This multinational healthcare company has a portfolio of highly effective pharmaceutical solutions spanning many disease areas and conditions. In particular, they’re recognised as a world leader in innovative cancer drugs. 

It was about one such drug — a tyrosine kinase inhibitor used in the treatment of a rare type of lung cancer — that the organisation sought merakoi’s support. 

Previous market research had revealed a potential drug dosing issue. This past research had flagged that treatment persistence might become an issue, due to patient frustrations about high frequency of dosage.

The organisation approached merakoi to validate these findings and uncover further insights to inform drug reformulation, to protect long-term patient compliance. 

Deeper insights drive decisions that are better for patients 

We believe market research must be driven by patients, not just collected from patients, to empower truly deep, accurate insights. Our patient experts are the heart of how we work. In this case, merakoi patient expert Andy McKay led the project. 

Andy brought both personal disease-specific experience — he’s a lung cancer patient using this drug — and professional experience in corporate technology leadership and change management, as well as within patient advocacy. He’s also trained in pharma regulatory standards, patient data privacy and pharmacovigilance.

With Andy working alongside a merakoi market research expert, we recruited 11 patients also using this drug, across multiple geographies and demographics. 

Andy conducted one-to-one interviews with each patient to generate a ‘day in the life’ patient journey that highlighted critical moments and pain points. He also moderated peer-to-peer virtual group sessions to explore and rank different dosing options and reveal unmet needs beyond dosing.

We collated these findings into a compelling report and presentation, including executive summary, key patient quotes, trends, patient priorities, main alternative reviews, statistical analysis, and main takeaways.

Stopping a major dosing misstep and illuminating a better path

merakoi’s patient market research revealed the potential dosing issue was not only an incorrect assumption — the current frequent dosing was viewed by patients as the drug’s major USP. Alternative once-daily drugs don’t offer the flexibility to adjust dosage and manage side-effects, which patients identified as critical. 

This insight prevented significant business risk. Had the organisation reformulated the drug with alternative dosing, they’d have risked dismantling their differentiation. More importantly, they’d have risked undermining their objective to keep patients using the drug longer, limiting the treatment’s potential to change and save lives. 

Instead, merakoi provided clear steps forward for formulation changes that would improve patient uptake, considering broader patient needs like difficulties swallowing. 

Our research also revealed further patient-led recommendations including packaging changes and unmet informational needs. These insights gave the organisation clear focus areas to improve the drug, encourage long-term treatment persistence and treatment confidence, and strengthen differentiation. And ultimately to enable this cutting-edge drug to do what it’s made for: change and save lives.