Once there is a drug that has been developed, it is very clear why talking with patients and collaborating with them is useful for pharmaceutical companies. They often learn about the disease from patients, so that they can better understand the symptoms and how to design clinical trials. Patients are also involved at different stages in the regulatory pathway, providing feedback to the regulatory agencies during trial protocol approval, orphan drug designation or marketing authorization.
What is less obvious to both companies and patient organizations is how patients can be active in research before there is any drug in development, during the preclinical phase, and how this might lead to medicines being developed. “Preclinical” refers to the research that is done before a therapy can be tested in patients. Some patient organizations might start by funding some academic group, but without a clear vision and a longer-term strategy the return on those efforts will be compromised, and medicines will take longer to come.
What follows is my advice on how to approach early-stage research for those interested in advancing research from a patient organization. My main advice to patients working on a disease is to “own” the field, don’t leave this up to academic scientists.
To focus on advancing the research field means more than funding a couple of research programs. I list many specific research programs that are important early on in a field in the eBook the #ImpatientRevolution. Here I want to outline the broader strategy that patient organizations can follow to advance research towards new medicines even before companies are working on it.
1) CONNECT
A key value that patient organizations bring to a research field is to create communication channels between the different researchers working on it. This might be formalized, like hosting an annual scientific meeting, or more informal, simply by knowing everyone in the field and introducing them to one another. By creating these connections researchers start collaborating and have improved ability to obtain funding as they bring key collaborators onboard. So no only research will be improved by increased communication, but also this community will be able to mobilize more public funding towards their rare disease by building a stronger scientific base. The way to start these connections can be as simple as reaching out to corresponding authors in PubMed publications related to your rare disease, and by always asking “who else do you recommend me to talk to?”.
2) TOOLS
For scientists to work on a rare disease, or any disease in general, they need to have a tool box. These are research tools, without which scientists cannot build the science. Research tools include animal models of the disease, cell lines (lab cells expressing the disease protein or patient-derived cells), antibodies that recognize the disease protein, or the DNA of the disease gene that is then used to create these models. For anyone to research a rare disease, they are going to need to use these tools.
Because they are so necessary, scientists who are the first to invest the time and resources to create those tools might hold on to them, limiting who else can work in the field. This happens very often in rare diseases, when only one lab has a knockout mouse model for the disease, or has the only good antibody for that protein. Keep in mind that academic science is very competitive, and being the only lab in the world able to do something is highly prized. This creates the incentive of not sharing, and seeing other labs wanting to work on the same disease as competitors.
Don’t let any scientist decide who can or cannot do research in your disease. Build all these tools yourself and make them open-access – or if you finance a lab to build these tools make sure your funding contract makes it mandatory for them to share it with anyone afterwards, for-profit companies included, without being able to veto anyone.
By making sure your rare disease has the complete toolbox available to all scientists you will mobilize a large number of researchers towards your disease. You might also start to attract pharma companies. Reducing the barriers of entry to your field is one of the best things you can do as a patient organization.
3) KEY QUESTIONS
Beyond investing in building the toolbox, you need to identify which are the key questions around your specific rare disease that might also represent a barrier of entry for researchers and pharma companies. It might be that the incidence of the disease is unknown because the first handful of patients has just been described. It might be that the disease is caused by a mutated kinase, and the targets of this kinase are unknown. It might be that the rare disease involves the deletion of a chromosome fragment involving dozens of genes, and the individual gene(s) among all these which is responsible for the disease is unknown. These are all some examples of important questions that are important to solve before therapies can be developed for this disease. If these are still unanswered, as a patient group these should rank very high in your priority list.
I recommend targeting these questions by approaching labs that have already solve this type of questions, even if they are not yet interested in your disease. They are much more likely to be able to complete these projects successfully than labs that you might already be in contact with, who are already familiar with your disease, but who lack the core expertise to ask these questions. You don’t have the time to wait around labs developing new skills, you should try to put together the research tool box and solve the key questions as soon as you can so that a large group of scientists (and potentially pharmaceutical companies) start working on developing therapies for your disease.
4) FAST MEDICINES
Remember the importance of developing the toolbox? One of the early uses of having cell lines and animal models for your rare disease is to be able to find a new drug the fastest way possible: by finding a new use for an old drug.
You will most likely hear early into your journey about drug repurposing. Drug repurposing refers to finding a new use (a new purpose) for an already existing medication, which enables doctors to use it to treat this new disease as well. In some cases there will be clinical trials to seek approval for using that drug in the new disease. In most cases there won’t be clinical trials, and doctors will simply prescribe it off label. In either case as a patient group one of the earliest questions that you should aim to answer is whether there is a drug already out there, sitting at the pharmacy shelf, that could potentially treat your disease. The best way to do this is by using cell lines expressing your disease protein or gene, or by using small animal models such as yeast, c. elegans or zebrafish (the choice depends on the particular rare disease), and use them to run a screen of approved drugs, looking for those able to restore protein function or address a particular disease phenotype. Running a repurposing screen to identify any potential drug that is already available should also very high in your priority list.
A 2.0 version of these efforts is to use those cell lines or animal models to evaluate drugs already in clinical development for related diseases. If you identify a drug with efficacy, the company that is developing it might be interested in expanding those clinical trials to include patients with your disease.
That’s why it is so important to consider all the drugs already developed (or near approval), because if you find a drug that is already approved or in clinical trials and that has efficacy in your disease you will be cutting down by many years, potentially a decade, the wait for new medicines.
5) ENGAGE PHARMA – EVEN AT THE PRECLINICAL STAGE
Last, I still recommend you to try to engage with the biotech and pharma industry as early as you can. Ask them about how they see your disease. Do they see it as similar to another disease? Perhaps similar to a large disease? Do they flag some immediate research gaps? This feedback will help you shape your research strategy as you build a relationship with the industry and learn to think about therapy development.
But these conversations are often not happening, or are not happening early enough. The reasons are multiple on both fronts:
What patient organizations often want when collaborating with companies before there are drugs in clinical trials
Most patient organizations are in touch with companies that have a drug in clinical trials for their disease. Patient organizations that approach companies before these companies have a drug so advanced are often interested in trying to convince the company to work on their disease. Because in most cases this will simply not happen, it is best if the patient groups can switch their focus to learning to understand how industry scientists think about diseases and get their input about their rare disease field. They can also be good door openers if they know people in other companies.
What companies often want when collaborating with patient organizations before there are drugs in clinical trials
At early stages, before they have a drug in development for that disease, industry scientists are interested in learning about a disease beyond what is already published in the medical literature. They want to know what the incidence of the disease is, if there are centers of excellence, and many of the questions I covered in the “when is your disease field ready to attract the interest of companies” article earlier in this Impatient Series.
What holds patient organizations back from collaborating with companies before there are drugs in clinical trials
Patient organizations sometimes refuse to engage with pharmaceutical companies because they believe it creates a (perceived) conflict of interest. They think it is better to remain on the academic science side, and not collaborate with companies. Academic scientists don’t think the same way that industry scientists, and don’t have the same incentives (publications vs drugs approved), so it is a mistake to believe that academic scientists can replace the work and input of industry specialists. My advice is to avoid perceived conflict of interest or biases by simply engaging with every single company in your disease field, without picking favorites, and to make sure they have as many information as they need (see previous section).
What holds drug development companies back from collaborating with patient organizations before there are drugs in clinical trials
People working at pharmaceutical companies usually express the same two fears that keep them away from engaging patient organizations early in the preclinical stage or even before they decide to start a program in a disease. One is disappointing patients. They think that by talking to a patient organization, patients and their families will think that this company will develop a drug for their disease, be successful and reach the market. Industry scientists know that most programs will not even reach clinical trials, so they are worried about disappointing patients. I find it interesting that when I have talked to patients about this they often tell me that talking to companies and knowing that companies are interested in their disease makes them feel more at peace, versus worrying that no one is doing research or developing a drug. Living with a rare disease is hard enough, patient don’t think there is going to be a perfect cure developed overnight, they rather express the need to know that efforts are ongoing and that they are not alone at trying to look for a medicine.
The second main fear that industry employees express is lack of confidentiality. I will want to address this in a future entry in the Impatient Series. It is important for patient organizations to remain professional, and not disclose confidential information when they have access to it. If they do, they will stop knowing about things before the news are public and they will not be able to influence important processes like clinical trial protocol design early enough to make an impact.
IN SUMMARY, WHAT I RECOMMEND BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE
- Own the field. Be a field expert, not just a patient expert.You will do this by knowing everybody, putting together the room where conversations happen and having developed (or made available) the research tools.
- Be professional about it.Get advice from professionals, get advice from the industry, and if you are willing to invest funds in research then get professionals onboard that help you manage that.
- Collaborate with everyone – or at least talk to everyone - if they are professional about it. Don´t marry a lab, don’t avoid companies to remain free of conflict of interest. Ask to be treated with respect, for example by getting some feedback or update after you have met with a company to provide feedback on some of their work.
Let’s start an #ImpatientRevolution!
Ana Mingorance, PhD