Patient Advocacy For People With Cancer - Takeda Oncology

At Takeda Oncology, we are committed to helping people living with cancer navigate their journey – from diagnosis through survivorship.

Every day, we are inspired, motivated and driven to do more to support people and their loved ones impacted by cancer. With a passion-driven, patient-first mindset, Oncology Patient Advocacy and Engagement (PA&E) works diligently to uncover and address the unique, unmet needs of people living with cancer. Our team works with and supports leading patient organizations to help raise awareness of cancer, educate and empower the community and affect change in policy to advance better health and better care.

In everything we do, we are guided by: Empowerment, Healthy Equity and Access

• Empowerment: We are dedicated to providing information to people living with cancer and their care partners, empowering them to make more informed care decisions and take a more active role in their treatment plan.

• Health Equity: We collaborate with external patient advocacy organizations to address barriers that prevent people from achieving optimal health outcomes.

• Access: We are committed to closely collaborating with our policy colleagues to protect and improve access to care options that patients need.

Two-way dialogue between patients and providers is crucial to optimal outcomes. Empowerment plays a critical role in helping patients and others in the oncology community achieve greater control over decisions and actions that impact their health. We aim to support patients’ understanding and participation in cancer care decisions to reflect their priorities and individual experience.

We have several initiatives in place to help support this goal:

• Takeda Oncology sponsors and funds programs created and led by patient organizations that will support advancement of education and empowerment and address the psycho-social needs of the oncology patient community.

• We believe an educated patient is an empowered patient and therefore focus on co-creating resources alongside subject matter experts, like patients, care partners and healthcare professionals on important topics such as shared decision making. We’ve had the opportunity to present on this topic when supporting programs such as the ALK+ Summit where the presentation focused on the importance of improving communication between patients, their care partners and healthcare providers to discover the best ways to empower patients to take an active role in their care.

A focus on health equity is critical to improve outcomes for underserved and underrepresented people with cancer and the ability for every person to achieve their full health potential. We are driven to do our part to advance health equity by increasing community capacity, eliciting patient perspectives and insights on health disparities, and addressing disparities related to cancer screening and late/misdiagnoses.

We collaborate with patient organizations on a number of initiatives to help combat health inequality, including:

• Improving Health Equity in Cancer: A Community Grant Program, which is a competitive grant program that awarded $650,000 to 18 community based organizations that help address the needs of medically underserved people with cancer through community-based initiatives. Eligibility for the awards required organizations to have programs that support one of three key areas - generating awareness of relevant and culturally appropriate health information, providing access to specialists and specialized treatments, and facilitating screening and diagnostic testing.

“By providing funding to programs that operate at a local level, we know our investment will facilitate action that has an immediate and direct impact on individual patients’ lives,” said Scott Campbell, Head of Oncology Patient Advocacy and Engagement at Takeda. “Countless local organizations are already combating health inequality in their communities, with tangible results that we are excited to contribute to.”

• Tigerlily Foundation’s Center of Support: Overcoming Barriers to Equitable Health initiative, a pilot program aiming to eradicate barriers focusing on communities with the highest disparities. The program will provide resources to educate these communities on how to overcome the most common barriers identified such as financial, geographical, psychological, educational, literacy, mistrust in healthcare providers, lifestyle and communication barriers.

People with cancer can only benefit from diagnostic tests and treatments if they have access to them. We strive to create an environment where all patients have access to a comprehensive diagnosis, as well as survivorship care and support resources and services. While new precision oncology treatment approaches bring promise and hope to patients and caregivers, advanced screening requirements and holistic care approaches may not be readily accessible to all patients due to economic and geographic barriers, among others.

Takeda Oncology both sponsors programs and partners with the patient advocacy community on interventions that promote building community capacity and that reach targeted communities.

• LUNGevity’s No One Missed Campaign is a global program that aims to ensure lung cancer patients have comprehensive biomarker testing and subsequently be placed on the proper therapy, which is critical for optimal health outcomes.

• The Synergist - From Testing to Targeted Treatment Program (FT3) is co-led by patients and is a multi-stakeholder collaboration that aims to unify, accelerate and build on existing efforts to make precision medicine a reality for all patients who could benefit from it by generating better evidence, creating awareness and building the conditions for better access, starting with testing and cancer, focusing heavily on patient needs and experiences.

• Takeda Oncology has partnered with CONQUER: The Patient Voice™ and CURE Media, among others, to publish several whitepapers that provide comprehensive disease education information for multiple myeloma, chronic myeloid leukemia and non-small cell lung cancer (patients and care partners). These whitepapers help people with cancer and their care partners understand the nuances of their disease at each step in their treatment journey.

Takeda Oncology is not endorsing these organizations and is not responsible for the content of these sites or services provided. The above is provided for informational purposes only.