Help Address Unmet Healthcare Needs in Lower-Income Countries

Currently, regulatory agencies may take up to seven years to approve essential medicines and vaccines in low- and middle-income counties (LMICs) from the time those same treatments were first approved in high-income countries, if they are approved at all.1 The burden remains disproportionately higher in low-income countries.2 Lack of access to quality healthcare is related to healthcare inequities in LMICs and hinders equitable access to safe and effective treatments.2Those living in LMICs...

Programs & Initiatives

The Future of Pharmacovigilance: Monitoring Medicine and Vaccine Safety Using AI and Other Tech

While many Pfizer colleagues worked to, develop and manufacture a vaccine for COVID-19, one Pfizer team was hard at work monitoring the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine trial. And they did so while also maintaining safety monitoring operations for more than 1,000 other products in the Pfizer portfolio.Pharmacovigilance is the name for the area of science which scientists and medical professionals monitor medicine and vaccine-related safety issues. “Medicine and vaccine safety is one of those...

Programs & Initiatives

The Importance of Returning Clinical Trial Data to Participants

Clinical trial participants are at the heart of medical research, and it’s with their help that Pfizer is able to bring life-changing treatments to patients.But, until recently, clinical trial sponsors like Pfizer have not been equipped to provide participants with their own personal clinical trial data when a trial ends. Pfizer’s team of clinical trial experts have worked for many years to change that by launching the Clinical Trial Participant Data Return Initiative.This first-of-its-kind...

Purpose & Ideals

Migraine in the Workplace and Creating a Safe Space

One billion people worldwide live with migraine; that’s about one in seven. At those odds, there’s a high probability that each of us works with someone who experiences migraine. And if you’re an employer, this could mean that migraine in the workplace could have a significant impact on your workforce.Migraine is a debilitating neurological disease that causes intense pain in the head, as well as other sensory and/or motor dysfunction. Migraine attacks usually include symptoms like nausea...

Real People

Pfizer’s Biopharma Global Chief Marketing Officer Drew Panayiotou is ‘Radically Obsessed’ with Listening to Patients

For Drew Panayiotou, working at Pfizer comes with an enormous perk: the potential to change the world. That’s why he took the role as the company’s first Biopharma Global Chief Marketing Officer. “Our organization has the power to bring breakthroughs for billions,” says Panayiotou, who joined Pfizer in the fall of 2022. “My job as CMO is to help our organization better understand our healthcare providers and patients so that we can meet them where they are with the information they need at the...

Purpose & Ideals

Patients’ Voices Shape the Drug Development Process Through a Preference Survey

Cory Lewis has sickle cell disease. Some days, the pain from the blood disorder hits him hard. Even on days without pain, he worries about his future and the health conditions that might arise. “It’s definitely 365 for me,” he says. As a program coordinator with Sick Cells, a sickle cell disease advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., Lewis regularly educates people about what it’s like to live with this disease—a rare, inherited condition, predominately (but not exclusively) impacting Black...

Living & Wellbeing

Finding Breakthroughs in Sickle Cell Disease: Patients and Advocates Lead the Way

In most types of clinical research, a large number of patients participate in studies that explore an experimental treatment or approach. This decades-old process is how some of the most impactful, and even lifesaving therapies have come to be, from cancer drugs to COVID-19 vaccines.1 But what happens when scientists need to study a rare disease, one that doesn’t affect a high percentage of people? And what if those who are affected don’t participate because of social disparities...

Purpose & Ideals

Why Medicine Flavor Matters in Drug Design, Especially for Kids

Medicines don’t work unless people take them. It sounds like an obvious statement. And yet, a large percentage of people—up to 50%1 even—struggle when it comes to swallowing medications. Medicine flavoring has been a big part of the problem. For more than a decade, Jeremy Bartlett, Ph.D., a Research Fellow with Pfizer Drug Product Design in Groton, Connecticut, has been working to solve that problem. “We work in pharmaceutical sciences, and if we develop a medicine you’re supposed to take and...

Finding the Key to Alzheimer’s Dementia

I recall very vividly one of my patients who couldn’t see that his Alzheimer dementia (AD) symptoms were changing. Despite concerns from family members and his primary care doctor, this patient continued to drive. A quick brainstorm with the family led to my suggesting that they hide the car keys. Unfortunately, this caused frustration for both my patient and the caregivers. Every day he would search for the keys, going through every inch of the house and leaving a trail of disarray behind him...

Supporting the Hemophilia Community

Hemophilia is a rare and life-long bleeding disorder in which the blood does not clot normally. While people with hemophilia can lead fairly normal lives with certain precautions to prevent and control bleeds, managing the condition can be challenging. Those living with hemophilia or caring for someone with hemophilia can face a wide range of difficulties—including medical, psychological, social and financial – which is why a strong network of support is a vital part of comprehensive care. Each...

How I Became A Sickle Cell Warrior

In Kenya, where I was born, many people are aware of Sickle Cell Disease (SCD), more so than in the U.S. This may be because there is a greater proportion of the population in Africa that has the disease. My older brother and I were both born with SCD. We have also witnessed many people suffer from and lose family members and friends to the disease.For a long time, I lived in denial about having SCD. As a child, my view of it was very negative; I could not imagine anything positive ever coming...

My Story: Lupus and Pregnancy, What If?

Having lupus and wanting to have a child I always knew I wanted to be a mother—and to be one at a relatively young age too. It was something I started thinking seriously about after I graduated from college. The issue for me was that I was diagnosed with lupus when I was 17. For many women with lupus, it is possible to have a successful pregnancy. However, all lupus pregnancies are considered high risk, for both mother and baby. That made the decision to get pregnant the biggest health-related...