AbbVie's 'The Story of HS' wins at PMEA 2016

AbbVie picked up the prize for Excellence in Training Capability Development at the PMEA 2016 awards ceremony in London last week, seeing off competition from Novartis, Santen UK and Tillotts Pharma UK.

Supported by TVF Communications, AbbVie created 'The Story of HS: A Patient Journey' to provide educational information based on stakeholder needs.

The eLearning initiative encompasses life-before-illness, early disease signs and diagnosis through to medical consultation and the value of treatment with Humira (adalimumab).

The campaign joined the patient experience with the learning journey using video and interactive approaches and was shown to improve HS knowledge with healthcare professionals. The initiative has subsequently been requested for Humira's other indications.

PMEA's judges said: “'The Story of HS' took an innovative approach to training in a new therapy area.

“It was really refreshing to see the work incorporate research into the patient journey, bringing to life training in a disease area from the patient's perspective.

“With the addition of pre- and post-assessment, this was an excellent patient-centred approach to training compared to approaches normally taken.”

AbbVie also took home the award for Excellence in Physicians/Healthcare Provider Support Programmes for its 'PEER: Psoriasis Expert Exchange FoRum', created with support from Lucid.

The platform aimed to change clinical behaviour on a global scale to improve standards of care in the management of psoriatic arthritis, and has now reached over 4,000 physicians in 32 countries.

Commenting on the 'PEER' programme, the judges said it “stands out from the many support programmes already out there”.

They added: “AbbVie and Lucid really understood behaviour change and showed how this understanding could be applied for high impact.”

The PMEA programme, run by PMLiVE publisher PMGroup, is specifically designed to recognise and commend excellence in improving patient outcomes.