Finalist
Medicine Gets Personal
Summary of work
Despite the development of personalised medicines (PMs) in the treatment of bowel cancer, uptake continues to be slow and understanding among politicians and the wider public remains poor. Merck Serono (MS) markets Erbitux, a personalised medicine (PM) that is used to treat patients with advanced bowel cancer identified using a predictive biomarker test, KRAS. Despite, providing free KRAS biomarker testing to all patients on diagnosis of bowel cancer across the UK, uptake had been poor and patchy. Our challenge was to develop a campaign to complement a political engagement programme and put PM - with a focus on bowel cancer and KRAS testing - firmly in the media spotlight. The ultimate aim was to drive a call to action for greater awareness, understanding and uptake of biomarker tests to improve patient access to PMs.
Judges’ comments
What this team achieved was shockingly good and their approach was admirable. For the marker test to be offered to people, whether or not they ended up being treated with Erbitux, is laudable and to be encouraged. A 21 per cent increase in the uptake of the test, within six months, is an impressive outcome. Even the journalists were impressed, as evidenced by such a strong testimonial from The Times.
