Patient Advocacy For People With Cancer - Takeda Oncology

Caring for people living with cancer is complex and is an ever-changing landscape. At Takeda Oncology, we are committed to helping people living with cancer navigate through – from diagnosis to 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 and regulatory advocacy to advance better health and better care.

We are guided by three pillars: Empowerment, Health Equity and Access.

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.

• Project Unified Decisions, a collaborative, Takeda-led, shared decision-making program, is aimed at 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.** **Leveraging understanding and insights into the decision-making process, a steering committee is guiding decisions and areas of focus to help ensure that shared decision-making is adopted into practice.

• Our dedicated Patient Advocacy Liaisons (PALs) deliver education to patient support groups to provide them with disease information – with a focus on patient empowerment. This disease education provides a foundation that enables patients to take a more active role in their care and care decisions. PALs provide educational resources to patients on key topics of interest, such as understanding lab values and optimizing wellness as a cancer survivor. PALs gather key insights from patients to gain a better understanding of the needs within the multiple myeloma community to help inform ongoing support.

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:

• LUNGevity’s Health Equity Council, which is committed to ensuring that all people diagnosed with lung cancer have the same opportunities for best-case outcomes and access to trusted resources irrespective of their geographic location, socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, age or marginalization in society. Leaders from a variety of fields convene annually to discuss strategies to address health literacy, lung cancer screening, biomarker testing and inclusion in clinical trials.

• International Myeloma Foundation’s African American Initiative, which is committed to overcoming disparities in the African American myeloma population and involves activities in the areas of support, education, advocacy and research.

• Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Myeloma Link, an education and outreach program that directly connects Black patients and caregivers to trusted, free myeloma information and support and enhances access to care and the latest treatments.

Takeda Oncology is not affiliated with these organizations. By listing these resources, Takeda Oncology is not endorsing any particular service or group and we are not responsible for the content of these sites or services. They are provided here for informational purposes.

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.

• The Takeda Oncology-sponsored Cancer Advocacy & Patient Education (CAPE) initiative by the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigators offers an online library of best-practice information and modules that lung cancer providers can share with patients and caregivers. The program includes modules based on the domains that represent the most prominent areas of concern for people with lung cancer, including understanding their diagnosis, treatment and clinical trials.

• Takeda Oncology has also partnered with CONQUER: The Patient Voice™ 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.