Excellence in Customer Focus – Physician/Payers

Summary of work

Mozobil is a drug used to facilitate bone marrow transplantation in the place of more toxic and less effective alternatives. Since launch Scottish and Welsh funding has been available through the relevant HTA processes, but as a niche product a NICE review was not forthcoming. This resulted in fragmented funding and indication coverage compounded by significant variation in transplant standards across England.

Using the NHS reforms as an opportunity to facilitate change, Sanofi developed a number of initiatives to engaged senior payers and transplant specialists to establish national standards for transplant and Mozobil use with funding to support them. These provided significant benefits to NHS England:

1. Improved resource utilisation and streamlining of services. This also matched with the longer term vision for the NHS England to reduce the number of transplant centres. To do this increasing centre capacity is critical.
2. Patients benefiting from optimised treatment, improved outcomes and overall experience.

A more favourable than anticipated Mozobil intervention standard was agreed by the clinical community and payers and is currently going through final ratification by NHS England. Many centres have moved to the new standards early with NHS England accepting Mozobil use into base-line funding - to date Mozobil usage is growing significantly above expectation.

Judges comments

This team had very clear insights into the challenges associated with this enormous public health issue. They understood their niche and knew they needed to get the drug in a very responsible way to the patients who needed it. We liked the strong evidence base, their contemporary and collaborative approach, which was a true partnership with the NHS. They changed attitudes and released the untapped potential in treatment, leading to early signs of strong health benefits.