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Last week Nuvera had an exciting visitor: the Muse spent 2 days with us filming interviews with the Nuvera team!

We discussed how the company got started over 8 years ago, what we do to help our clients enhance patient experience and why this work is so important and rewarding to us. More importantly, the team shared what makes it so different to work at Nuvera – the lighthearted and supportive culture we created, fun things we do as a team outside work, and flexibility and higher rewards that come with working for Nuvera.

Stay tuned – we will let you know when the interview is published!

Farris Ibrahim, Nuvera Director, celebrated 8 years with the company this September. Congratulations, Farris, and looking forward to many more years together!

Farris helps bring patient experience solutions to life by leveraging insights from his 15 year journey through the evolving landscape of oncology support services. As a patient and consumer of patient support services programs, he is able to merge his unique insights with strategic operations consulting to provide Nuvera clients with the comprehensive skills needed in the specialty medicines market.

Farris’s depth of experience and background in pharmaceutical sales, marketing, experience design, and support program operations are a critical aspect of Nuvera’s concept to capabilities approach. For the past 6 years, Farris has been working with brand teams to help realize their patient service strategies and operations, while developing and implementing key tactics.

Farris enjoys food and wine, whether that is traveling to experience different places and cuisines or trying his hand at entertaining and cooking at home. He will soon be getting into exercise, because all that eating takes its toll.

Tired of the same old happy hour as a team-building activity? Ask the Nuvera Team to share some ideas for team-bonding and you will get an extensive list. We take our team building seriously – we are an experience design company, after all 🙂 We brainstorm, we vote and we think though all the details so that when we show up for an event – it’s all about fun!

For our latest Fall Adventure in September, we went kayaking down the Delaware river in Pennsylvania by the Delaware Water Gap. Dealing with a powerful natural element and trying to work in harmony with it is not an easy task but it is a great stress reliever, exercise and confidence booster. It turned out to bring the best out of people! Despite a couple of flip overs and a sunk iPhone, everybody left with huge smiles on their faces, a renewed sense of inner confidence and trust in others.

To honor Halloween and All Souls Day, the Team opted for a more chill and cozy activity – a Pumpkin Painting Contest! We discovered yet another hidden talent of the Nuverians – please judge for yourselves.

John joins Nuvera after completing his MBA from the Wharton School of Business with majors in Health Care Management, Marketing, and Business Analytics.  Prior to business school, John co-founded EpiMetrics, a health policy consulting firm in the Philippines. While there he acted as an advisor to various clients in local government and multilateral agencies. In addition to leading the growth of EpiMetrics, John was heavily involved in various projects, such as the creation of the Philippines’ first list of prioritized diseases to be covered by national health insurance, and the evaluation of a nationwide health leadership training program.

John originally hails from the Philippines where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences from the Ateneo de Manila University. In his spare time, John enjoys cooking Filipino food, traveling abroad, and watching the NBA.

“After deciding I wasn’t going to medical school, I realized that what initially led me on the path of being a doctor was still inside me: I still had the deep desire to spend my career helping to improve patients’ lives. It is with this sense of purpose that I joined Nuvera, a firm that works every day to help patients navigate and manage an increasingly complex health care system. Nuvera’s values align not just with my passion, but also with my personality. In getting to know the people at Nuvera, I saw the humor and humility that bring laughter and learning to complement a strong sense of mission.”

The CAR-TCR Summit was held in Boston, MA from September 4-7, 2018.  Nuvera was proud to be both a sponsor and presenter at this year’s conference. Additionally, we had the opportunity to meet Emily Whitehead – the first child in the world to have her immune cells trained to fight cancer. Today, she is five years cancer-free. It is exciting to be an active participant in helping to bring this new technology to patients – science that will change peoples’ lives.

Greg Christianson, Principal at Nuvera, gave a talk focused on ‘Breaking the Traditional Clinical to Commercial Mindset – Understanding the implications of your clinical CAR-TCR-T trial experience on commercial uptake.’ The essence of the presentation centered around the opportunity CAR/TCR-T clinical trials provide to establish foundational elements required for a future commercial experience. This becomes especially important as the therapy’s ease of use and seamless experience, beyond clinical/safety performance, will be a critical differentiator, particularly:

• How easy is it to order and understand the status of the product
• How well are treatment sites educated and supported
• What systems are being leveraged to seamlessly coordinate sites

With an extensive number of stakeholders involved in CAR-T therapy and a significant number of different activities to coordinate, there is a high risk for a disjoint treatment experience. Greg highlighted three critical efforts all CAR/TCR-T teams should be focused on initially:

1. Developing a holistic view of the end-to-end treatment experience (both clinical and commercial)
2. Crystalizing a purposeful treatment experience and enabling principles
3. Identifying and preparing for underlying system requirements

Based on a number of conversations with conference attendees the need for a different approach to customer experience management was well received.

Overall, the conference focused on three main themes:

• Commercialization
• Transport, Logistics & Supply Chain
• Discovery / Translation

 

There was significant acknowledgement around the complexity of operations. So, in addition to focusing on typical clinical trial execution, it is critical to focus pre-approval resources on shortening the manufacturing timeline and ensuring proper management of the broad ecosystem.

It has been 6 years from proof of concept to commercialization but we are just at the foothills of where we are going with so many questions and so many opportunities. As this technology continues to advance, Nuvera is excited to work with Pharma/Biotech companies to ensure the patient / HCP experience is exceptional.

About Nuvera:

Nuvera dedicates itself to helping specialty pharmaceutical, biotech and rare disease companies to design and deliver a seamless patient and HCP experience for specialty therapies. Over the last 8 years, Nuvera has helped over 15 pharmaceutical companies to create and implement leading Patient-Centric solutions across 24 specialty therapeutic areas that received over 10 U.S. and Global excellence awards.

Nuvera services include the following:
• Uncover and crystalize patient and healthcare provider (HCP) needs
• Design impactful patient/HCP support experiences
• Build patient support programs and capabilities
• Optimize program performance

To learn more, please visit www.nuveracg.com

Nuvera will share how to leverage experience gained during the clinical trials phase of CAR-TCR therapies to enhance commercialization success at the 4th Annual CAR TCR Summit, Sept 4-7, 2018.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180828005097/en/Nuvera-Share-Key-Considerations-Commercializing-CAR-TCR-Therapies

 

As an industry leader in cutting edge patient support solutions, Nuvera Life Science was honored to receive an invitation to speak at the 2018 Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit. Especially rare was the opportunity to partner and co-present with our client Insmed and Asembia to deliver a case study on “The Approach & Technology to Design a Rare Disease Patient Experience.” The case study unveils an end-to-end solution for designing and implementing a meaningful patient experience and highlights the collaboration that took place among a strategy consulting company, a manufacturer and a HUB services provider.

Overall, there was a high level of engagement and reactions were positive to see the amount of effort this manufacturer put into thoughtful design and the tools utilized to align an organization and bring it all to life. From initial strategy design work, through partner selection and implementation we covered the manufacturer journey and goals to achieve their vision of delivering an outstanding patient experience.

Key questions posed by the participants were:

• What key learnings did the manufacturer have?
  • Have a “true north” that aligns the organization across stakeholders and acts as a constant point of reference
  • Capture the patient voice to humanize an operational process
  • Be firm in your goal, but flexible in the design and iterate to meet patient needs
• Is the approach utilized applicable outside of rare disease and launch brands?
  • The short answer – Yes, the approach has been successful across a spectrum of brand types and patient needs across the lifecycle from mass market launches to in-market optimization efforts

Nuvera is excited to continue taking concepts in patient experience and transforming them into organizational capabilities.
Feel free to reach out if you are interested in learning more about the impactful and educational time we had at this year’s Asembia Summit.

About Nuvera:

Nuvera dedicates itself to helping specialty pharmaceutical, biotech and rare disease companies to design and deliver a seamless patient and HCP experience for specialty therapies. Over the last 8 years, Nuvera has helped over 15 pharmaceutical companies to create and implement leading Patient-Centric solutions across 24 specialty therapeutic areas that received over 10 U.S. and Global excellence awards.

Nuvera services include the following:
• Uncover and crystalize patient and healthcare provider (HCP) needs
• Design impactful patient/HCP support experiences
• Build patient support programs and capabilities
• Optimize program performance

To learn more, please visit www.nuveracg.com

CBI hosted their 10th Hub and SPP Model Optimization Conference on February 27-28 in historic Philadelphia, PA. Nuvera was proud to be both a sponsor and presenter at this year’s conference, but what was unique was the opportunity we had to share the stage and co-present with one of our clients, Insmed, a case study titled “Patient Experience in Rare Disease: From Concept to Capability.” The presentation highlighted:

• The importance of understanding the greatest needs of both the patient and HCP and where the manufacturer can make the greatest impact throughout the treatment journey; ensuring the support and services provided are aligned with addressing key challenges
• How engaging in “co-creation” with patients and HCPs can improve the manufacturers understanding of their customers and ensure support program goals are met
• Significance of a thorough planning process on making the proper investment decisions for improved patient access

It was an honor to be able to share the stage with one of our valued clients and recount the best practices and outcome of one of our recent engagements.

Along with our presentation CBI focused their agenda on breakthrough strategies for service model design and enhancement to improve access and outcomes. Some sessions we found to be most impactful included:

• Legal and Regulatory Environment – Compliance with applicable laws is important to patient service design, while understanding ‘intent of the services’ is a driving factor for enforcement. A panel of industry experts from the US Attorney’s Office and AbbVie provided perspective to the attendees on how to remain amenable to these laws, including, but not limited to:
  • Ensuring appropriate consents are obtained for both the patient and their caregiver
  • Transparency of all program elements and ease of opt-out (initially and once enrolled)
  • Enabling monitoring of programs in order to identify outliers and ensure consistency with SOPs and call guides
• Specialty Pharmacy Trends – Information presented focused in two key areas:
  • Picking an SPP Committed to Accreditation: There are a number of accrediting agencies that have been created to assess SPP capabilities. The importance of selecting SPP partners that are committed to meeting the accreditation standards was highlighted when designing and managing SPP networks.
  • Adapting Co-Pay Support as Payers Evolve: There is a growing trend around ‘co-pay card accumulators or coupon adjustments’ that is having an impact on patient out-of-pocket and manufacturer costs. This is an important area to continue to monitor to understand the financial implications for manufacturers and affordability and adherence for patients – especially those in high-deductible plans
• Leveraging Emerging Technology in Patient Services – Technology advancements are being implemented to help improve the efficiency and quality of service delivery. Electronic prescribing and electronic Prior Authorization (ePA) have made strong advancements in recent years. However, areas such as electronic benefits verification (eBV) and connection with EMR systems continue to lag due to the complex and heterogeneous US healthcare system. As patients continue to face increasing levels of complexly in obtaining their care and coverage speed to product access becomes that much more paramount. Additionally, providers are undertaking more risk-based reimbursement and, therefore, want to ensure they have the right systems in place to ensure accurate payment. Identifying and implementing appropriate technology-based solutions to speed the process, increase accuracy and boost quality is the goal of manufacturers, their Hubs, SPPs, Providers, and Payers.

CBI’s 10th Hub and SPP Model Optimization Conference provided a forum for over 200 industry stakeholders to share and exchange ideas on ways to continuously improve the patient experience.

About Nuvera:

Nuvera dedicates itself to helping specialty pharmaceutical, biotech and rare disease companies to design and deliver a seamless patient and HCP experience for specialty therapies. Over the last 8 years, Nuvera has helped over 15 pharmaceutical companies to create and implement leading Patient-Centric solutions across 24 specialty therapeutic areas that received over 10 U.S. and Global excellence awards.

Nuvera services include the following:
• Uncover and crystalize patient and healthcare provider (HCP) needs
• Design impactful patient/HCP support experiences
• Build patient support programs and capabilities
• Optimize program performance

To learn more, please visit www.nuveracg.com

Nuvera was proud to support and co-present with our client Insmed at CBI’s 10th HUB and SPP Model Optimization Conference (Feb 27-28, 2018, Philadelphia). 

Rahul Bhatia, Senior Director, Commercial Strategy and Operations, Insmed, and Farris Ibrahim, Director, Nuvera Life Sciences, presented a case study “Patient Experience for a Respiratory Drug in Rare Disease — From Strategy to Operations.” The presentation talked about the tools and techniques utilized to build a great patient experience, overcome common pitfalls and identify critical success factors. If you missed this presentation, please contact us and we will be happy to walk you through. 

We will be posting the conference highlights shortly, stay tuned!